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Transcript

ByAlicia Whitehead

Visual Representation

Requiem

Oh, I who so wanted to own some earth,

Am consumed by the earth instead:

Blood into river

Bone into land

The grave restores what finds its bed.

Oh, I who did drink of Spring's fragrant clay,

Gives back its wine for other men:

Breath into air

Heart into grass

My heart bereft-I might rest then.

Literary Devices

Requiem was used as an allusion in this poem. Requiem is a Mass or song for the repose of the dead. By knowing the definition of requiem the poem now appears to be celebrating and paying resect to the dead. The lines "...Am consumed by the earth instead... "(Spencer 2) shows that the person has died and was buried. The rest of the poem then continues to pay respect to the dead by describing their rebirth.

In the poem, as the different body parts turn into the environment it is a symbol of rebirth. The line "...The grave restores what finds its bed"(Spencer 5) shows that once the person was buried they were then reborn into various aspects of the environment. Anne Spencer shows that nothing ends after death and a new beginning starts.

For Jim, Easter Eve

If ever a garden was a Gethsemane,

with old tombs set high against

the crumpled olive tree—and lichen

this, my garden has been to me.

For such as I none other is so sweet;

Lacking old tombs, here stands my grief,

and certainly its ancient tree.

Peace is here and in every season

a quiet beauty.

The sky falling about me

evenly to the compass. . .

What is sorrow but tenderness now

in this earth-close frame of land and sky

falling constantly into horizons

of east and west, north and south;

what is pain but happiness here

amid these green and wordless patterns,--

indefinite texture of blade and leaf;

Beauty of an old, old tree,

last comfort in Gethsemane.

Anne Spencer and her poems

Biography

  • Anne Spencer was born on February 6,1882 in Henry County, Virginia
  • She died on July 27,
  • She was a gardener, teacher, librarian, civil rights activist and poet
  • The second African American poet to be included in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poems.
  • Helped to found the Lynchburg Chapter of the Advancement of Colored People.
  • Her house and garden were designated a historic landmark in Virginia in 1976.
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