Race

“Race” is a poem in free verse—poetry that has no regular rhyme or meter. It comprises three stanzas. The first and third stanzas are narrative poetry from the perspective of the first-person speaker. The second stanza is in the third person and includes dense visual imagery; the second stanza is more lyric in nature because the focus is on capturing a specific moment and emotion using the senses.

Despite the lack of regular meter and rhyme, the poem does have a structure. Beyond the three stanzas, Alexander repeats, “Many others have told, and not told, this tale” (Lines 12, 21). In the first stanza, this line brings the narrative to a close and marks the shift to interpretation of the meaning of the story, namely, that Great-Uncle Paul was a “brother” ( Line 13) when he visited his family, regardless of his choice to pass. The second instance of the line in the third stanza marks the return to storytelling, but not to definitive interpretation. The speaker tells the story of how Paul ceased to be family when he demanded that his siblings help him pass by hiding their Black spouses from his white wife.