A Brave And Startling Truth

Anaphora is the stylistic repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive sections of a poem. “A Brave and Startling Truth” uses the word “When” to open many lines, with the phrase “When we come to it” appearing seven times across the poem. The repetition creates a rhythmic beat, as its landing phrases hold the poem together. This kind of repeated introductory dependent clause structure borrows from the conventions of the Black sermon, a tradition and genre Angelou would have been deeply familiar with.

This repeated phrase opens six stanzas, starting with the second: “And when we come to it” (Line 7). The speaker also uses a similar construction in the interior of some stanzas; for example, “When we come to it / When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate” (Lines 12-13). This creates a sense of rhythm and forward motion, giving the poem a visceral, ritualized quality. The line’s final occurrence closes the poem—“We come to it” (Line 78)—bookending the poem and thus creating a feeling of impact, closure, and balance.

The poem also uses the repeated phrase “We, this people” throughout the poem to describe the small world in which we’re all inhabiting. This is an allusion to the opening of the Preamble of the US Constitution, which famously starts with the phrase “We the people of the United States.” Angelou transforms this nationalistic identity into a global one, as her variant of the phrase connects the people not to a specific country, but to Earth. The poem repeatedly reminds readers that humans from all countries are the same species and that we inhabit the same planet: “We, this people, on a small and lonely planet” (Line 1); “We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe” (Line 49); and “We, this people, on this wayward, floating body” (Line 68), among others. This repetition emphasizes the need for unity among all peoples—the necessary precondition for the poem’s vision of a peaceful future.