Analysis of The Great Migration: One family's journey (For my niece Adrianna)
Summerton, South Carolina 1861
He is born half-Black half-White: free in a time of pain and chains
Yet grows to be a man of power and influence who owns the land that birthed him
It is 1910. His daughter is born into a life of privilege, yet has before her a life of limits.
She quietly and secretly is sent away to give birth to a son in the world of 1930.
Her son is sent to fight in a police action; a Purple Heart is among his medals
He comes back to his own country
Tries to get a sandwich at a diner near Ft. Jackson..
And is turned away
He is northern-bound in the year of 1953.
Detroit, Michigan 1961
He meets and marries a beautiful local girl. Their children have never seen a Southern sun
Or felt its heat on their backs
By the time they "go south"
They are grown and finally
See the places they've heard about. Or read of in history books...
Canton, Michigan 2005
His daughter has a little girl who laughs and plays
She loves kindergarten and her friends. She loves to ask her
parents about the Olden days- the nineteen seventies.
Maybe one day she'll take a trip to Summerton.
I hope she holds my hand as she walks the back roads,
Feels the dust on her feet.
Looks over the land and sees the past that is tied to her future.
Maybe one day she will go
To a place she does not yet know
Exists.
It is her home, after all
Summerton patiently waits for her.
The journey continues.
| Scheme | A XX XB XCDXB D DXXCX D XEX AXXE FFX XEX |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 11010 111111110011101 11110111001001101111 111101101011101101001110 1100010011011111010011 0111110001100101101110 11111110 11101010101110 01101 111010011 01100 11010010010111011010101 1111111 101111 1110100 1010110111101001 10100 110101011101 1110000111110 10010101011100 1011110111 111111111011 101101 1100101011111010 1011111 10111111 01 1101101 1100110 010010 |
| Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
| Characters | 1,609 |
| Words | 297 |
| Sentences | 18 |
| Stanzas | 11 |
| Stanza Lengths | 1, 2, 2, 5, 1, 5, 1, 3, 4, 3, 3 |
| Lines Amount | 30 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
| Words per line (avg) | 9 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 98 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
About this poem
I wrote this poem for my niece Adrianna, who is now almost 23 years old. I enjoy family history and wanted to share a bit about our family and the Great Migration.
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Written on May 03, 2005
Submitted by Ceci2you on December 28, 2021
Modified on April 03, 2023
- 1:30 min read
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"The Great Migration: One family's journey (For my niece Adrianna)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/116683/the-great-migration%3A-one-family%27s-journey-%28for-my-niece-adrianna%29>.
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