Essay about rhythmic style in the poem "Runagate Runagate" by Robert Hayden
"Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up you better be running." Maurice Greene.
Animals need to run in order to survive in the wild, and we humans need to run in order to live. When there were slaves in America those slaves who decided to escape needed to keep on running in order to live. In the poem "Runagate Runagate" by Robert Hayden he describes what it would be like to be a runaway slave. He uses rhythmic style in his poem to show how the runaway slaves would keep on running, and shows many points of views of what went on.
"Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing and the night cold and the night long and the river to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning and blackness ahead and when shall I reach that somewhere morning and keep on going and never turn back and keep going"(line 1-line7). Hayden is informing his readers of how it was like to run away from a slave owner. In the beginning of Hayden's poem he does not use any periods because he wants to show the reader that he could not stop. If Hayden stopped to rest or to catch his breath there was a chance that he could have been caught by his owner, and he would have been severely beaten or killed. "Some go weeping and some rejoicing some in coffins and some in carriages some in silks and some in shackles"(line 15-line17). In these lines Hayden describes different perspectives during the slaves escape. In those lines Hayden has the outcomes; if you were caught you had to go back to being a slave or end up dead, if you got away you were free and happy. "'If you see my Pompey, 30 yrs of age, new breeches, plain stockings, negro shoes;
Animals need to run in order to survive in the wild, and we humans need to run in order to live. When there were slaves in America those slaves who decided to escape needed to keep on running in order to live. In the poem "Runagate Runagate" by Robert Hayden he describes what it would be like to be a runaway slave. He uses rhythmic style in his poem to show how the runaway slaves would keep on running, and shows many points of views of what went on.
"Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing and the night cold and the night long and the river to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning and blackness ahead and when shall I reach that somewhere morning and keep on going and never turn back and keep going"(line 1-line7). Hayden is informing his readers of how it was like to run away from a slave owner. In the beginning of Hayden's poem he does not use any periods because he wants to show the reader that he could not stop. If Hayden stopped to rest or to catch his breath there was a chance that he could have been caught by his owner, and he would have been severely beaten or killed. "Some go weeping and some rejoicing some in coffins and some in carriages some in silks and some in shackles"(line 15-line17). In these lines Hayden describes different perspectives during the slaves escape. In those lines Hayden has the outcomes; if you were caught you had to go back to being a slave or end up dead, if you got away you were free and happy. "'If you see my Pompey, 30 yrs of age, new breeches, plain stockings, negro shoes;