The use of a child’s voice in “What is — ‘Paradise’ ” is absolutely crucial to its overall meaning. Were an adult to ask so many questions about life, the universe, and everything, it might come across as needy and irritating. The same might be said of a small child asking such questions, but at least it’s the kind of thing one would expect from one so young. Children are an inexhaustible font of questions, and it’s inevitable that many of them will relate to what is ultimate in life.

In any case, the child speaker is trying to make sense of her world, as all of us try to do at some point in our lives. Feeling pretty lonesome and out of place in Amherst, she is ever more anxious that Paradise really will be all it’s cracked up to be. She also wants to make sure that the folks who’ve gone to heaven will know that she’s coming when the time finally arrives.

As we can see, the speaker lacks certainty, which she hopes that her interlocutor can provide. The addressee of the poem seems to be sure that there’s a “Father” in the sky, obviously a reference to God. But the speaker’s really not so sure, hence the question that she asks. She’s looking for reassurance about the next world in the hope that it will be a considerable improvement on this one.

Despite the speaker’s apparent skepticism about the nature of Paradise or the existence of God, the poem is written in a common hymn form, four-line stanzas alternating trimeter and tetrameter. This is entirely appropriate, as the poem itself is almost a hymn itself, albeit addressed to an earthly interlocutor rather than the almighty. The speaker is hoping—almost praying—that Paradise really will be all it’s cracked up to be.