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“Haiku” by Etheridge Knight
In Etheridge Knight’s “Haiku,” he speaks from the perspective of a black male prisoner looking out his prison window, likening the situations of an incarcerated life to nature, rather than a claustrophobic, solitary existence. Knight paints many vibrant and expressive images, creating an atmosphere of barrenness and tyranny.
It is not certain, but the author hints at the narrator being African-American. The speaker makes references to “jazz swing” and talks about writing a blues song. He also makes an obvious attempt at getting our attention by capitalizing the just-approved English slang word “ain’t”, which was typically considered a southern black saying; he says “Making jazz swing in / Seventeen syllables AIN'T / No square poet's job.”
Knight composes the images of “rocks” and “lizards”; “rocks” are the stones on which the “lizards”, compared to the convicts, “rest”. He also speaks of pecan trees, graves and the moon and stars—all evidence that......

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Approximate Word Count: 404
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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