WHEREAS

The reader understands that the setting for this poem is a gathering—a “get-together” (Line 14)—before the event is identified as such. At the onset of the poem, a man “leans back into a swig of beer” (Line 1) with “work-weary lips” (Line 1), and “enters the discussion” (Line 2). The scene is easily interpreted as an after-work event for teachers, or for the otherwise “scholarly” (Line 4).

The intended purpose of the get-together is not likely to be discord, but communion. A pleasant outdoor setting, a few beers, and congenial conversation is conducive to a social gathering of peers. There is a tacit agreement that the conversation will be just as congenial. The discussion, then, of the “Apology” (Line 3) becomes a kind of test. To be a member of this group is to agree with the status quo, which, in the guise of the “string-bean blue-eyed man” (Line 1), is to accept the least that is offered by way of apology.

In “WHEREAS,” the circle, “each of them scholarly” (Line 4), tightens around the speaker until she is compelled to leave it. Rather than a symbol of intimacy, the circle in the poem creates a sphere of influence.