25 pages 50 minutes read

Margaret Walker

Love Song for Alex, 1979

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1989

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. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Poem Analysis

Analysis: “Love Song for Alex, 1979”

“Love Song for Alex, 1979” is a sonnet in that it has 14 lines, but it isn’t a strict sonnet, as it doesn’t have a set rhyme scheme. The poem rhymes until Line 10 with an ABCBDEFFE rhyme scheme, and there are no rhymes from Lines 10-14. Half the lines have 10 syllables that alternate between unstressed and stressed (Lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 14), four lines have 11 syllables (Lines 4, 8, 11, 12), two have 12 (Lines 10, 13), and one has 13 (Line 7), but they roughly follow the 10 syllables of iambic pentameter. The poem has a first-person narrator, likely Margaret Walker, as it is often considered a poem to her husband Firnist Alexander. Some sources say Walker wrote the poem for Alexander after his death, but the title (1979) shows that either it was written a year before his death, or she wrote it as though he were still alive.

The sonnet begins with some terms of endearment, highlighted by possessive wording: “my sweet patootie” (Line 1). Walker simultaneously expresses her feelings for the man and characterizes him for the

blurred text

blurred text

Related Titles

By Margaret Walker

Study Guide

logo

Childhood

Margaret Walker

Childhood

Margaret Walker

Study Guide

logo

Jubilee

Margaret Walker

Jubilee

Margaret Walker