A Black Man Talks of Reaping

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.

The meter replicates iambic pentameter, so each line roughly contains five sets of stressed-unstressed syllables. Lines 1 and 11 feature 11 total syllables each, but the other nine lines work as proper iambic pentameter. The near-regularity of the meter reflects the speaker’s methodical labor—his sowing is careful and measured, just as the poem’s rhythm follows a structured beat. However, the slight variations in syllable count create a subtle disruption, mirroring how systemic forces prevent the speaker’s work from achieving stability. The meter reinforces the centrality of the Black man. Four of the 12 lines start with an “I,” and the meter forces the reader to emphasize the “I” so that they’re stressing the presence of the Black man. This insistence on the speaker’s presence acts as a form of resistance, asserting his agency in a world that seeks to erase or diminish him. 

Since iambic pentameter is the meter used by canonized English poets like Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton, Bontemps also subverts the cycle of precarity. The meter takes the Black man out of the class of victimized Black people and places him in the league of famous white poets. By writing in a traditional European form while centering a distinctly Black experience, Bontemps reclaims literary space that historically excluded Black voices.

The form creates tension with the themes. Using planting and growing crops and foods, Bontemps creates an allegory for racism. What joins them together is the inherent instability. However, the poem looks neat and stable. There are three stanzas, and each stanza has four lines (quatrains). Adding to the predictability, Bontemps creates a rhyme scheme; in each stanza, Lines 1 and 3 rhyme, and Lines 2 and 4 rhyme. The neat structure suggests an orderly world, but this order is deceptive—beneath the surface, the speaker’s reality is one of struggle and injustice.