Analysis of Reparations
A man's first right is to his own country:
That place by choice that was his father's hope
Before. His breathing make its history,
Its death is his shackles, his dream its scope.
This was the first discord jarring nature
When your hulls scraped the rock, unearthed us
And moved us backwards to the dark future.
Reparations demand you pay with trust
That Atlantic drank millions, you count
Them out forgotten still, but the land seared
By their absence brings sand from its green fount.
So many drums like rain have disappeared,
So many mothers and fathers died here
Crying, children withered to the dead roots
That have no fruit, no beginning to bear.
Reparations rage that we are mutes.
Here is the account, the sum of the cost:
When your industry was young awaken
Like a bear made hungry by the white frost -
The value of ships underwritten
By the idea of men as the first edge;
Before gold, or liquid currency rose
As security, the insurance pledge
For commerce was us; God your credit froze.
That lie was the foundation of commerce
And all traffic, we were commodity
Too, from ship's hull to cotton thrift and hearse;
From sugar blues to dead, stark poverty;
Out of us your fable babel rose. Ours
Then what was built by sweat and tears and blood
Our genius gave the marbled towers
Our culture now, the condemned trampled mud!
Close this account, and pay in full for trust
To mend the broken bonds that made us less
Than legal men. Reparations is just
As God himself, and seek yet no excess
But that from taxes in the west we're freed
And all our economies too forgiven
All debt, and all school and health be decreed
Free to our race, and house for our children.
We came not willingly, but these lands built
By the labor of our hands; this new world
Be states of Africa; nor any guilt
Be inculcated, and the stolen pearl
May know its rightful place again. We are
More than mere servants who gave civil means
To the world, better still than dust of star
This meet for reparation now convenes.
ii
Reparations is the rights for new Africans
Embracing self, and empowered identity
Payments for utility and tribulations
Acceptance of our recovered humanity
Race and divisions subsides in perfidy
Africa's children worldwide love merchants again
Trafficking grace to heal the slanted infamy
Inviting you too meet us for ransome from pain
Overdue, this account must be paid: no taxation
No charge for health, debts of state, nor education.
Slaves no more! Let the shackles fall as evidence.
Scheme | ABABCXCD XEDEXFXF XGXGHIHI JAJAKLKL DMDMNGNG OXOXPQPQXRARAAXAXGGX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (22%) |
Metre | 0111111110 1111111101 0111011100 1111101111 1101101010 111101011 0111010110 010011111 101011011 1101011011 1110111111 110111101 1101001011 1010101011 1111101011 01011111 1100101101 1110011010 1011101011 01011100 10010111011 0111101001 1010000101 1101111101 1110010110 0110100100 1111110101 1101111100 11111010110 1111110101 1010101010 10101001101 1101010111 1101011111 110101011 110101111 1111000111 011001001010 1101101101 111010111010 1111001111 10101101111 1111001101 110000101 1111010111 1111011101 1011011111 111010101 1 01010111100 010100100100 10101000010 0101100100100 10010010100 100101111001 100111010100 010111111011 1011011111010 11111111010 111101011100 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,465 |
Words | 441 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 20 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 332 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 74 |
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Submitted on June 04, 2013
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:13 min read
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"Reparations" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/82974/reparations>.
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