Perhaps one of things that makes Qwo-Li Driskil’s poem For Matthew so devastating is the use of repetition throughout the poem. This technique is used in five different ways throughout the writing. The first being the repetition of various US cities and their acts of protest against the treatment of Matthew: “In Seattle…”, ”In San Fransisco…”, “In DC…”, “In Laramie…”. This emphasizes the sheer magnitude and national outreach of the protests following incident and highlights the presence of the queer community in one man’s story. Repetition is then used in two different ways simultaneously; first, in form through the use of parentheses and also in the anaphora within these parentheses with the phrase “I wanted…” echoing the speaker’s internal anger. The parentheses act as a way of showing that these desires the speaker express are suppressed and secondary (or possibly complimentary) to the cities that precede these statements. The use of couplets in pairing cities with these angry and almost violent thoughts allows the cities to be separated in poetic form in addition to being geographically separated in a more literal sense. The contrast between the calm protests in each city, and the enraged desires of the speaker is quite powerful and, in my opinion, speaks to the idea of peacefully protesting in order to preserve the integrity of a movement, even when the movement itself is fueled by rage within the protesters.
Even when this pattern of cities and desires breaks away, we are still left with even more repetition: “Thousands upon thousands say Never Again, Never Again.” Once again tying emotion and personal experience with community and numbers; the movement is pushed forward by the people, their simple message emphasized over and over again, from city to city, protest to protest. Then to end the poem, the speaker brings together all previous repeated ideas with the use of the pronoun “we”, merging the personal parenthetical thoughts with that of the protesting cities and, perhaps most importantly, the relationship between Matthew and the speaker. “We have no more time” is a statement of fact, one repeated three times, but never losing impact. The continuous repetition reflects, not just on the death of Matthew, but also upon that of many other queer people fallen victim to hate crimes and ignorant acts of violence. The kinds of widespread protests sparked by what happened to Matthew are nothing new to the queer community, and though the person being memorialized or the means of protest vary, the situations somehow seem very repetitive. The use of the Audre Lorde quote at the top of the poem “I have died too many deaths that were not mine” solidifies this underlying theme of connection and widespread feelings of grief felt across large parts of queer communities across the nation (world?).
I definitely agree with the idea you are sharing here, repetition is one of my favorite literary devices in poetry. I specifically think that the naming of the multiple cities where there were protests was especially poignant. That part allowed me to feel a visceral reaction in my chest, both out of sadness for the reasons they were occuring and for the admiration I have for those who were willing to put themselves in harms way to stand against homophobia.