Point of View

The poem is written in first-person point of view, though other perspectives come into play as well. For the most part, the “I” of the speaker comes through in the second and fifth stanzas as she speaks of being trapped in the desert with the dead child, and wonders how best to use her power to touch the “destruction / within me” (43-4). This first-person point of view is important as it dramatizes how personal the subject matter is to the speaker. The speaker, who is herself African-American, cannot help but regard race as a matter of her own identity. She is deeply affected when a Black child is murdered. Additionally, she uses the poem as a vehicle for thinking through her attitudes toward language and creativity. The first-person point of view also serves this artistic purpose of making visible her poetic self.

The third and...