The Great Pax Whitie

This poem by Nikki Giovanni is very interesting It addresses a hidden issue that affects the readers perception. The first stanza is very important, because there is a repetition of the phrase "And the word was" as you continue to read down you notice that each phrase has a word that follows behind it, however each word seems to be more vulgar than the last. The effect from this reveals that as the speaker continues to introduce their claim, rage, anger, and hate tends to build up based off of the words that are used behind the phrase "And the word was" In this poem there is many repetitions of Irony and Duality. The way the speaker uses Irony is by using a positive aspect to create a negative one. The speaker does so through the duality of Life and death, peace and war, etc. The fact that Irony and Duality are predominant within this poem, one can infer that the speaker wanted to emphasis this to the reader. Each form of Duality and Irony are simply just examples, or support to better explain the speaker's main issue and the message that the speaker is trying to convey which was the ignorance, and shamefulness behind people within the black community.