22 pages • 44 minutes read

September Suite

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2001

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

The poems in “September Suite” are unmetered and in free verse. They take various forms, although one adheres to a formal convention. Any regularity that appears early on in an individual poem is tweaked by the end of the poem, be that with line lengths, stanza lengths, and spacing. Caesuras peppered through “Tuesday 9/11/01” leave empty holes in a poem with otherwise standard line and stanza lengths. The longest line, Line 6 of “Saturday 9/15/01,” is immediately followed by the shortest. By breaking and rebreaking form, Clifton demonstrates the distress of her speaker.

Enjambment also emphasizes words and phrases within the speaker’s sentences by directing the reader’s attention. Consider this passage in “Wednesday 9/12/01”:

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this is not the time

i think

to note the terrorist

inside (Lines 1-4).

Isolating “I think” on its own line gives the sentence a halting, choppy quality. Similarly, isolating “inside” from the word “terrorists” emphasizes that Clifton is talking about a different sort of terrorist in this poem, and this terrorist is not foreign.

Diction

Clifton has been praised for writing “physically small poems with profound inner worlds” (“Lucille Clifton.” Poetry Foundation). These small poems often use small words with just a few syllables. Single syllable words like “hate,” “love,” and “blood” are sufficient. It’s clear from the sheer volume of Clifton’s work that she utilizes plenty of other words, so if she wanted to use a synonym, she surely would. She avoids overloading her lines with adjectives, adverbs, and elaborate rephrasing, preferring instead to use simple syntax and repetition.

Anaphora

Repetition of individual words preserves clarity. The “hate” Clifton is supposed to hate in Line 5 of “Sunday Morning 9/16/01” is the same “hating” she isn’t very good at in Line 8. Repetition of phrases creates rhythm and regularity for the reader to follow throughout a poem. “[T]his is not the time” (Lines 1, 7, 14) appears three times in “Wednesday 9/12/01” to separate the three different images or ideas in the poem. Each time the phrase is used, it’s a signal to the reader that a new example is on the way.

Repetition also often has a solemn, authoritative tone. The word “all” appears four times in the last three lines of “Tuesday 9/11/01,” declaring unity over and over again (Lines 11-13). It is a certainty the speaker uses to confidently assure her reader. In the very last poem, “Monday Sundown 9/17/01,” the repetition of “apples and honey” in Lines 5-6 reads almost like a prayer, and it is surprisingly optimistic. This speaker chooses her words carefully, so when she uses them again, it’s because she means it, and her belief garners similar belief in the reader.