The Pulitzer Prize awardee for poetry, C.K. Williams’ work reflects his extensive investigation of concepts and issues. His poetry on a variety of universal subjects reinforces his name, spanning from thoughtful introspection to societal and racial challenges, establishing him as a notable American writer.
His ‘Blades’ reflects his examination of the complexities of human emotions and societal difficulties, as well as the narrator’s emotional journey as he deals with a past tragic event.
Summary
‘Blades’ is a poignant, twisted reminiscence of a childhood violent experience of an eight-year-old.
The poem is set in a specific time and context when racial violence was not met with proper repercussions by law. In the first person, the poem depicts a childhood memory of a racial interaction between two youngsters, one of whom is of color. It investigates the emotional and psychological impact on a child of witnessing such an occurrence. It reflects on racial tensions, emphasizing the difficulties of perception in relation to racial dynamics and the human longing for compassion.
Structure and Form
‘Blades’ doesn’t follow a traditional poem structure with a regular meter and rhyme system. It is in free verse and has a narrative-like framework and a thoughtful tone. In a conversational style, it employs line-break to create pauses and emphasize themes for the poetic impact.
Literary Devices
- Metaphor: The narrator equates wearing “some ancient cloak of terror we keep on ourselves” to wearing a deep-seated fear.
- Simile: A simile is a comparison that uses “as” or “like” to establish similarities between unrelated items. The narrator compares the girl’s horror and yelling to the reaction to a knife stabbing in “as though I’d plunged a knife in her.”
- Hyperbole: The poem elevates the mother figure to a celestial manifestation by describing her as “as single, blazing wing of holiness.”
Detailed Analysis
Lines 1-20
When I was about eight, I once stabbed somebody, another kid, a little girl.
I’d been hanging around in front of the supermarket near our house
(…)
and everybody in the neighborhood gathered around us, then they called the cops,
(…)
and me I didn’t and we were both crying hysterically by that time.
The poem begins with a recollection of a past occurrence. In a past-tense narrative, the sentences relate to a childhood episode in which the narrator stabbed a little girl with a broken-off car antenna. This incident leads to police involvement and a crowd forming, resulting in confusion and commotion. The small girl’s emotional charges are followed by the narrator’s denial of the accusations.
The narrator adopts a childish diction in this passage. That is to say, there is no appropriate grammar, and sentences are written as though by a kid. The use of stream of consciousness here emphasizes an eight-year-old frenzy and terror of the consequences of his actions.
The lines use images to elicit in the reader the same sense of horror that the two youngsters experience. This increases the overall intensity of the scenario and the reader’s expectation of the cause of this violent action.
Lines 21-37
Somebody pulled her shirt up and it was just a scratch but we went on and on
(…)
she was beholding that was beyond any mode of comprehension so all she could do
(…)
and sweep both of us, the girl and me, into her arms and hold us against her.
Next, the narrator highlights the reaction of the mother of the little girl. The narrator becomes confused as the mother goes through numerous emotional reactions. The narrator only sees the scrape on the girl, the same scratch that seems to petrify the mother. The mother is stunned and outraged, which further perplexes the narrator as to her intense reaction. This reaction seems overdone to the eight-year-old, and he compares it to the reaction to a “natural disaster.”
The lines depict a mother’s intuition and her reaction to a risk to her children. They also demonstrate a child’s ignorance, as he does not fully comprehend the gravity of the situation. His inadequate understanding of the problem and his actions reflect their immaturity and lack of worldly experience.
Lines 38-46
The police came just then, though, quieted everyone down, put the girl and the mother
(…)
were black
and in those days you had to do something pretty terrible to get into trouble that way.
The description of police intervention follows. Though the authorities take the mother and her child to the hospital and the perpetrator to jail, this turns out to be a ruse. The youngster is released “round the corner” as the accusers are “black.”
The sentence emphasizes the racial bias that affects police treatment of a serious issue. The fact that the police release the boy, ignoring his act of stabbing a little girl, because it wasn’t “pretty terribly to get [him] into trouble” highlights the aggravating injustices on marginalized populations. In doing so, the poet gives a critique of the poem’s historical background. The poem thus sheds light on the difficulties that such communities experience in obtaining the assistance of law and police.
Lines 47-54
I don’t understand how we twist these things or how we get them straight again
(…)
And it wasn’t the girl who was black, but him. The mother was real, though.
The boy’s initial perplexity about his actions is resolved here. He realizes that he misunderstood the identities of the people involved in the incident. There is a realization that the perpetrator was someone else (a black child) and that the narrator was merely a bystander in the action.
