Sestina For The Sin Analysis

In the poem “Sestina for the Sin” written by Tara Betts, the poet uses repetition of six specific words to underline the cruelties committed by the white people back in the days where black people were forced to death ruthlessly, as well as the application of contrast between the white families and the black families to emphasize a difference of life situation that these two groups were living under. These two elements combine together form a critic to the preposterous past when the cries of the black race became a habit, and the skin color became a sin. Tara Betts begins the poem with a contrast between the white children who are playing at the ground and the black families who have to see their beloved getting hang, all of these incidents happen in a sunshine day. The poet writes, “Picnics with children in daylight’s open air as families await a lynching, a preoccupation whetted by social habit.” The comparison between the light and dark as well as the conflict between two races reveal a hatred from the white race towards the black race. The children that seem lovely and innocent, who can imagine that it’s their parents who took away the lives of the youths from another race? When the forced death of the black people becomes the social habit within the society where these white children are going to the grow up with, these children are no longer lovely and innocent but being tained with the blood that covered their parents’ hands, as they will also inherit this type of distorted habit. When the children start to question why such “social habit” occurs, their ignorance turns into

Betts’ poem depicts a deviant society where the hatred is not caused but inherited, violence is not the consequence but the