Nigger

Nigger: analysis

Introduction

This poem's title and refrain is a racial slur against Black people. The poem is a monologue in an invented Black speaker's voice. He opens by giving the slur as his name, and repeats it twice at the close.

Between those lines he describes himself in a list of images. Some recall slavery, forced labour and the memory of shackles. Many others are racist stereotypes: the singer, the dancer, the laughing, lazy banjo player, dreams of "old jungles". The poem ends with a demand: "Look at me." It has long divided readers.

Summary

Line 1 states the speaker's identity, using the slur: "I AM the nigger." Lines 2–3 describe him as a "Singer of songs" and a "Dancer". Each of these is a fragment, with no verb.

Lines 4–7 set softness against hardness. He is "Softer than fluff of cotton". He is "Harder than dark earth", the earth of roads "beaten in the sun" by "the bare feet of slaves".

Lines 8–11 list his pleasures and loves. There is "Foam of teeth" and a "breaking crash of laughter". There is "Red love of the blood of woman" and "White love" of children, named with a second slur. Line 11 adds "Lazy love of the banjo thrum".

Lines 12–14 turn to work. He is "Sweated and driven for the harvest-wage". He is a "Loud laugher with hands like hams", with "Fists toughened on the handles" of tools.

Lines 15–18 turn inward. He smiles "the slumber dreams of old jungles". He is "Crazy as the sun and dew and dripping, heaving life / of the jungle". Finally he is "Brooding and muttering with memories of shackles".

Lines 19–21 repeat the opening statement. Between its two repetitions stands a command to the reader: "Look at me." The poem ends on the slur, as it began.

Themes and meaning

The poem is centrally about naming. The speaker takes the slur as his own name, first and last. This can be read as defiance, facing the reader with the word used against him. It can also be read as the poem fixing him in that word, since it offers him no other name.

Slavery and its memory form a second theme. The roads are beaten "By the bare feet of slaves". The speaker broods on "memories of shackles". Line 12 extends this into paid but driven labour. These lines treat oppression as part of who he is.

The portrait leans heavily on stereotypes. Singing, dancing, laughter, laziness, the banjo and the "jungle" were all standard features of racist caricature. "hands like hams" and the term for the children belong to the same stock. The poem presents these traits as warm and vital. It does not question them.

Visibility is a fourth theme. "Look at me" demands attention. The speaker insists on being seen, and the whole poem is a display of himself to an onlooker. Who does the looking, and through whose eyes, is the poem's unresolved problem.

This tension drives readers' disagreement. Some see sympathy, even celebration, from a poet speaking for the oppressed. Others see a speaker invented from outside, built from caricature and handed a slur for his name. The text gives support to both. It names slavery plainly while repeating the stereotypes that justified it.

Tone

The tone is declarative and incantatory. The flat statement in line 1 is repeated without change. The ellipses create a slow, musing rhythm.

In lines 8–11 the tone turns sensual and exuberant, full of laughter and love. This warmth is also where the caricature is heaviest. Lines 12–14 then become harder and more physical, and "Sweated and driven" introduces strain.

From line 15 the mood darkens into dream and then resentment. "Brooding and muttering" suggests anger held back. The close is confrontational. "Look at me" is a challenge, not a plea. Whether the voice sounds proud or imposed depends on how the reader takes the persona.

Form and structure

The poem has 21 lines in 1 stanza. It is free verse with no rhyme and no regular metre. Lines range from 2 to 13 syllables, and line 17 completes line 16.

Most of the poem is a list of noun phrases and descriptions attached to "I". There are few main verbs. The speaker defines himself by piling up images rather than by telling a story.

The spaced ellipses in lines 3–11 slow the pace and leave gaps between images. The refrain frames the list, appearing in line 1, line 19 and line 21. "Look at me." stands alone as line 20.

Poetic devices

Refrain line 19

I am the nigger. The opening line returns twice at the close. The repetition fixes the slur as the speaker's identity and frames every image between.

Ellipsis line 3

Dancer. . . The trailing dots leave each image hanging. They slow the list and make it sound musing and loose.

Antithesis line 4

Softer than fluff of cotton Softness is set against the hardness of line 5. Cotton also points to the crop worked by enslaved people.

Imagery line 7

By the bare feet of slaves A concrete picture of enslaved people's labour. The hard road carries the history of slavery into the speaker's body.

Metaphor line 8

Foam of teeth White teeth become foam, like a breaking wave. The image belongs to the grinning caricature the poem repeats.

Colour contrast line 10

White love It follows 'Red love' in line 9. The colours sort the speaker's loves into passion and tenderness.

Onomatopoeia line 11

banjo thrum 'Thrum' imitates strummed strings. It is paired with 'Lazy', a stock racist trait.

Simile line 13

hands like hams The hands are huge and meaty. The comparison stresses brute strength and reduces the body to a caricature.

Stereotype line 15

the slumber dreams of old jungles The speaker is tied to an imagined jungle past. This primitivist image was common in racist writing.

Alliteration line 18

muttering with memories The repeated 'm' sounds give a low, grumbling sound to the speaker's resentment of slavery.

Direct address line 20

Look at me. The speaker turns to the reader with a command. It forces the reader to take up the position of onlooker.

Words worth knowing

pickaninnies

A derogatory term for Black children, itself a slur. It is not a neutral word for children.

thrum

The steady sound of strings being strummed.

harvest-wage

The pay earned for farm work at harvest time, often hard seasonal labour.

hams

Pork thighs, cured as meat. 'Hands like hams' means very large, thick hands.

shackles

Metal fetters for the wrists or ankles, used on enslaved people.

beaten

Here, trodden hard by many feet, as a path is. It also suggests beatings.

Context

Carl Sandburg lived from 1878 to 1967. The archive lists the poem as number 43 in his collection Chicago Poems, published in 1916. It has been on americanpoems.com since February 2004. It was Poem of the Day on 20 December 2009. Readers left 41 comments on it between 2004 and 2022, many arguing over whether it is racist.

What readers have said

• Black Queen, who is Black, finds the poem deeply offensive and calls it a racist statement that should not have been published. Black Queen, 2004
• Samsarai argues the poet would not degrade anyone with a slur, and reads him as pushing back against the prejudice and hypocrisy of his generation. Samsarai, 2004
• Jessica L thinks the poem matches the name to the stereotype, drawing on what little the poet knew of Black people. and calls him a man of his time, not to be revered but not hated. Jessica L, 2005
• TjB reads the speaker as a proud, strong man searching for identity, dreaming of a lost homeland and remembering the shackles with spite. TjB, 2006
• Anna asks why the poet used the word at all, since he knew it was used against Black people as a racial insult. Anna, 2007
• Asante' Lake says family members were lynched in the year the poem was published, and argues that no white man then could have been immune to the racism around him. Asante’ Lake, 2020