18 pages • 36 minutes read
Danez Smithalternate names for black boys
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“alternate names for black boys” is a free-verse poem, meaning that it follows no fixed meter or rhyme scheme. However, it also belongs to a category of poetry called list poetry, or catalogue verse. A list poem is simply that: a list, whether it itemizes lone words, sentences, or ideas. A famous list poem is Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” (1860), which lists the many things the speaker hears. In Smith’s poem, the title clarifies that the listed items are names for “black boys,” though the names are figurative and ultimately embody different aspects of Black boyhood as the poet sees it. Moreover, what differentiates a list poem from an everyday list (e.g., a grocery list) is that list poems have a narrative or subtext; in this poem, the subtext pertains to the fraught complexity of Black experience in America.
While list poems often have a rhyme scheme, Smith opts for an unrhymed form. This choice is partly because Smith’s customary style is free-verse, but in addition, a rhyming list usually creates a tone of humor or levity, which would clash with this poem’s subject matter. Even though the poem isn’t humorous, however, it does have an informal quality due to how it lacks either capitalization or punctuation: Every word is in lower case (apart from pronoun “I”), including the title and the first word on each line, and periods are used only to separate the numbers from the items in the list. Commas appear sparingly—“going, going, gone” (Line 10), “brilliant, shadow hued coral” (Line 14)—and for the most part, the syntax stays so simple that such punctuation is unnecessary. While the absent capitalization has the oblique tonal effect of making the poem feel more casual, Smith has said in an interview that this stylistic choice has a different, unrelated motivation: “I think lowercase letters are very pretty in the poem [… and] the little ‘i’ with the dot looks like a little Black boy with his head floating” (Dicus, Caitlin. “A Conversation with Danez Smith.” Booth, 2020).
Imagery
The poem features no distinct characters or chronological narrative. It’s therefore up to the images themselves, and their particular arrangements within the poem, to convey meaning. Some images share features and fall into groups. For example, several lines describe things that are black in color, such as night, soil, coal, and shadow, among others. Other images are laden with historical significance. Smoke, burning, ash, and kindling can all point toward lynching, the historical practice in which some African American victims were burned alive. Likewise, “what once passed for kindling” (Line 12) conjures associations with historical violence against gay men and lesbians, both of whom have been burned at the stake. The poem does not concern sexual orientation, but Smith identifies as queer and would be aware of the distinct historical connotations of treating a person as kindling. These murders, too, would fall under the theme of Violence and Injustice.
Other images are paradoxical insofar as they are images of absence. Lines like “gone” (Line 8), “going, going, gone” (Line 10), and “(I thought to leave this blank)” (Line 15) evoke the space left behind by Black boys who have been touched by violence. Similarly, the mother’s “clutched breath” (Line 17) conveys the fear of that absence.
Images of joy and resilience stand in particularly sharp contrast to the rest of the poem. The line “fireworks at dawn” (Line 13) invokes two hopeful images: Fireworks symbolize celebration and victory, especially over an enemy; and dawn symbolizes new beginnings and a bright future.
Voice
Through much of this poem, the speaker takes an authoritative, omniscient point of view. They contend with various aspects of the titular Black boys’ lived experience, exploring their power, beauty, potential, and vulnerability in poignant, thoughtful imagery. The speaker also demonstrates a deep knowledge of the history and specific dangers these young Black men face. “guilty until proven dead” (Line 5) and “monster until proven ghost” (Line 7), for example, play on legalistic language, and the morbid riff on “innocent until proven guilty” demonstrates distrust in the legal system’s claims of fairness.
When the speaker finally emerges in the first person in Lines 15-16, using pronouns “I” and “us,” they confirm their stake in this poem as a member of this group. This piece of information fits well with the rest of the poem; the speaker has already shown knowledge of Black boys’ history and has thought deeply about what it means to belong to this group. The real revelation is the speaker’s vulnerability and struggle. After over a dozen lines of confident, visceral description, the speaker tells the reader: “I thought to leave this blank” (Line 15). The rhetorical question, “who am I to name us nothing?” (Line 16) demonstrates the speaker’s continued wisdom. They carefully consider their own impulses, even as they write the poem, and they are aware of their limitations.
Allusion
The poem makes subtle allusions to other stories. For example, the first line references the “burning bush” (Line 1) in the book of Exodus from the Hebrew bible: “There the angel of the Lord appeared to [Moses] in flames of fire from within a bush” (NIV Bible, Exodus 3.2). In this moment, God tells Moses to confront the Egyptian Pharaoh and demand that he free the enslaved Israelites. Moses goes on to contend with Pharaoh, forewarning him of God’s wrath should Pharaoh refuse; 10 plagues later, Pharaoh finally relents. In Smith’s poem, the burning bush image suggests a holy calling to speak truth to power and right societal wrongs. Additionally, the Moses narrative involves a divine promise of liberation from oppression.
Related Titles
By Danez Smith
