Analysis of South: The Name of Home
Alice Walker 1944 (Eatonton)
i
all that night
I prayed for eyes to see again
whose last sight
had been
a broken bottle
held negligently
in a racist
fist
God give us trees to plant
and hands and eyes to
love them.
ii
When I am here again
the years of ease between
fall away
The smell of one
magnolia
sends my heart running
through the swamps.
iii
the earth is red
here—
the trees bent, weeping
what secrets will not
the ravished land
reveal
of its abuse?
iv
an old mistress
of my mother’s
gives me
bloomers for christmas
ten sizes
too big
her intentions are
good my father
says
but typical—
neither the color
she knows
nor the
number.
Scheme | ABCBXDEFFXXX ACXXXGHX AXXHXXXX XIXEIXXXJXDJXGJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 111 11111101 111 11 01010 11000 0010 1 111111 01011 11 1 111101 011101 101 0111 010 11110 101 1 0111 1 01110 11011 011 01 1101 1 1110 1110 11 10110 110 11 00101 1110 1 1100 10010 11 10 10 |
Closest metre | Iambic dimeter |
Characters | 613 |
Words | 117 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 8, 8, 15 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 11 |
Words per line (avg) | 3 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 120 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
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