Poetry Blog #7

Inoculation

This was a very interesting historical poem. It talks about real people such as Cotton Mather and his slave Onesimus. This poem was written during the time period of the small pox scare. During this time they were experimenting with new ways to cure those who had become infected. They would actually inject some of the virus into those who had been infected to hope that it would boost the body’s immunity to the disease. Injecting some of the disease would also reduce the severity of the infection. Many people were afraid to try this new method because they didn’t know if it worked or no, so Donnelly wrote a poem about this controversial time.

There is also a little irony in the last two lines of this poem. It says, "She scratched my skin and I got sick, but lived to come here, free of smallpox, as your slave." His slave had small pox, but survived, but he had to come work for Cotton Mather. Onesimus is free of the small pox, but is not a free slave. I found that last line very amusing and thought it made the poem.