Graveyard Blues

“Graveyard Blues” is a formal poem written in fourteen rhymed lines over four stanzas, followed by a final rhyming couplet. Trethewey uses iambic pentameter to meter her poem. Iambic pentameter employs an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as demonstrated here:

It rained | the whole | time we | were laying | her down (Line 1);

By choosing a form that uses immense restraint through formal constraints (rhyme scheme, meter, and structure), Trethewey conveys the restraint of the speaker and their inability to clearly speak about their mother’s death. The circularity of the speaker’s voice creates a poem that double-backs on itself and repeats words and whole phrases. This keeps the poem from narratively moving forward. For example, the opening lines repeat the exact same scene with only a slight additional detail: “It rained the whole time we were laying her down; / Rained from church to grave when we put her down” (Lines 1-2).

The restraint of the rhyme scheme and the meter translates to the speaker’s own restraint. Trethewey’s use of structure limits what can be communicated, and allows the author to play with closed off and repetitive images.