The poem Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead, written by Wanda Coleman uses the structure of the poem, diction, and the speaker and audience relationship to portray the author’s intentions. The poem describes a black woman and the way she lives through long unpunctuated sentences.
The poems structure is interesting because of its lack of punctuation and repetition. Throughout the poem Coleman does not use punctuation, capitals and has very few sentences at all, these suggest the poem is more rant like due to the flowing nature of a rant. The many questions that the poem poses also suggest a rant because it appears like the speaker is questioning or interrogating Wanda. The repetition of words however suggest that the speaker is of a weaker nature, and not really sure of their power or superiority. The stutter like repetition shows the speaker to be uncomfortable with the change is structure as at the beginning of the poem it was more questions and interrogation while at the end the author begins to apologize.
The diction in this poem is also important to understanding it. The slang terms used suggest a specific dialect which informs us of the speaker and Wanda’s place in life. The repetition of some words was mentioned above and is also pertinent here. The author chooses to repeat herself in three places, “were you” “that” and ”Wanda.” These three places are very important in the poem and the repetition draws the audiences focus. The first time that the author employs repetition the audience sees the direct connection between Wanda and the speaker because of the speaker talking about her life and being her. The second time that the author repeats words is when she begins to apologize about forgetting about something important. This part of the poem is important due to the fact that the poem changes here from questioning to apology and also the speaker also is like ever closer to Wanda.
The Relationship between the Speaker and Wanda is interesting because of the first name of the author. Because the author’s first name is Wanda the poem takes on a self deprecating tone and the poem becomes more about self-pity and bad situations. Throughout the poem the author, Wanda, is insulting and belittling Wanda, this suggests the authors self hatred and notes that Wanda always says she will do and does. This is also the authors opportunity to talk about everything that hurts her the most which is suggested by the ending lines “i’m sorry i didn’t remember that that that that that that was so important to you.”
The last sentance of the introduction was a bit confusing. i think youre commentabout structure was good, i agree that the poem felt like a confrontational rant from wanda and an intergation from her criticisers. its an interesting perspective to take. we know exactly how she feels yet the narrator is other people. she uses other peoples reactions to get across her message but in the end of the poem we dont know who they are or what they feel really, theyre just like props, used to prove her point. i think the poem is a way of getting back at them to be powerful for once. im not sure i agree with your idea the poem as self pity. it just seems more confrontational than that, she feels like shes being interogated,later in the poem she begins to fight back, shes not playing the victim. personally i was unsure about the last line. i wasnt sure if it was a sign of resilience, like she had it rough enough to be dead, but shes tough so shes not. or it could have meant that she is out of place in th world and ought to be dead. what ever the question, wanda why arent you dead, means i think the answer is just the poem itself.
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