Poem Analysis
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Baraka's poem, Incident, provides the speakers interpretation of his/her knowledge of a brutal murder. The best way for me to analyze this poem was to take it apart stanza by stanza. Baraka's free verse piece is intentionally fragmented(down, shot, dying, dead, to full halt) to convey the cruelty of a violent crime. Baracka's second stanza provides a vivid picture in the readers mind. "The speeding bullet tore his face and blood sprayed." He uses short and blunt phrases again to capture the brutality of the murder. Baraka's third stanza reveals the aftermath of murder and, depicts the consequences of violence. The man's death sucks light/life out of the community, "His spirit sucks up the light... and everything tumbled blindly with him dying down the stairs. The final stanza of Incident conveys a great deal of sadness. In this stanza the reader learns that despite the victim's picture being plastered everywhere, he is unknown. The reader never learns who he was or why he was murdered. We are left the image of a corpse. He lies motionless , his face and fingers capture the pain and senselessness of violence.
Literary Devices
- Throughout the poem Incident there are elements of suspense. The short and blunt phrases Baraka uses conveys suspense because they add to the cruelty of the murder. The reader is also left with many unanswered questions like; who killed the victim?, why?, was it a revenge killing or a crime of passion? The poet leaves off on a kind of cliffhanger.
- In his free verse at the beginning of the poem Baraka does not put any conjunctions between the words in the last line making it an asyndeton. The use of this asyndeton enhances the malice of the murder. It is as if Baraka wants every word to resonate with reader leaving them with a vivid image.