Sundiata selects and arranges words in ways that develop rhythm which contributes to the audience’s understanding of the theme of racism by criticizing it as a form of injustice. The poet develops the rhythm using long and short words with stressed and unstressed syllables. The long and short words also pace the poem differently in different sections. For instance, the first few lines, the poem has a fast rhythm because most of the words are short. For example, the first three lines read, “I was on my way to see my woman / but the Law said I was on my way / thru a red light red light red light” (Sundiata 1-3). Most of the words are single syllable words which fasten the poem’s pace and due to variations in the number of syllables for each line,
