A Brave And Startling Truth

Nonfiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Peace and Warfare

Much of the poem’s impact comes from juxtaposing the effects of war with the beauty of international harmony. The first instance of this contrast is in the second stanza, when the speaker aspires “To the day of peacemaking / When we release our fingers / From fists of hostility” (Lines 8-10). Here, letting go of violence is a “release” of tension, a period of rest after an era of hardship—the intention is to make unclosing our “fists” a welcome and hoped for outcome. The following stanza layers imagery that further enhances this idea: “faces sooted with scorn” (Line 14) bring to mind the blackened ash of battlefields, and the innocent young people who “with the bruised and bloody grass […] lie in identical plots in foreign soil” (Lines 17-18). This imagery reminds the reader that in death, there are no nationalist or class divides. The poem here uses a transferred epithet, a poetic device in which an adjective is transferred from the noun it logically modified to another for emphasis and unease. Here, while the grass is “bloody” because it has been stained with war wounds, it is only “bruised” because the bodies littering it are bruised. Using the adjective in this way demonstrates the far-reaching effects of human warfare, which has a real and measurable impact on the very earth that sustains us.

The fifth stanza incorporates more contrasting images of peace and war, describing a slow emergence from darkness. The speaker uses motifs of war, such as weaponry, land mines, burning, and “nightmares of abuse” (Line 32), and inverts them into representative symbols of peace. Weapons are set aside, land mines are dispatched, and horrific memories become relics. Children and elders, both mentioned in this stanza, symbolize the progress of generations moving forward together toward a better world.

In the poem, the speaker also examines the abstractions of peace and war through concrete human action, showing that people have great capacity for cruelty as well as tenderness:

In whose mouths abide cankerous words

Which challenge our very existence

Yet out of those same mouths

Come songs of such exquisite sweetness (Lines 53-56).

This suggests that conflict is not an external force beyond comprehension or control—and that it is only through kindness and transformation of the self that its destructive pull can be overcome.

Religious Faith

The poem uses religion as a lens through which to frame the goal of world unity and peace, although it also points to religious fanaticism as a key instigator of the kind of war and violence it deplores. Maya Angelou herself was deeply religious, exploring Buddhism and Judaism before determining that she felt a particular affinity with Christianity. While the poem is never didactic, it has a clear and pervasive spirituality throughout.

The fourth stanza compares the suffering different religions have endured at each other’s hands: “When the rapacious storming of the churches / The screaming racket in the temples have ceased” (Lines 19-20). The use of both churches and temples here suggests that neither is elevated above the rest, but both have experienced the same depredations, whether at the hands of each other’s militant believers or as casualties in other conflicts. In their mutually comparable destruction, neither faith is painted as an enemy; however, the poem does suggest their culpability in these horrors.

In the following stanza, religious worship takes a more explicitly dark turn when the speaker reflects: “When religious ritual is not perfumed / By the incense of burning flesh” (Lines 29-30). In hoping for a peaceful future, the speaker considers the state of faith in the present, when some organized religions’ worship and rituals are directly enhanced by the horrors of war. The poem implies that there is a purer, untainted version of these rites: While today’s “incense” smells of “burning flesh,” when humanity evolves past this kind of celebrated violence, the ritual will again simply be decorated with “perfume.” Today, religion is often a celebration of the pain of others because its true purpose has been twisted beyond recognition of its original meaning; later, the act of religious worship will be restored and empowered as people finally come together in the spirit of inclusion.

Human Potential

The core theme of the poem is the limitless potential humanity has for kindness, compassion, and love. The speaker looks at the carnage of war and hatred and explains that it does not have to be this way. This is hinted at in the very first words of the poem: “We, this people” (Line 1), a phrase alluding to the Preamble of the US Constitution and repeated throughout the poem. The speaker introduces humanity as the focal point of their reflections and as a unified whole.

The first few stanzas describe the conditions that will usher in our full potential: “the day of peacemaking / When we release our fingers / From fists of hostility” (Lines 8-10). The poem envisions a time when weapons are laid down, when the air is clear of battle smoke, when people are able to walk without fear. This day isn’t presented as a possibility, but as an absolute. The speaker believes wholeheartedly that this stage of human existence will come, because they see how the power that people have could be harnessed for good. Later, the speaker describes this potential more clearly when they compare human beings’ ability to shape “cankerous words / Which challenge our very existence” (Lines 53-54), as well as “songs of such exquisite sweetness / That […] the body is quieted into awe” (Lines 56-58). People have equal capacity to create and destroy, the speaker points out, so why wouldn’t they eventually get to the point of only using their voices to evoke the sublime effect of “awe”?

In the final stanza of the poem, the speaker concludes that not only does humanity possess a great gift of creation, but that we are also a gift in and of ourselves: “[W]e are the possible / We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world” (Lines 75-76). In encouraging the reader to recognize this potential, the speaker urges them to embody it, thereby bringing the world one step closer to embracing and living this brave and startling truth.