19 pages • 38 minutes read
Gwendolyn BrooksTo Be in Love
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“To Be in Love” is a poem of 32 lines, written in free verse, divided into 12 stanzas of unequal lines. Brooks employs uneven line length and syllable count. There is no definitive rhyming pattern, although there is occasional internal and end rhyming, particularly in Stanza 3 and the penultimate couplet. Rhyme when used serves a purpose in exploring emotion. During the period of unity for the couple, there is a heavy use of rhyme, particularly those words which rhyme with “you” (Lines 4-11), giving a cooing echo of closeness. Later, when the speaker can’t stop thinking about telling the beloved how they feel, the rhyme of “apprize” (Line 29) to “mesmerize” (Line 30) suggests the speaker’s loop of thought.
As a lyric poem, its organization is based on the flow of emotion rather than a narrative trajectory. We don’t know the history of the two people involved or what led them to their liaison. The setting is amorphous, without specific location. Instead, the emotions of the speaker are given paramount attention and the poem is driven forward by the speaker’s desire to declare their need. The couple’s togetherness is expressed in an early stanza longer than the rest, but the remaining stanzas grow shorter as the speaker more acutely feels the beloved’s absence.
Visual Imagery
Visual imagery enhances verisimilitude as it creates pictures in the mind of the reader. Brooks’s visual imagery, especially notations of color, helps the love in “To Be in Love” seem vibrant and hopeful. The couple, when together, see the world as bright, which is represented in the description of “A Cardinal is red. / A sky is blue” (Lines 6-7). The speaker, too, sees the relationship as comparable to “Gold” (Line 31), something precious and shiny. This use of color conveys the specialness of the relationship to the speaker. As the poem reveals the problems in their relationship, this color is connected to the pain the speaker feels, a “golden hurt” (Line 24). Further, the color begins to wash out in the descriptions. As the lover leaves, the speaker’s “arms are water” (Line 20), something that has no color. Lastly, the relationship topples into “the commonest ash” (Line 32), which suggests its gray, washed-out hue. The vibrancy of the earlier moments is obliterated by the end.
Use of Sound in Lines 17-22
Brooks is often lauded for her use of poetic sound, which mimics the rhythms of jazz, Black speech, and urban environments, as seen in one of her most famous poems, “We Real Cool.” However, Brooks’s command of sound is evident in subtler ways in “To Be In Love.” While she uses rhyme in different places, the internal repetition of consonant and vowel sounds is particularly effective in Lines 17-22 to enhance the beloved’s exit. The consonance of r is used heavily in Lines 17-21, then interwoven with the assonance of long e in Lines 21-22. The r predominates when the speaker describes the departure:
When he
Shuts a door—
Is not there—
Your arms are water (Lines 17-20).
This is then enhanced by the next phrase, “And you are free / With a ghastly freedom” (Lines 21-22), in which r is again used in “are,” “free,” and “freedom.” Adding the long e sound of “free,” “ghastly,” and “freedom” gives a sonic description of a door creaking on its hinges and swinging shut. It may also indicate a sense of keening, of the speaker internally wailing over his exit. These subtle implications help to create a sense of seriousness in which the speaker ponders the meaning of the relationship and its permanent loss.
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By Gwendolyn Brooks
