Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

Analysis:

The imagery of this poem includes a small African American child enjoying himself on the bus. There is also another young white boy on the same bus. The reader can hear the white boy speaking badly to the African American boy. The setting on the bus is not significant to the author, the important part is when the white boy said his rude comment to the author. This situation was very important in the life of the author because it showed the cruelty of the young white boy.

There is only one big sound device in this poem and it is rhyme. In every stanza, the second line rhymes with the fourth line. The rhyming of the poem helps the poem to flow better. It makes the poem easier to read and it ties together the ideas of each stanza.

The last stanza has several hyperboles in it. The author exaggerates his experiences in Baltimore by saying that they were all insignificant compared to what had happened on the bus. For the eight months that the author was living in Baltimore, this incident was very important in his life and that is demonstrated by the hyperbole in the last stanza.