Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ryan Gallagher
AP Literature
Explication Assignment
21 December 2010
In her poem I The People, the author Alice Notley works to creates meaning through the
structure of her poem, and through the use of first person pronouns. Through the use of
repetition, Notley is also able compare and reinforce many of the ideas that she presents through
juxtaposition.
Through repetition of words and the maintenance of the poem’s structural pattern, Notley
is able to develop the meaning of her work. The poem begins with the sentence “I the people/ to
things that are were &/ come to be.” This opening line acts as a template for the rest of the poem,
as many of the words and symbols used are repeated throughout the poem. For example, It is
important to note Notley’s use of an ampersand to represent the conjunction word and, as this is
seen on eighteen different occasions throughout the poem, in addition to Notley’s use of the first
person pronoun I, which is also seen countless times throughout the poem. The opening line, “I
the people”, can be considered the poem’s motif, as Notley constantly refers back to this phrase
in both the title, and in the poem. As a matter of fact, towards the middle of the poem, Notely
employs a sentence of similar phrasing as the opening sentence of the poem when she says, “We
the people to the things that are & were & come to be”, which only differs in how Notely
switches to the first person pronoun we. In terms of the poem’s structure, Notley centers the
entire poem, except for the first, thirty second, forty ninth, and fiftieth lines. She also follows the
pattern of not only indenting every other line of the poem, but also making those specific lines
enjambments.
Jerome 2
In addition to utilizing the structure of the poem, and the repetition of key words and
phrases, Notely also takes up a mockingly informative tone in order to further develop her
meaning of who the people are. From the very beginning, it is clear that she is playing on the
ideas of the United States Constitution’s preamble through her title, I the People. At certain
points in her poem, Notely even utilizes the opening phrase of the preamble, such as when she
says, “we the people having our/vision of/ gold & silver & silken liquid/light flowed/ from our
eyes & caressing/all around the walls.” Just as the preamble serves to illustrate the purpose and
meaning of the meaning of the Constitution, Notely is also utilizing this poem, and its play on
the Constitution’s phrasing to depict many ideas in regards to the human condition. Moreover,
from the listing that occurs after the fact, it is clear that Notely is elaborating on the idea of what
the subject of her poem is experiencing. This use of the first person pronoun we, which Notley
switches between throughout the poem only further, accentuate the informative nature of the
tone, as it serves to add and air of inclusiveness to the ideas being described in the poem.
Notley also juxtaposes many ideas throughout the poem to create assonance, and further
develop the poems meaning. This can be seen in the fifth and sixth line of the poem when she
writes, “when we/make love when we go away/ from each other because/we have been created at
10th & A.” Stylistically, Notley does something interesting with the structure of the sixth line
when she allows for extra spacing between the phrases in order to accentuate the splitting of the
two entities being described. However, though the subjects at hand are being separated, one point
of commonality remains in that not only where they were both created in the same place, but
they also share the “hope we are notes of the musical scale”. Notely also goes on to compare
different time periods when she writes, “We the people to the things that are & were & come to
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be” , which ultimately down plays the stark contrast between these periods of time through the
central point that they are all shared by “we the people”.
In the end, it is clear that through the use of various literary techniques such as repetition,
juxtaposition, and the employment of a mockingly informative tone, Alice Notely is able to