In This Place (An American Lyric)

In this first-person, free-verse poem, Gorman uses imagery, repetition, figurative language, and diction, among other poetic devices, to convey her message of the potential for poetry in all Americans resisting the encroachment of white supremacy and marginalization.

The first stanza establishes the poem’s recurring motif, “There’s a poem in this place” (Line 1), which she repeats in some variation at the beginning of many stanzas. It also establishes the location in which Gorman presented the poem, the Library of Congress, using internal rhyme to describe echoing large space, which resounds with “footfalls in the halls” (Line 2) and the “beat of the seats” (Line 3). Finally, the stanza establishes the time of her recitation: It is the “curtain of the day” (Line 4), a metafictional variant of the phrase “end of the day” that highlights the fact of her performance on stage. The last line of the stanza introduces a “you” that suggests that the speaker’s comrades are all the people of the US—except those standing in the way of the ideals of inclusion and forward progress that this poem promotes.