Sorrow Is Not My Name

Gay’s “Sorrow Is Not My Name” is a free verse, single stanza poem, following no particular rhyme or metrical structure. Instead, Gay depends upon figurative language, sound texture, and enjambment to pace the poem, creating tension and surprise as he weaves images across lines of varied length. Maintaining one stanza for the entire poem echoes the speaker’s frame of mind, as he moves between detailed images and more philosophical musings in an organic way, mimicking the natural flow of his thoughts. Punctuating the poem with syntactically simple and colloquial asides, such as “Just like that,” (Line 11) “Think of that,” (Line 17), and “I remember,” (Line 23) provides the poem with rhythmic anchors, slowing it down and requiring the reader to fully consider the previous line or image. These sentences, combined with phrases like “And to boot” (Line 11) and “yeah, yeah,” (Line 19), reinforce the casual, friendly tone of the poem, creating intimacy with the reader.

Gay uses a mixture of end-stopped and enjambed lines, or lines that end in the middle of a phrase without terminal punctuation. The combination controls the