In
our class discussion of Margaret Walker’s 1937 poem “For My People” we focused
almost exclusively on the poem’s final stanza, in which the speaker opens the
poem up with a collective address and focuses on unifying the commands and wishes of
a people (in this case, Black Americans).
This stanza, heavily utilizing both anaphora and the subjunctive mood,
has a prayer-like quality and reverence about it; it is intent upon an uprising. Though this stanza presents a strong and
moving turn within the poem, I would like to focus a little on the narrative
and poetic techniques Walker employs in the poem’s previous stanzas, because,
on the level of craft, I feel like it is easy to gloss over some of the finer
points within this poem.
Specifically, I would like to call attention to the ways in which Walker
employs the line as a meaningful and expressive unit.
After
reading “For My People” through subsequent times, I was struck by Walker’s
ability to play upon our expectations within the line. There is a long tradition stemming back
to Greek and Latin poetry (particularly, though not exclusively, in languages
in which sentence structure is not rigid) of emphasizing key words and ideas by
setting them at either the beginning or end of a line. Though this seems a concept almost too
simple to be worthy of pointing out, readers of poetry may recognize that the
importance of line initial and line final position has not faded over time; if
anything, given the inclination of many modern and contemporary poets to employ
enjambment, it is of even more consequence. It is rare to see much quality poetry rife with lines ending
with an article or a conjunction.
Walker, though, does this throughout “For My People.” In considering why she might have
chosen to write her poem this way – I could not assume this was for want of
poetic intuition, knowledge or craft, because I believe Walker’s poem
demonstrates a mastery of these – I looked to the first words on the following
lines: “unknown god,” “unseen power,” “gone years,” “memory,” “land,” and
“false prophet” are just some examples of the sweeping, existential dilemmas
being grappled with. Walker’s
enjambment of lines at their point of greatest weakness (“an,” “by,” “and,”
etc.) emphasizes the powerful conditions that follow.
Given
the poem’s final call for a righteous rebellion and strength and healing and
love, I believe Margaret Walker used the line throughout the poem as a unit,
which emphasized present weakness and coming strength. Though many of the words and phrases
following these awkward breaks are grim, they are strong. The “gone years,” “memory,” and “false
prophet” are acknowledged bravely at the beginning of the next line. This tension builds throughout the
poem, highlighting the ways in which the poem’s hopeful conclusion must be
struggled for before it can be won.
Maggie,
ReplyDeleteSomehow my response to your post got lost in the shuffle. Here it is albeit late:
I gain so much literary pleasure from your understanding of how Walker employs the line in “For My People.” Your reading makes me think of the ways her lines are crafted in order to create a universe of meaning in a single element of the larger poem. I must admit that I find this poem to be such an effective call to action through its reliance upon multiple forms of or allusions to tradition. Your reading attends to one of those and that is how Walker is using the Greek notion of poetry as oral performance in her use of strophe to indicate poetic turns and to foreground the voice, singing, speaking, working. Your reading of her use of enjambment is particularly instructive for having us turn to the patterns of the poem's form in order to understand the way that it argues for a particular militancy, even if that militancy may not be one that is recognizable in any typical way.