Oklahoma
All of the Indians are dead(a good Indian is a dead Indian)Or riding in motor cars—(the oil lands, you know, they’re all rich)Smoke smarts my eyes,Cottonwood twigs and buffalo dungSmoke grey in the teepee—(or is it myopic trachoma)
The prairies are long,The moon rises,PoniesDrag at their pickets.The grass has gone brown in the summer—(or is it the hay crop failing)
Pull an arrow out:If you break itThe wound closes.Salt is good tooAnd wood ashes.Pounding it throbs in the night—(or is it the gonorrhea)
Words in this poem
- cottonwood n.
- An American tree of the genus Populus or polar, having the seeds covered with abundant cottonlike hairs; esp., the P. monilifera and P. angustifolia of the Western United States.
- myopic a.
- Pertaining to, or affected with, or characterized by, myopia; nearsighted. Myopic astigmatism, a condition in which the eye is affected with myopia in one meridian only.
- trachoma n.
- Granular conjunctivitis due to a specific micrococcus. -- Tra*chom"a*tous (#), a.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Oklahoma is in the public domain. This text is taken from Three Stories & Ten Poems (poems only), Project Gutenberg ebook #59603; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ernest Hemingway, Oklahoma, in Ten Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59603, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemingway-ten-poems/oklahoma.html, id L27118.
Form and metre
Oklahoma is 21 lines in 3 stanzas.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| All of the Indians are dead | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| (a good Indian is a dead Indian) | 11 | ··/˘˘···/˘˘ |
| Or riding in motor cars— | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| (the oil lands, you know, they’re all rich) | 8 | ········ |
| Smoke smarts my eyes, | 4 | ···· |
| Cottonwood twigs and buffalo dung | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
| Smoke grey in the teepee— | 6 | ······ |
| (or is it myopic trachoma) | 9 | ···˘/˘˘/˘ |
| The prairies are long, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| The moon rises, | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Ponies | 2 | /˘ |
| Drag at their pickets. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| The grass has gone brown in the summer— | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| (or is it the hay crop failing) | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Pull an arrow out: | 5 | ··/˘· |
| If you break it | 4 | ···· |
| The wound closes. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Salt is good too | 4 | ···· |
| And wood ashes. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Pounding it throbs in the night— | 7 | /˘····· |
| (or is it the gonorrhea) | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.