The Use of the Poetic Line in Twilight

In the introduction to Twilight, Anna Deveare Smith says that she had a team of dramaturges assist her in preparing the text; one of her dramaturges included poet Elizabeth Alexander, now better known as President Obama’s inaugural poet.  The line break in poetry is used to create emphasis and meaning.  As Smith manipulates her interviewees’ words on the page, I notice that the use of poetic lines serve two purposes:  1)they mimic the breath of actual speech and 2)they call the reader’s attention to the repetition of certain phrases. 

For example, Michael Zinzun’s interview contains several lines that begin with the conjunction and, notably lines that describe acts of violence, such as the ones I highlight below:

Example 1:

And we came out so quickly we saw the police had this brother

handcuffed

and they was beatin’ the shit out of him! (page 16)

Example 2:

And I went down on one knee

And all I could feel these police stompin’ on my back. (page 17)

Example 3:

And hit me with a billy club

and struck me in the

side of the head, (page 18)

The repetition and formation of the lines from these passages are especially effective, because they mimic the police abuse.  The repetition of and makes the reader vividly feel the beating and creates empathy.  The reader feels as if he is actually experiencing the scene. Had these lines been written in prose, they would have still had an emotional impact, but the use of the poetic line heightens the emotion and causes the reader to slow down and take in each line, each image as it comes.  In this way, each line also mirrors the feel of the film version as it jumps from scene to scene of the riots.

One of the things that amazed me about Smith’s performance was how seamlessly she transitioned from voice to voice in certain segments of the film version.  The bringing together of all these disparate voices also mirrors the bringing together of disparate genres.  She fused the genres of documentary, theater, and poetry to tell the story of a singular instance of violence that changed American history.