Good Man

Stanza 1

The opening lines of “Good Man” establish a conversation both in the direct content of the poem as well as in the overall way a reader or listener is intended to engage in the text. Geter begins with the casual phrase, “So the other day” (Line 1), as if to invite anyone into the story he is about to weave. The remainder of the first stanza is portrayed as a paraphrase of his sister’s perspective, which continues in the informal tone. Several of the sister’s statements are both colloquial and cliché: Geter is painting, through the sister’s character, a commonly held narrative about how difficult it is to find a good man who is “worthy” and heterosexual.

In the first stanza, Geter also introduces his rhythmic style. A slam artist, Geter’s poetry is set up to be performed out loud, with alliteration, assonance, and visual metaphors that hold the poem together. Many of the most important messages in the poem are presented, sonically, as separate from what is around them. For example, after the consonance of “scrubs,” “snakes,” and “prince” (Lines 4-5), Geter pauses with the line: “A man worthy of her time” (Line 6). By lifting this phrase apart from those that surround it, Geter makes sure both readers and listeners hear the key conflict of the poem: Not only is it hard to find a good man, but it’s specifically hard for women to find a good man.

Stanza 2

Geter introduces two additional key ideas in the second stanza when responding to his sister’s assertion. His sister then adds a new tension of identity when she discusses Geter’s Blackness as part of his masculinity and their relationship. The intersection of race and gender has an important influence on how men define themselves; this theme is a recurrent element of Geter’s work and is implicitly woven throughout the remainder of the poem. The second thematic element Geter introduces is the idea that goodness is an “illusion.” Binary thinking about humans’ ability to be good or bad is present across literary genres; in Geter’s poem, he adds to the conversation by complicating the idea of what goodness actually is, especially in reference to manhood and masculinity.

Stanza 3

The poem takes a clear turn by the third stanza: Geter moves into a more lyrical voice and stops moving back-and-forth between the narrator and sister. The rest of the poem is only in the narrator’s voice and begins moving quickly through a series of images and references to build on the central themes. Though the tone remains conversational with phrasing like “see” to start lines, much of the language begins shifting to be more linguistically creative. For example, in Line 3 of the third stanza, Geter develops the idea that men are like hunters who set “traps with our teeth” (Line 21). The vivid description and use of alliteration begin to build the ideas of the poem while increasing the intensity of how it feels to read or listen to Geter’s points.

Stanza 4

Geter’s list-building of different images, metaphors, and references begins to move even more quickly in the fourth stanza. Goodness remains a central question of the poem: Here, Geter explicitly addresses whether men can be “righteous” and argues that men cannot see “the God in” women (Line 30), using biblical imagery to drive this point home. A critical part of understanding Geter’s poem, however, is seeing the picture he paints as holistic, rather than singularly critical of one aspect of society, like church. Geter believes that “the world” (Line 29) is responsible and is intentionally weaving together as many familiar situations as possible to prove that the toxicity of masculinity is not the fault of one person or institution but a problem of the entire society.

Stanza 5

Moving away from the more formal religious imagery, “Good Man” takes a turn in the fifth stanza towards Geter’s conclusion. The first half of the stanza relies on a colloquial play on language as Geter dissects comparisons between men and dogs, yet this quickly becomes more serious as Geter uses language like “drown” (Line 40) and “bust down” (Line 42) to discuss what men do to women. The tone becomes decidedly serious in the final lines of the stanza as Geter uses famous Black women’s names in conjunction with violent phrases: “We have sliced the Coretta out of your conscience” (Line 45), for example, refers to Coretta Scott King. It’s important to understand the rhetorical value of these references in the context of the poem; if Geter is talking to his older sister who is Black, like him, referring to these famous, strong Black women is a critical move. Coretta Scott King, Sojourner Truth, Assata Shakur were all revolutionary Black women. By describing them in connection with the devastating harm perpetrated by men, Geter hones in on the gravity of his central argument.

Stanzas 6-7

The final two stanzas weave together many of Geter’s earlier linguistic references while using a subtle anaphoric build to get to his final statements. The sixth stanza begins with Geter reminding the audience that it’s “[…] hard to be a good man / When you are raised to have such bad intentions” (Lines 49-50), listing a few “when” statements about how these bad intentions get taught. In the final stanza, Geter moves into the first-person singular voice to offer his closing thoughts on the issue of masculinity, shifting twice with lines that start with “but” to get to the idea that “there’s a few of us” (Line 59) who will “die trying” (Line 61) to be good men.