A New National Anthem

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“A New National Anthem” is a monostich, or a one-stanza poem. It is made up of 34 unmetered, unrhymed lines of roughly equivalent length. The last line of the poem is a noteworthy exception to this rule. At four words long, it is half the length of any other line, a noticeable difference:

[…] that sounds like someone’s rough fingers weaving

into another’s, that sounds like a match being lit

in an endless cave, the song that says my bones

are your bones, and your bones are my bones,

and isn’t that enough (Lines 29-34)?

Breaking the consistent shape at the very end of the poem gives the reader a visual cue that the poem has reached its end. This makes it less likely that the reader will read to the very end of the last line and look down for the next one, only to be surprised by white space. The last line is also the only line to end in a question mark, another difference that gives the last line a sense of finality and importance.

The poem is eight sentences long. The first seven sentences span across the first 17 lines of the poem, ranging in length from one to six lines. The last sentence is 17 lines long, making it as long as the previous seven sentences put together. This last sentence begins with the poem’s first affectionate remark (“Don’t get me wrong, I do / like the flag” (Lines 17-18)), then builds steadily in a list, forming a crescendo toward the hopeful ending.

Imagery

Limón uses simile and metaphor to craft many images throughout “A New National Anthem.” The poem is fairly straightforward from Lines 1-13. This begins to change in Lines 14-15, with the image of the “unsung third stanza” as “something brutal / snaking underneath us as we blindly sing,” the verb choice evoking a sinister metaphorical creature underfoot. She describes the actual land of the United States singing the notes of the new national anthem to portray a new harmony between the country and the land. Limón turns to evocative similes for her more favorable descriptions. She likens the United States flag to “water” (Line 19). The new national anthem “in your mouth feels / like sustenance” (Lines 24-25). The song sounds like security and fellowship, “like someone’s rough fingers weaving into another’s (Line 31) and “like a match being lit / in an endless cave” (Lines 31-32).

Point of View

Most of Limón’s poems are autobiographical (“Life of a Poet: Ada Limón.”). The speaker of “A New National Anthem” is the poet Ada Limón. Though her opinions are strong and her imagination is vibrant, Limón only makes claims from her own limited perspective. She draws on her own personal experiences, like singing the national anthem at her high school’s homecoming, as well as supplementary research, like quoting from the third stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Through Limón’s eyes, the reader gains insight into both the grim reality and the very best parts of the United States. The poem presents both the “snaking” (Line 15) thread of the past underneath willfully ignorant spectators “with a beer sloshing in the stands” (Line 16) as well as the flag that “undulates in the wind / like water, elemental” (Lines 18-19) and that “flickers” (Line 22).

Rhetorically, Limón moves between the confessional and the declarative. She begins with a combination of the two. The first sentence she presents as a closely held opinion, now revealed: “The truth is, I’ve never cared for the National / Anthem” (Lines 1-2). The second sentence she presents as a well-reasoned opinion the reader should share: “If you think about it, it’s not a good / song” (Lines 2-3). She uses a rhetorical question to bring up a terrifically troubling, likely not well-known lyric from the anthem: “And what of the stanzas / we never sing, the third that mentions ‘no refuge / could save the hireling and the slave’?” (Lines 10-12). The implied answer here is that these lyrics aren’t sung because they’re representative of the most painful parts of the country’s history. Limón uses a rhetorical question to close the poem. She crafts the lyrics of the new national anthem (“the song that says my bones / are your bones, and your bones are my bones” (Lines 32-33)), then turns the conversation over to the reader, hopefully implying that the answer is yes, but ultimately leaving the answer up to them: “and isn’t that enough?” (Line 34).