October Mourning

Homosexuality and Hatred in October Mourning October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard narrates the murder of a homosexual man and the court cases that follow. In the collection of poems, Newman divides both of these events into two different parts. Both parts are narrative-driven and provide the reader with events that happen in both places—the bar and the courtroom. Newman strategically structures several of the poems in these sections to emphasize the major theme of homophobia and animosity in regards to homosexuality. In the first part of October Mourning, Newman structures the poems to assist in narrating the murder of Matthew Shepard and to emphasize the meaning of the overarching theme. In “Something Snapped,” the speaker relates his anger and hatred towards Matthew Shepard because of his homosexuality and emphasizes the idea that “something snapped” within him (v. 24). Not only does Newman make the speaker’s homophobia evident through his words, but she also creates the same heart-racing hatred and fear through the use of text structure. Newman designs the poem by having brief, rapid-fire lines with no more than five words to mimic the fast-paced heartbeat of the speaker: “My heart pounded / like a fist / banging on a door/ I didn’t dare open” (v. 8-11). By creating this quick-paced poem, Newman allows the reader to feel the hatred, …show more content…
In “Verdict,” the speaker accuses the murderer of being guilty of kidnapping, robbery, and murder as if he were giving him his final verdict. Though the actual speaker makes it obvious of what is going on in the poem, the text structure also emphasizes the guiltiness of the murderer. Newman structures the major stanzas of the poem as acrostics going down the page; each of the first letters of a line is a letter that spells out the word “Guilty” and ending each with the word