Nigger
I am the nigger.Singer of songs,Dancer. . .Softer than fluff of cotton. . .Harder than dark earthRoads beaten in the sunBy the bare feet of slaves. . .Foam of teeth . . . breaking crash of laughter. . .Red love of the blood of woman,White love of the tumbling pickaninnies. . .Lazy love of the banjo thrum. . .Sweated and driven for the harvest-wage,Loud laugher with hands like hams,Fists toughened on the handles,Smiling the slumber dreams of old jungles,Crazy as the sun and dew and dripping, heaving life of the jungle,Brooding and muttering with memories of shackles:I am the nigger.Look at me.I am the nigger.
Words in this poem
- nigger n.
- A negro; -- in vulgar derision or depreciation.
- fluff n.
- Nap or down; flue; soft, downy feathers.
- banjo n.
- A stringed musical instrument having a head and neck like the guitar, and its body like a tambourine. It has five strings, and is played with the fingers and hands.
- thrum n.
- One of the ends of weaver's threads; hence, any soft, short threads or tufts resembling these. [OE. thrum, throm; akin to OD. drom, D. dreum, G. trumm, lump, end, fragment, OHG. drum end, Icel. edge, brim, and L. terminus a limit, term. Cf. Term.]
- laugher n.
- One who laughs.
- dripping n.
- A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
- jungle n.
- A dense growth of brushwood, grasses, reeds, vines, etc.; an almost impenetrable thicket of trees, canes, and reedy vegetation, as in India, Africa, Australia, and Brazil. [Hind. jangal desert, forest, jungle; Skr. ja desert.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Nigger is in the public domain. This text is taken from Chicago Poems, Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Carl Sandburg, Nigger, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/nigger.html, id L28892.
Form and metre
Nigger is 20 lines in a single stanza.
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.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 A--B-B--B--------A-A niggerA · songs · dancer · cottonB · earth · sunB · slaves · laughter · womanB · pickaninnies · thrum · wage · hams · handles · jungles · jungle · shackles · niggerA · me · niggerA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I am the nigger. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Singer of songs, | 4 | /˘·· |
| Dancer. . . | 2 | /˘ |
| Softer than fluff of cotton. . . | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| Harder than dark earth | 5 | /˘··· |
| Roads beaten in the sun | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| By the bare feet of slaves. . . | 6 | ······ |
| Foam of teeth . . . breaking crash of laughter. . . | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Red love of the blood of woman, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| White love of the tumbling pickaninnies. . . | 10 | ····/˘˘··· |
| Lazy love of the banjo thrum. . . | 8 | /˘···/·· |
| Sweated and driven for the harvest-wage, | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| Loud laugher with hands like hams, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Fists toughened on the handles, | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Smiling the slumber dreams of old jungles, | 10 | /˘·/˘···/˘ |
| Crazy as the sun and dew and dripping, heaving life of the jungle, | 17 | /˘······/˘/˘···/˘ |
| Brooding and muttering with memories of shackles: | 13 | /˘·/˘˘·/˘˘·/˘ |
| I am the nigger. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Look at me. | 3 | ··· |
| I am the nigger. | 5 | ···/˘ |
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.