Analysis of Istabane

Asive Ngqaza 1994 (Eastern Cape)



I walk pass hungry men
who then insult me by
calling me nameless names

I hated myself when I was 7
I was 9 when I wanted to die
tied a rope around my neck
twisting heart beat pounding
eyes bulging out of my skull
I swear I heard Angels sing
I convinced myself I had done it

13 on my third fail I cut my wrist in half
cover my walls in blood to remind
myself that everything beautiful
should suffer through the words of men

I now choose a designated path
at night where restless drivers
seem not to care of life more
than they seek revenge with
staples in their mouth

by this time I had hoped
they’ll send me to the closest morgue.


Scheme ABX XBXCDCX XXDA XXXXX XX
Poetic Form
Metre 111101 110111 101101 1101111 11111011 1010111 101110 1101111 1111101 10111111 1111111101 101101101 1110100 11010111 11101001 1111010 1111111 111011 10011 111111 11110101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 685
Words 146
Sentences 2
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 3, 7, 4, 5, 2
Lines Amount 21
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 100
Words per stanza (avg) 25

About this poem

Istabane means gay is Xhosa. This poem reflects on me growing up in a village and being called names just because I was different.

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Written on June 19, 2022

Submitted by aevisasivengqaza on July 16, 2022

Modified on March 05, 2023

43 sec read
3

Asive Ngqaza

I am a poet. Leo ♌️ 27 of age. more…

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