Gwendolyn Bennett: Poetry Literary Elements

The poem "Heritage’’ is told from the perspective of a first person subjective point of view, highlighting the personal nature of the experiences described in the poem.

The poem "To Unsward’’ is written in iambic pentameter.

In the poem entitled "To Unsward’’ the narrator compares the state of mind her race have with the state of a ginger jar put on a shelf. This comparison has the purpose of transmitting the idea of idleness and an excess of lack of activity. Because of this lack of activity, the narrator and her people ended being treated just like objects, being offered no respect at all.

We find an alliteration in the lines "That she who lies here dead may know/ Through all the putrid marrow of her bones’’ in the lines ‘’Epitaph’’.

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The poem entitled ‘’Nocturne’’ is a meditative poem.

The action described in the poem ‘’Heritage’’ takes place on a beach where the narrator stops to contemplate her life and think about her people. It is also worth mentioning that the action described takes place during the night.

The tone used in the poem ‘’Nocturne’’ is a dark one, which transmits the idea of hardships and pain.

In the poems analyzed, the protagonists are the black people and the antagonists are the white people which enslaved the black race and treated them like objects.

The major conflict in most of the poems is a racial one, the author focusing on the way in which the whites and blacks clash, most often in a violent manner.

The poem ‘’To a Dark Girl’’ reaches its climax when the girl mentioned in the poem starts crying and lamenting her situation.

The title of the poem ‘’Epitaph’’ foreshadows the mentioning of death in the poem.

One of the understatements found in many of the poems is the idea that there is no hope for the black people this however changes in all the cases towards the end of the poem when the narrator does present hope for the characters mentioned in the poems.

In the poem entitled ‘’To Usward’’ the narrator mentions how even though the white people try to make the black people a part of their society by forcing them to adhere to their customs and beliefs, they will always remain unsuccessful because the sea will always continue to pull the black person black. The pull of the sea is used here as an allusion made towards the innate beliefs the black people had which will never disappear, no matter where they are.

The term ‘’she’’ is used in most of the poems in the collection as a general term to make reference to darkness and nights.

We find a personification in the lines "I want to see the slim palm-trees,/ Pulling at the clouds’’ in the poem ‘’Heritage’’.

We find a hyperbole in the lines "And some of us are solemn grown/ With pitiful desires’’ in the poem ‘’To Usward’’.

We find an onomatopoeia in the lines "the silent sands, /Singing to the moon’’ in the poem ‘’Heritage’’.