Analysis of Seventh Street
Jean Toomer 1894 (Washington, D.C.) – 1967 (Doylestown)
Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.
Seventh Street is a bastrad of Prohibition and the War. A crude-boned, soft-skinned wedge of nigger life breathing its loafer air, jazz songs and love, thrusting unconscious rhythms, black reddish blood into the white and whitewashed wood of Washington. Stale soggy wood of Washington. Wedges rust in soggy wood. . . Split it! In two! Again! Shred it! . . the sun. Wedges are brilliant in the sun; ribbons of wet wood dry and blow away. Black reddish blood. Pouring for crude-boned soft-skinned life, who set you flowing? Blood suckers of the War would spin in a frenzy of dizziness if they drank your blood. Prohibition would put a stop to it. Who set you flowing? White and whitewash disappear in blood. Who set you flowing? Flowing down the smooth asphalt of Seventh Street, in shanties, brick office buildings, theaters, drug stores, restaurants, and cabarets? Eddying on the corners? Swirling like a blood-red smoke up where the buzzards fly in heaven? God would not dare to suck black red blood. A Nigger God! He would duck his head in shame and call for the Judgement Day. Who set you flowing?
Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.
Scheme | AABB x AABB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101010101 100101 011010 101010111 10110110100010111111101101101110110101011010101011110011011100101010111010111011011000110111101011101101111111111011010111001011001111101011011111110101010111110101011110101011010100111000111010101011111010101011111111101011111101011010111110 101010101 100101 011010 101010111 |
Characters | 1,463 |
Words | 226 |
Sentences | 31 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 1, 4 |
Lines Amount | 9 |
Letters per line (avg) | 122 |
Words per line (avg) | 25 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 367 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 76 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 13, 2023
- 1:07 min read
- 345 Views
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"Seventh Street" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/21319/seventh-street>.
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