Elegy For The Native Guards Poem Analysis

Trethewey and York are strikingly similar in how they approach form, even if their content is strikingly different. "Elegy for the Native Guards" serves as an memories for the forgotten black soldiers; "Abide" seems to be about the forgetfulness of a loved one. Both poets use interestingly similar techniques to captivate their readers and draw them into the poem.
Firstly, the stanzas in each poem seem to function as single moments in time. "Abide" has not only just one stanza, but is also a single ninety-two word sentence as well. This helps York's "Abide" to read as a single, stream-of-consciousness moment. On the other hand, "Elegy for the Native Guards" has four stanzas, each six lines long, and yet each of these seem to be in different settings and times: the first stanza is on a boat, the second is before a "ranger", the third is at the "fort's entrance", and the fourth is finally …show more content…
"Abide" starts with line "Forgive me if I forget", and then continually repeats the words "if I forget" and then at the end "if I wonder", giving the poem a natural rhythm and flow and keeping the reader enveloped in the speaker's first person narrative. "Elegy for the Native Guards" has a more subtle repetition and a more diminutive first person. Trethewey repeats the word "half" throughout her poem not quite as strongly as York, but it is this subtleness that helps make the gravestones feel "half" complete, furthering the meaning of the poem. As well, her first person is not "I" but a less mentioned "we", and yet this makes the reflections and sadness of three and four a shared experience of a group, as well as letting the reader in on this shared experience. The melancholy of "Abide" feels more personal with the "I", allowing the reader perhaps an even more direct experience that "Elegy", and yet "Abide" also feels more abstract as well, sinking deeply into the speaker's subconscious, allowing us to understand them even