Telephone Conversation

STRUCTURE

• A long poem. Lines are also long and almost always enjambed.
• Free verse, does not follow any specific order or pattern.
• No stanzas or any extra white space between lines; shows a rushed tone.
• No end or internal rhyming. Some assonance and alliteration is present.
• Meter: fast and rushed, lines are split apart.

Assonance: "long-gold rolled"

Metaphor: "Palm of my hand, soles of my feet are peroxide blonde"

Repetition: " 'Are you light or very dark?'... 'Are you dark? Or very light?' "

During a conversation over the telephone about a rent proposal, the landlord denies business because the client is African-American, even after she tries to explain that: “wouldn’t you rather
see for youself?”

Related song: The Beauty of Gray by Live

Soyinka, Wole.
"Telephone
Conversation."
Reading the World:
Contemporary
Literature From
Around the Globe.
Ed. Carol Francis.
Logan, IA: Perfection
Learning, 2012. eBook.

MADE BY JAKUB MALYSA