Freedom Summer

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2012

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Figurative Language and Symbolism

The poem utilizes various symbols of martyrdom, Christianity, and American history to present its themes. The most prevalent symbol is the penny Hope.

The poem also relies on figurative language in key places to enhance the tension of important moments. These examples of figurative language stand out even more than normal because they are surrounded by literal, prosaic language instead of what readers might expect in a poem.

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The figurative language begins midway through the poem once the three men are ambushed. Lewis uses the metaphor of their lives evaporating like smoke in the fog, and he also uses figurative language to describe the Klan. He embodies their conviction in their cone hats and calls their guns “long-necked persuaders,” personifying their weapons and tying their beliefs to a very poignant American image: the Klan hood.

Finally, he personifies the flames of the fire that consumes the men’s car, saying the flames “licked” the car as it sank. This figurative description gives more ferocious power to the hate the men encounter, and it adds another layer to the perverse imagery of the Klan and its actions. The flames don’t consume or burn or engulf; they lick. This gives the image a sick, perverse connotation that enhances the disturbing image of the Klan.

Point of View

This poem has an interesting relationship to perspective. For starters, the poem is one of dedication and consecration. It’s almost a religious poem. It’s almost an ode or a eulogy. However, it differs from all of those kinds of poems because it embodies the voice of the person being eulogized, sanctified, and dedicated.

This is an interesting and possibly controversial approach to writing a poem like this. J. Patrick Lewis, a white author, is embodying the voice of a dead Black man. This is a tricky balancing act because it introduces the possibility of appropriation, exploitation, or inauthenticity. However, Lewis chooses the rhetorical power of the first-person perspective over any concern surrounding exploitation or appropriation.

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In a poem designed to both demonstrate the severity of the moment while also honoring the bravery of the victims, the first-person perspective gives the poem an extra emotional weight that makes it more powerful. It also allows the poem to further perpetuate its message about ideas and movements surviving beyond the deaths of individual people. Because Chaney’s voice speaks to us from beyond the grave, the poem’s form matches its thematic intention.

Form and Meter

“Freedom Summer” is a free-verse poem with no set rhyme scheme or rhythmic pattern. Most of the lines in the poem hover around 10 syllables, but there is no strict count. The poem makes heavy use of enjambment, but there isn’t much focus on using the enjambment for thematic or narrative purposes.

In fact, the focus seems to be more on the visual length of the line than syllable counts or wordplay. Because most of the lines are similar in length, the poem looks like one continuous block. This adds to the poem’s prosaic feel, and in conjunction with the perspective, the poem reads like a journal entry.