Analysis of WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?
yonel pierre 1959 (Petion-Ville)
WHAT WOULD YOU
HAVE DONE?
Just because you refused to call me “Sir”
From behind,
Would you have jumped in front of me
On a running train and demand that I stop
And pay the fare before taking my sit
In the next car?
Would you have slammed shut the door with your foot
And embarrass me in front of total strangers,
Just because you refused to call me “Sir”
From behind?
Would you have threatened me with a stern look
As if I were a dangerous criminal,
As you blocked the doorway with your huge body
In a crisp light and dark blue uniform and
Pristine military-like headpiece
That reminded me
Of the old Haitian paramilitary force
And would not move until
You saw my badge and my monthly pass,
Just because you refused to call me “Sir”
From behind?
Would you have followed me,
As I walked between cars
To go to the next one to sit down,
Had I looked white
From behind?
Would you not have shouted:
“Excuse me Sir!”
If you noticed that
I was wearing a white shirt and a necktie
From behind?
Had you have a gun in your hand,
Would you have shot me dead,
Thinking that I was just another black man,
When you could not identify me clearly
From behind?
Would you have called me a few racist names,
If you did not discover that
I was an officer of the law
And that other commuters witnessed the incident,
After you profiled me
From behind?
What if I didn’t have a seating ticket?
What if I didn’t have a badge?
What if…?
What would you have done?
Yonel Pierre – 10/23/2014
Scheme | xa BCdxxx xeBC xxdxedxxxBC dxxxC xbfxC xxxdC xfxxdC xxxa x |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111 11 1011011111 101 11110111 10101001111 0101011011 0011 1111101111 001010111010 1011011111 101 1111011011 11100100100 1110111110 0011011100 1010011 10101 1011001001 011101 111101101 1011011111 101 111101 111011 111011111 1111 101 111110 0111 11101 1110011001 101 11101011 111111 10111101011 1111010110 101 1111101101 11110101 111100101 0110010100100 10111 101 1111101010 1111101 11 11111 101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,505 |
Words | 319 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 6, 4, 11, 5, 5, 5, 6, 4, 1 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 114 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
About this poem
Personal experience
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Written on October 23, 2014
Submitted by pierreroni on January 20, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:35 min read
- 8 Views
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"WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/118123/what-would-you-have-done%3F>.
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