Birdfoot’s Grampa

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1975

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Birdfoot’s Grampa is a narrative free verse poem, consisting of 20 unrhymed lines that do not adhere to any standardized poetic form. Using a free verse form allows the poem to maintain a meter that sounds more like regular speech, which mimics Bruchac’s affinity for storytelling. This storytelling technique fits this poem for several reasons. Storytelling is an important element of Native American culture, based in the oral traditions that are pass on and preserve knowledge from generation to generation. The didactic poem—one that teaches a lesson—enables a Native American storyteller to communicate a life lesson in poetic form. Bruchac used the didactic form throughout his writing career, using it not just in poetry but also in his fiction for both children and adults.

Enjambment

Bruchac utilizes enjambment to ensure that his reader is following the action of the poem and understanding the message of the poem. For example, the very first line introduces one character of the poem in just three words: “The old man” (Line 1), forcing the reader to wonder, “What about that old man?” By breaking up the lines in unexpected places, the reader is invited to continue reading in order to complete the thought. With the use of enjambment, Bruchac is able to maintain the reader’s interest all the way to the end of the poem where the real point and lesson of the story can be found. The enjambment technique also mimics the rhythm of the action, translating the frustration of the speaker in the first stanza into understanding by the end of the poem.

Sound Devices (Alliteration, Assonance, Onomatopoeia)

In the first stanza, the consonant sounds are hard and abrupt, such as in the double Ps in “stopped” (Line 2) and the Ts, Z, and hard C in “two dozen times to climb out” (Line 3). The heavy sounds reflect the frustration and prickliness of the speaker at the beginning of the poem, catch the reader’s attention. In the last two lines of the first stanza, the words shift to the softer alliteration of the flowing Ls and the DR and R in “lights”, “leaping”, “live”, “drops”, and “rain” (Lines 6-7). The soothing assonance of the Is in the first stanza’s last three lines emphasizes this sense of flow as the shift in sound correlates with the shift in focus from the machine of the car to the peace of nature.

The poet’s use of alliteration and assonance returns in the third and final stanza as Grampa, the speaker, and the reader are all integrated into nature and the lesson at the end of the poem. The alliteration is heavy in the last stanza with the appearance of “leathery” and “life” in Lines 14-15 and “summer,” “smiled” and “said” in Lines 16 and 18. The assonance of “leathery” (Line 14) and “wet” (Line 15) and “knee deep” (Line 16) slides right into the onomatopoeia of the whispering Ss in “summer / roadside grass” (Lines 15-16), mimicking Grampa’s movement through the high grass on the side of the road. These gentle waves of sound demonstrate Grampa’s understanding of how he is part of the natural cycles of the life that abounds around him and how easily he slips between the world of humanmade technologies and nature.