Knoxville, Tennessee

“Knoxville, Tennessee” seems to start off in the present tense: “I always like summer” (Line 1). When more carefully read, though, one sees that this is not the present tense of the abstract present, as opposed to a past or a future. It’s the presence of an enduring, lingering preference. The speaker claims to “like summer / best” (Lines 1-2), and it’s this ongoing preference for summer that takes her back to her childhood down the rabbit hole of the logic of association. This ultimately indicates that the “I” of the poem, the speaker, has not fundamentally changed since childhood. There’s still a core of faith and familial love that has remained with her into her adult years. While the first-person perspective allows the reader to presume that Giovanni is the speaker of the poem, there are no identifying nor gender-specific details to insist this is the case. This, once again, affirms to the poem’s universal quality.

The first concrete detail the speaker offers as to why she best likes summer is because “you can eat fresh corn / from daddy’s garden” (Lines 3-4). She does not again mention her father in the poem, but this image is compelling: It allows the reader to understand that the speaker appreciates her father—she likely has a close relationship with him—and that he is an avid gardener. Not only does he grow corn, the speaker notes “[…]okra / and greens / and cabbage” (Lines 5-7). It takes a certain kind of person to develop a garden that possesses such variety. The reader can infer from the heartiness of his garden that the speaker’s father is a sensitive, patient man, who works hard and enjoys life’s small pleasures.

True to the continuous present tense that “Knoxville, Tennessee” inhabits, the poem’s imagery, as it develops from line to line, is not reducible to narrative expression; the individual images do not require chronological framing to make sense. In fact, the images running throughout the poem do not suggest a beginning, middle, or an end. Rather, the speaker places events in the poem in a layered, accumulative relationship to each other—mimicking a child’s enthusiastic attention for whatever seems the most exciting or the way a child might provide a seemingly random list of items as they spring to mind. The speaker, for example, moves from describing the kinds of vegetables found in her father’s garden, to the foods found at more public, social gatherings: the “barbecue / and buttermilk / and homemade ice-cream / at the church picnic” (Lines 9-12). Between the father’s garden and the church picnic, the poem links together two different settings which condense into one unified image or feeling, linked by the continual presence of the speaker's preference for summer.

Following the list of foods the speaker enjoys every summer, she twice mentions an event related to the church: the church picnic and the church homecoming. It is notable that Giovanni makes two specific references to the church; in a poem of extreme brevity, any image more than once touched upon stands out for the reader. In this way, the speaker makes it clear that the church was a big part of her life as a young person. Due to the celebratory nature of the poem, the reader understands the positive impact the church had on the speaker’s summer-life.

In the second half of the poem, the speaker shifts from items/foods to events that made her summers joyful. She loves to “[…] go to the mountains / with [her] grandmother” (Lines 18-19)—both of which are telling details. Knoxville is located within a couple of hours drive from the Great Smoky Mountains, which may be the area the speaker references here. Knoxville is a city and going to the mountains is mentioned as part of the speaker’s love of summer; specifically, she takes this trip with her grandmother, indicating a close relationship akin to the one with the speaker’s father.

The speaker concludes the poem with a final nod to summer, reporting that she likes summer best because she can “be warm / all the time / not only when [she goes] to bed / and sleep[s]” (Lines 21-24). The implicit message is that the speaker often feels cold, which is unpleasant, and that the only time this feeling abates is when she is in her warm bed. There are various underlying implications here. Perhaps the speaker’s family is not very wealthy, and it is tough to warm their home during the cold seasons. Interestingly, in a poem commemorating the speaker’s favorite time of year, filled with positive and uplifting imagery, the closing section takes a slight turn to the implied negative aspects which may plague the speaker’s life. Giovanni could have concluded the poem with the assertion that summer allows her to “be warm / all the time” (Lines 21-22), which would leave the reader with an uplifting feeling. Instead, following these lines, Giovanni includes “not only when you go to bed / and sleep” (Lines 23-24), which shifts the tone of the poem in its closing moments. This slight turn adds great, though subtle, depth to a poem that otherwise would be a simple list of things the speaker likes about summer.

Formally, it’s significant that the events and settings in the poem have their place within a single, 24-line stanza. This allows the different experiences, times, and events suggested by the poem to converge in a way that is less a memory of a bygone time, and more a present affirmation borrowing from recollected events. There are four main settings or places described in the poem: the father’s garden, the church homecoming, the walk through the mountains, and the speaker’s bed at home. All of these are affectionately brought into connection through the expression of preference indicated in the poem’s opening lines: “I always like summer / best” (Lines 1-2).