All Bread Is Made Of Wood

[Notes: We had to write an essay on this poem in my sophomore English class. At first, I thought since it was April 1st, our teacher was playing a joke on us in making us write this, but she really did make us write it. But then later she told us it actually was a prank and that she gave anyone with five paragraphs an A. In any case, I thought it was a joke from the start, so I wrote this.]


All bread is made of wood,
Cow dung, packed brown moss,
The bodies of dead animals, the teeth
And backbones, what is left
After the ravens. This dirt
Flows through the stems into the grain,
Into the arm, nine strokes
Of the axe, skin from a tree,
Good water which is the first gift, four hours.

Live burial under a moist cloth,
A silver dish, a row
Of white famine bellies
Swollen and taut in the oven,
Lungfuls of warm breath stopped
In the heat from an old sun.

Good bread has the salt taste
Of your hands after nine
Strokes of the axe, the salt
Taste of your mouth, it smells
Of its own small death, of the deaths
Before and after.

Lift these ashes into your mouth, your blood;
To know what you devour is to consecrate it,
Almost. All bread must be broken
So it can be shared. Together
We eat this earth.

-By Margaret Atwood

Depending on which way you look at it, God is everywhere and everything; or, everything everywhere is God.

And if you’re Christian, Jesus is God, too.

You probably know the story. Margaret Atwood certainly does, and proves it in her poem “All Bread.” At first glance, this piece seems like the work of a sentimental baker, but in truth, it’s a reflection on religion and belief, and their real, tangible place in the world.

So, you probably know about Jesus, and how he broke the bread, gave it to his disciples and said, “This is my body, which will be given up for you.”

“All bread is made of wood,
Cow dung, packed brown moss,
The bodies of dead animals, the teeth
And backbones, what is left
After the ravens.”

All that—God, no? All of those things are God, or, if you prefer, God is all those things.

Much like the story that it represents, bread suffers the death of one for the life of another—yeast for man.
So you could say that yeast is like Jesus—which would be a valid statement anyway, because, as we have said, Jesus is God, and God is everything/everything is God, including yeast.

Therefore, by process of syllogism, bread is salvation—and good salvation “ has the salt taste // of your hands after nine // strokes of the axe, the salt // taste of your mouth, it smells // of its own small death, of the deaths // before and after.” Deaths, like the deaths of animals that fertilized the soil, the death of the grain to make the flour, the death of the yeast—All God and All bread; all of the sake of a hungry little boy.

You “lift these ashes // into your mouth, your blood” and you are saved, in more ways than one. “All bread must be broken // so it can be shared.” All things must be broken so they can be shared as bread. “Together // We eat this earth.” Together we eat this bread.