Identity

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1977

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Identity” is written in free verse, a form that is common in Modernist and American Romantic poetry and that was popularized, in part, by the works of Walt Whitman. Free verse is unique among poetic forms due to its lack of formal constraints, but that does not mean it’s not without some formal qualities.

Often, poets dictate the form and meter of free verse by patterns of speech and the collection of ideas rather than by line count and rhythm. The organizing principle of Noboa Polanco’s poem, for instance, is the alternating description of flowers and weeds. Though some lines in “Identity” fall into an iambic meter (a metrical foot that has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable), the number of feet vary per line, and the iambic rhythm is not consistent. One of the things that distinguishes free verse from most prose writing is the way that free verse still utilizes poetic devices, including line divisions. In this way, free verse can be seen as a freer expression of poetic ideas and images, as it is not constrained by formal rules.

Noboa Polanco uses free verse because it can act as a mode of free expression. The “weeds” that the poet-speaker identifies with are free to propagate and grow anywhere, and that idea is reflected in the formal qualities of the poem. Like the weeds, the words are free to express themselves; they are not confined to a particular form like the flowers “harnessed to a pot” (Line 3).

Though lines of free verse can rhyme, they don’t always do so. Some poets utilize rhyme to suggest an affinity between words or concepts, such as the last line of “Identity,” where the speaker associates the words “free” and “weed.”

Extended Metaphors

An extended metaphor, like a traditional metaphor, occurs when the poet draws a comparison between two things with the intention of illustrating their similarities. Metaphors rely on a tenor (the thing being described) and a vehicle (the thing whose traits the poet describes) to work effectively. While a traditional metaphor may only last a single line, an extended metaphor can sustain for an entire stanza, section, or work of poetry.

The main source of imagery and exploration of self in “Identity” comes from the extended botanical metaphors that Noboa Polanco employs. Though the speaker never makes the comparison directly, only referring to the group as “them” (Line 1), it is inferred by the speaker’s use of “I” when referring to the weeds that each type of plant is a metaphor for a kind of human life. In these cases, the groups are the metaphor’s tenors, and the flower and weeds are the vehicles.

As in Noboa Polanco’s poem, extended metaphors often explore many shared qualities between their vehicle and tenor. Due to their depth, these comparisons can sometimes seem like personification. However, a careful reading of Noboa Polanco’s work shows that the extended metaphor only works one way. The groups are compared to types of plants, but the plants never take on human qualities.

Anaphora

The repeated phrase “I’d rather be” in Lines 4, 12, 18, and 22 almost act as a structural principle of “Identity.” Anaphora is a term that is used to describe when a poet repeats a word or expression at the beginning of multiple lines for a poetic or rhetorical effect.

Structurally, the phrase “I’d rather be” acts as a pivot point, informing the listener that the speaker is no longer talking about flowers but about themselves and their selected group—the weeds. The choice of these particular words to introduce the weeds also works to set them up as preferable to flowers. It also ensures that the listener takes the weeds as a serious alternative to flowers. If the speaker would rather be a weed, there must be some appeal. Therefore, the repeated phrase primes the reader to focus on the benefits of the weeds. The repetition also works as incantation in a sense, placing a sense of importance due to the chantlike nature of the repeated phrase.