Analysis Of Kidnap Poem By Nikki Giovanni

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Would you ever want to be kidnapped by a poet? Nikki Giovanni addresses this question throughout her lyric and extended metaphor poem, which is called “kidnap poem. This poem’s message is to grasp love or to seduce an adored individual. Giovanni shares her personal passion, showing it through sound devices like alliteration and repetition to create a distinct rhythm. Also, she plays with punctuation and capitalization; she has lines of varying length with just one stanza of 19 lines to show the reputation of her love towards the adored individual.

The first important part of this poem is that she plays with the punctuation and capitalization which makes it flow and seem informal. “kidnap poem” has only four capitalized letters which are “Ever/You/Play/Black,” and each outlines the importance of her life for example “wrap you in the Black, red green,” represents fighting against racism, promoting equal treatment toward all races, she mentions it in the love poem because love is as essential to her as equality, so she is trying to compare both these topics to each other. By using the lack of punctuation, Giovanni lets us know that to express your feelings, writing rules are not significant. Also, the lack of punctuation and capitalization makes the poem easy to understand the theme.

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Another critical aspect of the poem is how Giovanni uses alliteration and repetition to create a distinct rhythm; she includes those devices in the poem to make a steady rhythm. For example,” lyric you in lilacs,” is a metaphor & alliteration where she compares a lyric narrative poem to lilac flowers which represent love and innocence. Also, the words “kidnap you” are repeated throughout the whole

free verse poem, which is the main point where an individual in love tries to “kidnap,” or seduce their loved one. Also, with the word “kidnap” the author tells us that she would do everything in order to be loved as she loves that person and gets whom she admires.

At last, Nikki Giovanni uses a unique technique to address the lines of varying length and just on stanza to emphasize main ideas; and usually, poets have same or similar line lengths, but she doesn’t. For example, “blend into the beach” is shorter verse, but the next line “complement my see” is longer. Adding to that, she shows her excitement. She compliments him, hoping to make a perfect pair of lovers. In the making, the poem becomes an extended metaphor because the speaker isn’t trying to kidnap her lover and blend them into the beach. Giovanni’s verse has 19 lines which are stretched out to one stanza. Since it is free verse, the poem’s structure is designed uniquely.

In conclusion, Nikki Giovanni’s free verse contains soothing words that emphasize love forms towards someone is uncontrollable. I think she tried to make her poem different from other poets by adding particular elements which makes it attractive for the audience to read and listen. She describes her love and warmth to a person by structuring it in a way to understand the message of the poem. Overall, this poem is all about affection.

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