Inoculation

Inoculation
-Susan Donnelly 

Cotton Mather studied small pox for a while,
instead of sin. Boston was rife with it.
Not being ill himself, thank Providence,
but one day asking his slave, Onesimus,
if he'd ever had the pox. To which Onesimus replied,
"Yes and No." Not insubordinate
or anything of the kind, but playful, or perhaps
musing, as one saying to another:


"Consider how a man
can take inside all manner of disease
and still survive."


Then, graciously, when Mather asked again:


My mother bore me in the southern wild.
She scratched my skin and I got sick, but lived
to come here, free of smallpox, as your slave.




I chose to reflect on this poem because I will be presenting it on Wednesday, and poems always make more sense to me when I blog about them. It took me multiple readings before I even began to understand this poem. The structure confused me along with the syntax. This was the only way I was able to make sense of Donnelly's poem-

Knowing that Cotton Mather was a puritanical minister in the mid 1600s and 1700s, the first sentence involving sin makes sense. "Thank Providence" was another line that got me. I figured it was somewhat like the expression, "Thank God." Boston was full of the pox, but Providence was not, hence Mather not getting the illness. I love the way the poet describes how Onesimus' answer was meant to be heard. But I am not sure who says the second stanza. It would make sense if it was Onesimus, but the poet does not say.

Mather's question does not have a clear answer; however, when we think about what Onesimus actually says, it begins to make sense. He was born in the "southern wild" and he grew up with different illnesses all around him compared to the upbringing of Mather. Mather most likely grew up in luxury with doctors with herbal remedies and sicknesses being scarce. Onesimus "[took] inside all manner of disease and still survive[d]." He was in contact with illnesses as a young child and grew immune to most of them. So Onesimus possibly could not get smallpox once with Mather because he had already been exposed to it.

Something that stands out to me in this poem is the attitudes of the men towards each other. Onesimus does not come right out and answer Mather's question. Wouldn't most slaves at the time be afraid of their masters and just say, "I cannot get smallpox?" Also, when Onesimus does not give Mather a clear answer at first, Mather does not get upset. He "graciously" just asks again. What does that say about the two men's characters? Does it say anything about the time period? Or am I just turning a drop of water into an ocean?