The lines here elicit shock, irritation, and incredulity in the reader. The poem establishes the systemic prejudice common in the poem’s historical background by first presenting a black child as the victim. The poet establishes an emotional connection by depicting a familiar and expected storyline, which the reader expects to follow throughout. However, he immediately confronts them with a viewpoint that contradicts their preconceived assumptions. The poem stresses the pitfalls of generalizations by using a black youngster as a culprit.
It is vital to note that the poetry is open-ended, and the narrator’s racial identification is unclear. Interpreting the narrator to be a black youngster, his initial memory distortion can also reflect his own tragic experiences as a black kid, as well as racial discrimination by the police and the law. His trauma makes him negate his previous horrific abuse experiences and initially assume the position of the perpetrator.
Lines 55-63
I really had thought she was going to embrace them both
(…)
blotting out everything but a single, blazing wing of holiness.
Who knows the rest? I can still remember how it felt the old way.
The mother’s compassionate reaction will live on in his memories for the rest of his life. So much so that he dreams about the girl’s mother and her kind embrace. The line suggests that unconsciously, he longs for his mother’s attention and devotion. He longs for maternal support, which he may not have, and which would also sustain him in the face of injustices and emotional suffering. He attributes an unearthly dimension to the figure of the mother, describing her as having a “blazing wing of holiness.”
The poem acknowledges the flawed nature of recollections. Nonetheless, the narrator claims to remember “the old way,” referring to the loving encounter between a mother and her child. Whether it is a tragic incident or the compassionate reaction of a concerned mother, the feeling of all is vivid in the narrator’s mind.
Lines 64-76
How I make my little thrust, how she crushes us against her, how I turn and snarl
(…)
anything, not to know how silently we knell in the mouth of death
(…)
And this. I’m here or not here. I can’t tell. I stab her. I stab her again. I still can’t.
The final lines capture the narrator’s emotional distress as a result of this childhood occurrence. He might have been reliving an episode of his own stabbing. But, in his fantasy, he would also have a caring mother, much like the girl’s mother. He’d sneer at spectators, who may scrutinize them because they were black. He admits that something is torn in him, symbolizing emotional suffering.
The anguish is so intense that they are willing to conceal it with a cloak in order to avoid accepting it. “They” here represent the marginalized community in this context. They would also not let the lies they tell themselves to alleviate the pain of reality be erased.
Finally, in all the commotion and mental tumult, the incident’s elements mingle. There is talk of touching and kissing the mother, as well as stabbing the young girl. It’s unclear who is who and who stabbed whom. The narrator is attempting to reconcile with his past, but the impact of the incident is too great.
Themes
- Childhood Trauma: The poem depicts the narrator’s trauma as a witness to a violent occurrence. The trauma is exacerbated by firsthand sight of potentially violent conduct motivated by racial hatred, as well as ambivalence about his own role in it. His first impression of himself is that he is the perpetrator of a racial attack on a black girl. In the second perception, he identifies himself as a witness to an attack on a non-black girl by a black boy. This distortion of perceptions appears to illustrate the mental turmoil and disarray that an upsetting event can cause in an individual.
- Racial Tension: ‘Blades’ portrays a racial hatred interaction between two children. This racial tension gets worse by police officers’ biased handling of the white suspect based on race. This demonstrates the systematic prejudices that exist in society. The poetry, however, also confronts racial preconceptions by depicting reverse racism in a colored individual perpetrating violence against a non-black.
- Chaos: The chaos in ‘Blades’ penetrates the entire narrative. It all starts with an unexpected act of violence against a youngster, which causes turmoil and bewilderment in the surrounding area. This disorder subsequently gives birth to emotional chaos in the participants of the violence. The narrator’s and the girl’s shock and panic, as well as the crying, yelling, and snarling of those surrounding them, contribute to the turmoil. Finally, this confusion shows in the narrator’s perplexed state of mind, which is unable to distinguish between reality and perception.
FAQs
The narrator was hanging around in front of a supermarket near his house.
The authorities released the boy because the mother and her child were both black. Someone has to do something “terrible” to fall into “trouble in that way” in the poem’s historical setting.
The narrator vividly recalls both the traumatic tragedy of violence and the incident of the mother embracing her child, both of which are ingrained in his memory.
The narrator first recalls an incident in which he is the culprit, which then flips to him being a bystander. This emphasizes the fallibility of human recollections as well as the effects of certain actions that can distort our view.
Similar Poems
- ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou: ‘I Still Rise,’ by Maya Angelou: The poem honors the African American community’s resilience in the face of marginalization and racism.
- ‘Incident’ by Countee Cullen: ‘Incident’ recalls an eight-year-old boy’s encounter with racism and its impact on the boy’s vision of the world.
- ‘The Little Boy Lost’ by William Blake: Blake’s poem depicts the terrible impact of violence on a youngster who becomes lost and experiences terror.
