17 pages • 34 minutes read
Fatimah AsgharIf They Should Come for Us
Fatimah AsgharFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2018A 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
Repetition
While traditional form and formal meter do not apply to “If They Should Come for Us”—which is written in free, unrhymed verse—repetition is an important poetic element in the poem. Repetition of the phrase “my people” (Line 1) occurs nine times throughout the poem. Six of those instances occur side by side. The effect of “my people my people” (Line 4) becomes that of an incantation or lamentation. The phrase underscores the concept of community and brings the reader back to the concept of “Us” in the title. The repeated actions of the speaker, who “shadow[s]” (Line 2) their people “through any wild all wild” (Line3), who “claim” (Line 8) virtual strangers as her “kin” (Line 8), and who vow “if they come for you the / come for me too” (Line 31-32) lend credibility to the idea that disparate individuals can achieve solidarity. The phrase “my people” (Line 1), repeated at intervals in the poem, embodies both the courage of the individual and the notion strength in unity.
Enjambment
The poet employs enjambment, or the continuation of a phrase from one line to the next, throughout “If They Should Come for Us.” Enjambment offers an opportunity for surprise from line to line, allowing the reader to anticipate more than one outcome or development. In the first line of the poem, the speaker says, “these are my people & I find” (Line 1), leaving an opportunity open for the possibilities of what the speaker may find.
At times, even though the poem is constructed in a single continuous stanza, enjambment allows for a relationship between lines that might not otherwise occur if the poem’s structure took the form of couplets, or two-line stanzas. For example, “the old woman’s sari dissolving to wind / bindi a new moon on her forehead” (Lines 5-6) creates a mini portrait of a woman in just two lines, before the reader moves to the action of the speaker in the following line. Enjambment connects the portraits with unexpected line breaks: the description of “the sikh uncle at the airport / who apologized for the pat” (Lines 13-14) extends, via one word—“down” (Line 15)—into the next portrait, which describes the “muslim man who abandons” (Line 15) his automobile in order to say his prayers. Later in the poem, the language takes a sharply lyric turn, creating startling images with line breaks such as “a flock of / aunties” (Lines 33-34) and “a colony of uncles grind their palms / & a thousand jasmines bell the air” (Lines 36-37).
Through this method of breaking the line, the poem connects multiple characters and situations and creates fresh and devastating images, all the while carrying the reader through the length of the poem as if on a single breath.
Punctuation
Punctuation, or, in the case of this poem, the absence of it, is an important literary device in “If They Should Come for Us.” There are no full stops, no commas, and no other marks to indicate where one phrase ends and another begins. Fully developed traditional syntax lies on the same line with fragments, as when the speaker says, “my people my people I can’t be lost / when I see you my compass / is brown & gold & blood” (Lines 22-24). The reader can form complete sentences throughout the poem, if they choose, by mentally adding punctuation on their own, lending the poem the potential for personalization that echoes the speaker’s message of respect for the individual.
The listing of images and phrases connects to the themes of the poems. While it may be confusing to navigate one continuous stanza of 46 lines with no punctuation, the form echoes the experience of a busy urban street—there’s constant movement, continual shifts of perspective, and plenty of noise. The effect is somewhat cinematic, jumping from frame to frame without stopping, as in a montage.
The use of non-English language in the poem adds to the mild feeling of confusion to which the lack of punctuation contributes—not everything can be perfectly understood in the given space, but meanings can be made well enough if one is paying attention and attending to the context of an interaction. The absence of punctuation introduces a challenge to the reader to take some responsibility for finding their way through the poem without a map.
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