26 pages • 52 minutes read
Pedro PietriPuerto Rican Obituary
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Free Verse
Pietri wrote “Puerto Rican Obituary” in free verse, which means that he does not stick to a prescribed rhythm or number of syllables per line. The lack of formal constraints allows poets greater flexibility to vary the length of lines from a single word to ones of ten or more syllables. This freedom is most effective when the poet enumerates the names of the five characters. For instance, in Stanza 9, he places each name on a separate line, with a longer line that begins “died dreaming about” beneath it. As an example, he writes: “Juan / died dreaming about a new car” (Lines 126-127) and, later, “Manuel / died dreaming about the irish sweepstakes” (Lines 134-135). Doing this throughout the poem emphasizes the importance of the five characters as individuals, thereby reclaiming their identities from the broader American culture that views them merely as Puerto Ricans.
Occasional Rhyme
In keeping with the performance aspect of this poem, Pietri makes use of rhyme at various points to heighten the poem’s aural qualities. The potential of this choice is most evident in Stanza 11, when the speaker describes visiting “the number one healer / and fortune card dealer / in Spanish Harlem” (Lines 159-161). Pietri includes several rhymes in this stanza, which gives the stanza the feeling of casual riffing. For instance, beyond the lines already quoted, he writes, “Rise Table Rise Table / death is not dumb and disable” (Lines 166-167), three times, and “If the right number we hit / all our problems will split” (Lines 179-180) once. This final example illustrates the challenges rhyming creates for syntax, as Pietri must invert the word order in Line 179—which would most conventionally read, “If we hit the right number”—in order to rhyme “hit” and “split.” In addition, he varies the pattern of rhyming words mentioned above with “Table” and “disable” at the end of the stanza: “We know your spirit is able / Death is not dumb and disable / RISE TABLE RISE TABLE” (Lines 186-189). Variations such as these allow the poet to keep the reader interested in what words and lines will come next while he maintains occasional rhyme with the same end sounds. In this way, he exploits free verse for flexibility and more structured rhymes to provide aurally pleasing line endings.
Litany
Litany is the use of repetition, particularly at the beginning of lines, often used to create structure in free verse poems. Even more relevant to a poem like “Puerto Rican Obituary,” it is often associated with religious writings, hymns, and prayers. Pietri introduces litany from the very beginning:
They worked
They were always on time
They were never late
They never spoke back (Lines 1-4).
Litany is most effective when used with variation, as Pietri does in Line 5: “when they were insulted.” This slight alteration draws attention to the use of the word “when” at the beginning of the line before returning to the repeated word, “they.” Pietri begins fourteen out of the first twenty-two lines with “they,” creating a plodding feel that mirrors the ceaseless efforts of the poem’s characters.
Pietri uses litany in other places, as well, as touched upon in the free verse section above. He often follows the five characters’ names with a parallel grammatical structure that forms a litany when repeated:
Milagros
died hating Olga because Olga
made five dollars more on the same job
Olga
died hating Manuel because Manuel
had hit the numbers more times
than she had hit the numbers (Lines 236-242).
Here, he follows each name with the words, “died hating” (Lines 237 and 240), once again highlighting the mundane inevitability of their actions through the choice of repeated words and grammatical structures.
