Literary Critic Response for "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" by Amiri Baraka

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
THe groud opens up and envelops me
Each time i go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have to come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
ANd when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, therew was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands.


Literary Critic:

When I first read "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note", I was initially intrigued by the title. It along told an intersting story. Perhaps the poem was about someone's attemps and thoughts to a suicide he or she never executed. As I began reading, I observed that the poem read with a pessimistic tone. THe structure, together with the clever selectivity of words, makes the poem emphasize the suicide feelings that is naturally evoked. It is esepcailly interesting to me how at the end, after explaining the solitude in her life, she refers to her daughter praying as somethings strange; "talking to someone.../there was no one there...".