Jean Toomer: Poems Literary Elements

The poem “Her Lips are Copper Wire’’ is told from the perspective of a first person subjective narrator and point of view. This method of presenting the actions makes the poem seem more personal and intimate.

The poem “Face” is written in an iambic pentameter.

In “November Cotton Flower” the narrator describes the unusual appearance of a flower in the middle of a field covered with snow. The flower becomes in this poem a metaphor for hope, used by the narrator to transmit the idea that hope can rise in every circumstances and that no matter how fragile it appears to be, hope can be the strongest emotion a person can feel in their life.

We find an alliteration in the lines “African Guardian of Soul,/ Drunk with rum” in the poem “Conversation”.

No irony can be found.

The poem “Her Lips are Copper Wire’’ is a love through which the narrator reveals his feelings towards his lover.

The poem ‘’A Poem from Transatlantic’’ is set on the Pacific Ocean in present time.

The tone used in the poem “Reapers” is a dark and violent one.

The protagonist in the poem “Face” is the old woman and the antagonist is time.

In the poem “Cotton Song” the main conflict is between the institution of slavery and the idea of democracy.

The poem “Her Lips are Copper Wire’’ reaches the climax when the narrator kisses the woman described in the poem.

In the poem “Reapers”, the narrator tells the story of a mouse which was killed in the middle of the road after a reaper, or a funeral carriage. The death of the mouse is foreshadowed by the title of the poem, a name which is also used to commonly refer to the Angel of Death.

In the beginning of the poem “Baking Coal”, the narrator claims the fire started by the natural elements can never be extinguished. This is however an understatement as later in the poem the narrator describes the fire slowly dying out when no one tended to it.

In the poem “Baking Coal” the narrator alludes the idea that the new technological advancements did not helped society in general to advance but rather held it back and made it suffer tremendously and become barbaric.

The term “cotton” is used in the poem “Cotton Song” as a general term to make reference to slavery and the way in which black people suffered in America.

We find personification in the line “Stretch thyself and us” in the poem “A Poem from Transatlantic” in which the narrator addresses the sea directly.

We find hyperbole in “A Poem from Transatlantic” in the lines “Hair-braided chestnut,/ coiled like a lyncher’s rope”.

We find onomatopoeia in the line “whisper of yellow globes” in the poem “Her Lips are Copper Wire”.