Homecoming

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1984

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Homecoming” is written in free verse, without any stanza breaks, rhymes, or regular meter. The length of the lines vary from around seven syllables per line to 16 syllables per line. However, many lines hover around 10 syllables per line. This is in a similar vein with other poems in Alvarez’s book Homecoming—a series of sonnets called 33, which generally have 10 syllable lines. In the titular poem of the book, Alvarez’s meter varies along with the line length. The poem has a narrative feel, as it describes the period of time from when the guests arrive at the wedding to the cutting of the cake as the sun rises. Alvarez highlights moments of swimming, dancing, eating, and talking. She uses italics to indicate lines that are spoken by the speaker’s uncle and a grandmother. Most of the poem takes place during the dinner and reception.

The speaker, thinking back on Carmen’s wedding, also recalls moments from when they attended college. This shift in recollection to the speaker’s college days occupies only six of the 64 lines—a small flash forward in a generally clear narrative of one day. This movement in time echoes the content about the speaker moving between locations. The speaker’s conceptions of home are different at age 17 and when looking back at age 33.

Enjambment

Alvarez uses a large amount of enjambment in “Homecoming.” Enjambment is when sentences in a poem end in the middle of a line, rather than at the end of a line. One example is Line 40: “they meant no harm. This is all yours.” This line contains the end of a sentence about the maids wanting to touch a blonde Minnesotan’s hair, which can be read as a complete sentence in and of itself. The second sentence in this line is Tio talking to the speaker. Putting these two sentences in the same line associates the harmless maids with what the speaker’s uncle believes the speaker owns. He wants the speaker to feel possessive of the employees from the Dominican Republic who are shocked by the complexions of white people from the US.

The enjambment implies that the uncle is part of the “they” that means no harm. This is somewhat ironic, as employees working in sugar cane fields are incredibly likely to be harmed because of the dangerous nature of the work. Tio puts his employees in harm’s way and encourages the speaker to do the same. His inappropriate touching of the speaker, described in the following line, is also harmful, adding to the irony.

Repetition

“Homecoming” includes repetition of letters and words for emphasis. For example, the following lines contain alliteration, or repetition of the first consonant of words that are adjacent to one another: “On too much rum Tio led me across the dance floor, / dusted with talcum for easy gliding, a smell / a babies underfoot. He twirled me often” (Lines 25-28). The repeated letter t in “twirling” and “talcum,” as well as the imagery of baby powder, points to Tio’s infantilizing of the speaker. The word “shutters” (Lines 20 and 63) is repeated in the initial description of the wedding cake and when it is cut. The shutters are made of marzipan and eaten by the maids and workmen who harvest the sugar that goes into the marzipan. The cake itself is a kind of repetition: It is a “dollhouse duplicate / of the family rancho” (Lines 19-20). The shutters appear three times—on the ranch in full size, on the uncut cake, and broken off when the cake is cut.

Eggs also recur throughout the poem. An aunt uses “eggwhites” (Line 23) to repair the melting roses on the cake. Then, maids walk around “with trays of deviled eggs arranged in daisy wheels” (Line 50) (emphasis on alliterative consonants). The alliteration of the letter d in “deviled” and “daisy” highlight how the devilish name of the dish contrasts with the innocent daisy arrangement of it.