Cane

“Cotton Song” is the longest poem thus far in Cane, with five stanzas, each with four lines. As its title connotes, it is a song featuring a refrain (or “chorus”) saying that “God’s body got a soul” and encouraging listeners and fellow singers to “come, brother, roll, roll!” (11). The song blends Christian religious themes (such as God, Judgment Day, “weary sinners”) with work commands (like “roll away!” and “let’s lift it”). “Cotton Song” is modeled after the work songs typically sung by the enslaved in the American South while they worked on plantations, as well as by rural sharecroppers and field workers in the post-emancipation period. The “Cotton Song,” then, is written as though sung by men working on a cotton plantation.

Like many other short story chapters, “Carma” begins with an epigraph. This epigraph describes wind blowing through sorghum cane stalks. The sound is likened to talk and singing. The story begins with Carma, a Black woman in overalls heading home on a dust road with a mule and wagon. Carma is “strong as any man” (13). The narrator steps out to watch her pass by.