Summary
The speaker alternates between giving instructions for someone playing a game of hopscotch, and giving more general, abstract advice. They instruct an audience to put one foot down and then hop, before saying that there are good things available to people who already have money and resources. Then, after telling listeners to hop to the left, the speaker advises that everyone must fend for themselves. The speaker then tells listeners to jump in the air before putting both feet down. If you're Black, they instruct, you should leave and not stay put. There's no food left and it's time to pay rent, so, the speaker says, the players should curse and cry—but then they should get back to the game and jump two times.
Analysis
Here, the speaker intertwines instructions for a game of hopscotch with instructions for surviving racism and poverty. This is a surprising, ironic juxtaposition: what does a children's playground game have to do with these terrible inequalities? Moreover, Angelou doesn't just combine two unlikely topics: she implies an equivalency between them by describing both hopscotch and adult hardship with the same rhyme scheme and meter.
The poem follows an AABB rhyme scheme, meaning that each line about hopscotch rhymes with a paired line about poverty and inequality. In addition, each line consists of seven syllables. These nine syllables are written in trochees. A trochee is a two-syllable segment where the stress falls on the first syllable, so these lines, which consist of three trochees (with one extra syllable clinging to the end) are written in trochaic trimeter. That trochaic trimeter sounds clipped and bouncy, like someone hopping from one foot to another in a game of hopscotch. That's especially true because many of the lines are subdivided by caesuras—pauses within a line created by a comma or another form of punctuation. But the meter stays the same no matter the topic, implying a certain essential, rhythmic similarity between all of the topics at hand.
Why would Maya Angelou want to draw an equivalence between childhood play and harsh adult truths? One interpretation is that she's specifically addressing the question of a Harlem childhood. By juxtaposing these topics, she implies that even young children in a poor, Black community are exposed to some very distressing realities. In fact, the imperative mood of the speaker's statements even calls to mind a child, being instructed by a bluntly realistic parent. There's a flip side to this reading: it suggests that, even when exposed to deprivation and discrimination, young children have a certain resilience that allows them to continue playing and enjoying themselves, seamlessly integrating that deprivation into their lives.
There's also a broader way to look at this juxtaposition: it suggests that every hardship can be reduced to a game, with rules as simple and predictable as those of hopscotch. This doesn't necessarily mean that experiencing hardship is simple. Instead, it hints that it's a skill, just like any game. Poverty isn't merely something to be endured, Angelou implies—navigating it requires experience, knowledge, and practice. There are rules from which a player can't diverge. This also means, however, that life in Harlem necessitates a rejection of emotion or imagination. Just like hopscotch, which follows formulaic rules within a limiting, pre-drawn court, poverty restricts possibilities and requires the sufferer to live in a single-minded, goal-oriented way.
