It was yesterday morning
I looked in my box for mail.
The letter that I found there
Made me turn right pale.
Just a little old letter,
Wasn’t even one page long—
But it made me wish
I was in my grave and gone.
I turned it over,
Not a word writ on the back.
I never felt so lonesome
Since I was born black.
Just a pencil and paper,
You don’t need no gun or knife—
A little old letter
Can take a person’s life.
C’était hier matin
J’ai regardé dans ma boîte au lettres
La lettre que j’ai trouvé
M’as fait devenir brusquement pâle.
Juste une vielle petite lettre
Qui n’était pas plus longue qu’une page
Mais m’a fait regretter
De ne pas être dans ma tombe
Je l’ai retourné
Aucun mot ne paressait au verso
Je ne me suis jamais sentit aussi seul
Depuis que je suis née noir
Il faut juste un crayon et un stylo
On n’a ni besoin de pistolet encore moins de couteau
Une vielle petite lettre
Peut arracher une vie.
¡The poem was written by Langston Hughes, we can find it in Selection Poems in the selection entitled « Lament over love » . This fragment explains that the narrator complains about love and the pain that love can provoke .
The title creates a letter intimacy and the title encourages the reader to the curiosity
About the time we just know that it’s was « Yesterday moring » . We can infer that the scene takes place in the narrator as he recalls his letter box at . This poem is timeless .
We can note that the speaker is a black person because of « since I was born black » but we don’t know who is it and if it’s a man or a woman who is speaking .
There are 4 stanzas composed of 4 lines .
One can notice that in each stanza only the second and fourth lines rime .
« Wasn’t even one page long » there is an alliteration of « o » which indeed weihghing .
« Just a pencil and paper » there is an aliteration of « p » which symbolizes the pain and anger .
« Made me turn right pale » shows the physical breakdown of the narrator .
The 2nd stanza shows regret of being born because he speaks of" grave"
The 3rd reflectd the same disgust and regret to be born black , it’s a rejection , a denial
The last stanza explains the change with the simple fact that a letter had destroyed his life
We can suppose that is a letter which announces a breaking . Since the narrator says he has never felt so alone since he was born black as if he had lost his own half . In addiction , there is a gradation of feeling pain over the discovery of this letter . IT seems TO HAVE changed its life and his wordlview . It could almost driven him to suicide because he says he regrets being still on earth.
In the last stanza , the narrator insists on words . Indeed the way words are more painful , more harmful and damage more than any weapon because words are scars that remain anchored to life on paper . The narrator describes the letter for example : « Little Old Letter » or when he returns and sees nothing on the back . The description in only « physical » as the description of a person that can make us think if personification . But at no time the recipient of the letter is mentionned , or ever explained, summarized in its content . Moreover everything collapses around him, he is alone and he certainly has to leave .. So second annihilation! His solitude is accentuated when he reads his letter, the context is that when we reads a letter it must be alone, because the reading of a bill must be intimate, so you face this situation alone and in the poem shows his despair.
To finish , we can remark the alliteration of « L » in the the title which means lamentation and suffering
•We can say they are around us and that we are the most expressive that can changes us . Here the narrator has lost his marks and the identification is truly easy because each of us can identify with this testimony . One feels the pain of the past because this letter is a milestone in the life of the narrator . The mention of the suicide and weapons announces certainly a tragic end .
