the rites for Cousin Vit

The poem falls into the sonnet category: It has 14 lines, and each line has approximately five feet or ten syllables. Some lines, like Lines 2 and 3, feature 11 syllables. Brooks invents a unique rhyme scheme that changes as the poem progresses. The slightly skewed meter and the creative rhymes show how a modern poet can leave their stamp on a traditional form.

The speaker of the sonnet is something like an omniscient narrator. It’s not Cousin Vit, but it’s someone who knows an awful lot about her and what has happened in her life. The speaker serves as the reader’s guide to Cousin Vit and her robust spirit. Reading the poem on its own without ancillary information, it makes sense to think of the speaker as a third party whose identity isn’t important. Brooks wrote this poem about a particular friend; therefore, it’s appropriate to think of the speaker as a Black woman writing about another Black woman. Whether the speaker is Brooks specifically isn’t so important. What’s pertinent is that the Black woman speaker writing about Cousin Vit demonstrates the bond and kinship amongst Black women.