Kindness

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1980

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Kindness” is a 34-line poem made up of three irregular stanzas: 13 lines, 7 lines, and 14 lines. The poem is written in free verse, meaning it has no consistent poetic structure, rhyme scheme, or meter. This reflects the trends that poetry was following at the time that the poem was written. The lines vary in length, with shorter lines being used for emphasis: “you must lose things” (Line 2) is only four syllables, though it encompasses one of the poem’s central themes. Other lines, such as “you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho” (Line 15), sprawl across 14 syllables. Longer lines like these allow more emphasis to shorter, powerful standalone ideas; for example: “how he too was someone” (Line 18).

Although the poem has no rhyme or meter, it makes use of repeated words, sounds, and phrases to enhance its rhythm. Instances of alliteration and consonance lend the poem a musicality, such as the repeated H sounds in “held in your hand” (Line 5) and the repeated hard Cs in “counted and carefully” (Line 6).

Anaphora

The poem makes use of anaphora, a rhetorical device that utilizes repeated words or phrases at the beginning of successive sections. Each of the three stanzas opens with “Before”: “Before you know,” “Before you learn,” “Before you know” (Lines 1, 14, 21). The poem also uses anaphora internally; the lines “What you held in your hand, / what you counted and carefully saved” (Lines 5-6) use the same opening words, as do the lines “how desolate the landscape” (Line 8), “How you ride and ride” (Line 10), and “how he too was someone” (Line 18).

Following “Before,” each stanza’s second line begins with “you must”: “you must lose things” (Line 2), “you must travel” (Line 15), and “you must know sorrow” (Line 22). The first stanza makes use of this phrase once, the second stanza uses it twice in succession, and the third stanza uses it three times: “you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. / You must wake up with sorrow. / You must speak to it” (Lines 22-24).

This use of accumulating repetition creates a feeling of mounting intensity and urgency within the poem. It shifts the poem from a reflection to a call to action for the reader; the speaker encourages others to incorporate these practices and ideals into their own life. This call to action is further emphasized in another instance of anaphora, the repeated “only kindness”: “only kindness that ties your shoes […] only kindness that raises its head” (Lines 28, 30). The repeated words suggest that “only kindness” truly matters in the damaged world portrayed in the poem, and only kindness has the power to repair it.

Perspective

“Kindness” uses an unusual second-person perspective, utilizing the pronoun “you.” During the time this poem was written, Confessional poetry was—and still is—the predominant trend; these poems speak from the poet’s perspective, using the pronoun “I.” Here, however, the poet made the choice to speak directly to, through, and from the perspective of the reader. The only time the “I” pronoun is used is in the line, “It is I you have been looking for” (Line 32), from the point of view of kindness itself. Thus, the use of perspective and pronouns establishes the poem as a conversation between the reader and the potential for a better world.

The poem also uses perspective to look at the world through both a broad and a narrow lens. Early in the poem, the speaker uses language like “feel the future dissolve in a moment” (Line 3) and “how desolate the landscape can be / between the regions of kindness” (Lines 8-9) to give a sense of a wide, sprawling outer world. As the poem progresses, the speaker focuses on minute details such as the food the bus riders are eating, what the dead man is wearing, the images of tying shoes and watching bread through a window. These images create an intimacy that juxtaposes the broader strokes of the wider world. Together, they convey the thematic idea that acts of kindness on a day-to-day level reverberate outward into the wider world.

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By Naomi Shihab Nye