In “Heritage”, a speaker reveals his deepest feelings about the motherland from an African American perspective. Countee cullen uses seven syllables per line in a meter that is irregular throughout the entire piece. The speaker is effectively declaring that slave trade pains are not felt by an African American from the perspective of this poem.
The speaker’s use of repetitions is more important than the poem’s non-traditional structure. As the context of this poem is further elaborated, the first line becomes a question that is repeated throughout. The poem is driven by the question, with each instance serving as a way to check progress towards a deeper understanding of the question. The speaker repeats the question and two other lines: “From the scenes that his fathers loved/Spicy grove, cinnamon trees” (lines 8-9). He also begins many statements with “So I lie,” a phrase that is repeated in every line. The phrase always comes before an explanation of the speaker’s feelings about the recurring question. This is a way to indicate that the next step in the poem will be a discussion. The second appearance and the first use are placed in opposition to each other to demonstrate how the speaker’s response to the recurring questions will be the same. “Heritage”, a non-traditional poem, is broken into seven verses. Each verse has a different line. This will have broader significance for the form.
In the opening line, it is as vague as the question that is repeated. The speaker may have meant this in a variety of ways. However, the second time it appears (line 10) is after eight lines that explore images of sharp contrast. The speaker could be referring to a rising or setting sun. As well, “strong bronzed women” are juxtaposed against “regal black men” to indicate that the speaker can have any kind of relationship to Africa. This is because the contrasts are being made in response the question at the beginning of the line. The second appearance, which follows the first, asks of greater significance to Africa to the speaker.
The speaker warns the reader at the beginning of the second line that the poem is just getting started. The speaker is describing a reverie, an imaginary of African wildlife. But within this description are also “young lovers of the forest” who become engaged. These images all have in common a relaxed life for either birds or humans. The speaker believes that Africa is a place where freedom exists.
In the middle of the second verse, “So I Lie” is repeated. This signifies a change in image. However, the next image stimulates the auditory rather than visual sense. The speaker hears drums, but not in a normal way. This image is actually a foreshadowing of the rhythm the speaker has in his body. As referenced in verse four lines 63-69, “So, I lie. Who find no rest / Night or Day, no slight relief / from an unremitting beat / made my cruel padded foot / walking down the street in my body.” The speaker is creating ambiguity by using the word “beat”, which in this context means rhythm. The speaker is trying to convey both meanings simultaneously to the reader in order to invoke the idea that Africans are rhythmic. The speaker has an ambiguity in her blood that suggests she is not ambiguous.
The third verse opens with the idea of the repeated question being a result of the fact that the answer, which was once known, has been forgotten. The speaker suggests that perhaps the speaker has always been searching for the answer, but is only now pursuing it with gusto. “Africa? One book, one thumb, until slumber. Unremembered her bats/circling through night, her cat, /crouching in river reeds (lines 31-35). The speaker is implying that he or she has not spent as much time in the past answering this question.
The speaker says, “[…] the bugle throated roar no longer / cries that monarch claws are now / slamming out from their scabbards. Silver snakes once a year/doff your lovely coats” (lines 37-42). The speaker states that slavery has ended. European rulers are no longer sending soldiers armed to the teeth into Africa. The speaker says: “What do you think of my nakedness?” (line 46), which clearly marks a shift in perspective. The speaker’s point is that the swords have no intimidating power. The following lines will explain why. “Here there are no fierce corollas or leprous blooms;////////////////////////////// Here, the bodies are not sleek and wet/////////////////////////////49///////////////////////////// The speaker is changing his perspective to answer the question. The words “leprous”, “fierce”, and “savage” are used to describe the flowers as a representation of white people who the speaker views as threatening. As the speaker explains in lines 46-49, the slave trade and slavery are both over.
“What do I think of last year’s winter, or anything else from last years? The tree/blooming annually must forget/how its past arose/and set/branches and flower/fruit” (lines52-56). These lines are used by the speaker to invoke imagery which explains the meaning of the lines 9-10. And the foreshadowing in verse 3 confirms the meaning. “Although three centuries have passed since the scenes of his fathers, / what do I see in Africa? / a spicy grove or a cinnamon tree?” (lines60-63). This four-line sequence is repeated in both verses 1 and 3. It helps to drive the poem. These lines describe the speaker; he describes himself as the cinnamon. From the first instance of these lines we know the male speaker. The pronoun “his” is only found in the first person pronoun.
This is important to understand the speaker but it’s even more significant when combined with lines 52-56 because it describes the conclusion the speaker has reached. The speaker is referring to his past, as snow kills the plants that survive into winter. Snow killed the growth of the speaker’s tree. He says that the past should be left behind and that we must move on to keep growing. In the springtime, the tree begins to bloom again. This signifies that the speaker will not allow the snow to stunt his own growth. Rain is described as an African tradition that the speaker channels because it makes him dance. The speaker ends the verse by saying, “In a way that I remember / Rain works on me day and night” (lines 82-83) This is an extension of the idea of growth, as rain encourages trees to grow.
The white man who evangelized the speaker has now left him feeling conflicted. He’s a Christian. But he has heard that Jesus couldn’t have been a black man. “Quaint and outlandish gods are made by black men out of rods. […] My conversion cost a lot. / I belong only to Jesus Christ. […] Although I speak thusly, I have a double role. My heart will always be sick at Thy glowing alter, and I’ll wish that the God I serve was black (lines 84-101). To refer to African gods as “heathens”, from a Christian perspective has a negative meaning. However, by the end, the speaker creates the paradox that heathen gods have no significance to him.
The poem’s form is driven by the recurrences. The speaker, as well as the reader, is bothered by the repeated question because he wants them to see it often. Use of seven lines with seven verses total is another powerful formal tool. The speaker refers to Jesus Christ as the “Jesus who turned his cheeks twice” (line 94), a reference to how forgiving Jesus is. Jesus’ forgiveness was also known by His instruction to His disciples that they should forgive up to seventy-seven times. In addition to evoking the feelings of perfection and completion that the seven-syllable verses convey, the speaker also invokes the idea of forgiveness. The speaker does this in order to demonstrate to the reader that forgiveness is the only way for him to move on from the past, to solve the problem he faces and to answer the question that keeps coming up.
The speaker used many other techniques to demonstrate that, even though he’s conflicted on the issue, he can reach a decision if he wants to. You could argue that the speaker wants to accept his answer. Idealistically, he should be able to blend his heritage and who he really is.