19 pages • 38 minutes read
Graveyard Blues
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Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“Graveyard Blues” is a formal poem written in fourteen rhymed lines over four stanzas, followed by a final rhyming couplet. Trethewey uses iambic pentameter to meter her poem. Iambic pentameter employs an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as demonstrated here:
It rained | the whole | time we | were laying | her down (Line 1);
By choosing a form that uses immense restraint through formal constraints (rhyme scheme, meter, and structure), Trethewey conveys the restraint of the speaker and their inability to clearly speak about their mother’s death. The circularity of the speaker’s voice creates a poem that double-backs on itself and repeats words and whole phrases. This keeps the poem from narratively moving forward. For example, the opening lines repeat the exact same scene with only a slight additional detail: “It rained the whole time we were laying her down; / Rained from church to grave when we put her down” (Lines 1-2).
The restraint of the rhyme scheme and the meter translates to the speaker’s own restraint. Trethewey’s use of structure limits what can be communicated, and allows the author to play with closed off and repetitive images. This restraint translates to a feeling of frustration and powerlessness, but delivers powerful imagery of loss and grief.
Rhyme Scheme and Repetition
The end rhyme scheme of “Graveyard Blues” is aaa/bbb/ccc/ddd/ee. This creates a feeling of finality at the end of every line. While end rhymes usually create rhythm and music, Trethewey’s use of end rhyme is unique in the sense that the first two lines of each tercet conclude with the same word, for example, “laying her down,” (Line 1) and “put her down,” (Line 2). While “down” (Line 1) and “down” (Line 2) technically rhyme, they are also indicative of repetition. By repeating the same word, Trethewey frustrates the form and the narrative of the poem. Rather than moving the poem forward, the second line of each tercet echoes back the same idea stated in the first line of each tercet. The effect of this end rhyme scheme and repetition is one of echo rather than rhythmic, forwarding moving music.
However, the repeated second line of each tercet offers slightly more detail and information about the narrative scene at hand, and a clarification of mood and tone. For example, in Line 7, the speaker states, “The sun came out when I turned to walk away” (Line 7). Taken alone, this line might sound positive; following the mother’s burial, the rain stopped, and the sun shone. However, Line 8 clarifies the mood and tone with the first word, “Glared” (Line 8), which conveys an explicit feeling of harshness and anger. Furthermore, the sun “Glared down on [the speaker] as [they] turned and walked away” (Line 8). This second, echoed line of this third tercet establishes a clearer scene and tone of the poem–which is negative and rooted in guilt. This technique occurs throughout “Graveyard Blues,” giving the reader the sense that the speaker has returned to this moment repeatedly, and refines the memory over and over.
Allusion
The blues as mentioned in the title, “Graveyard Blues,” is an important allusion in Trethewey’s poem. The poem is written in the style of blues music, which has a number of definitive characteristics. For example, blues is known as a “vocal form” and the lyrics are often more lyrical than narrative. Highly emotional, the form is also known for its melancholic, sad tone. Therefore, Trethewey’s allusion to the blues in the title is apt and adds a deeper meaning to the elegiac nature of the poem. Other characteristics such as call and response, and repeated vocal and musical rhythms, are mimicked in Trethewey’s lines. For example, “It rained” (Line 1) and “Rained from the church to the grave” (Line 2) and “When the preacher called out” (Line 4) and “When we called for a witness” (Line 5). These lines create an echo or call and response, which is a common vocal and rhythmic characteristic of blues music. “Graveyard Blues” is deeply rooted in repetition, rhyme, and the emotional heaviness of the narrative at hand (a funeral), all of which are common subjects for the Blues.
Likewise, by referring to the blues, Trethewey evokes the genre’s African-American roots in the early 20th century South. Trethewey, who often writes about the racial legacy of her native deep South, particularly in her collection Native Guard, chose the blues for its roots and historical context. In interviews, the poet herself has noted how the blues use repetition to play with meaning, a technique she employs herself in the poem.
In “Graveyard Blues,” through the allusion of blues music, the echoed lines, repeated phrases, and song-like quality of the rhythm, all convey a deep, mournful tone and feeling beyond what the words say alone.
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By Natasha Trethewey
