A plain gray jar sits on a hill in Tennessee, and everything around it seems to reorganize. The speaker describes the “slovenly wilderness” as if it notices the jar: the wild land rises toward it and sprawls around it, no longer looking quite so wild. The jar, simply by being there, brings a kind of human order to the scene. It “took dominion everywhere.” But there is something cold about that power. The jar is bare and gray; it doesn’t offer leaves, birds, or anything alive. It is completely unlike the natural world it appears to control. The mood is quiet and a little strange—almost philosophical. The speaker sounds calm and detached, watching how one small manufactured object can alter a whole landscape while remaining empty, silent, and lifeless in the middle of it.
Anecdote of the Jar — Summary
I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.