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Brennan Counts

Ms. Gordon

English 101

8 December 2017

Passing Poetic Analysis

Passing is a modern poem written in 1997 by Toi Derricotte, an African American

woman who is an award-winning poet. In the poem, she is a young student who is attending a

Black Literature class that the professor had invited her to recently. During the class,

unknowingly, Derricotte is struggling with racial passing. Racial passing, or "passing", is the

experience of mixed raced individuals, who are accepted as a member of a different racial group,

most often white. Although she is unintentionally passing, she still gains negative remarks from

fellow students of both races, which leads her to contemplating why passing is based on what

someone leaves out, and not on what others fill in. Most of Derricottes work focuses on subjects

like racism and identity, and her style is very candor and moving. She brings the subjects that are

sometimes left in the shadow, into the light and creates a sarcastic mood through her use of

diction, tone, and attitude.

Derricottes choice of words, or diction, contributed greatly to the deeper meaning and

tone of the poem, which made the poem easily understood and influential. Within the first five

lines, the reader can already foreshadow what the poems main topic is going to be about and

generalize the narrators mood toward the subject. A professor invites me to his Black Lit

class; theyre/reading Larsons Passing. One of the black/students says, Sometimes light-

skinned blacks/think they can fool other blacks, /but I can always tell, looking/right through

me. (Derricotte 1-6) Not only did Derricotte set the setting and give the narrator an attitude, but
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she also italicized main words like, Passing (Derricot te 2) and I (Derricotte 5) to give them

emphasis. Her diction continues to play a concrete role in the poem and throughout the rest of the

poem to create the sarcastic tone.

At first, to the common reader, Derricottes sarcastic tone may not be obvious, but after

analysis of the diction, it becomes prominent and almost difficult not to interpret it in a sarcastic

manor. For example, when the narrator describes how the white woman acted toward her after

Derricottes race is made public by another black student, at first in may not seem like a sarcastic

description, but it indeed is. A white woman/ shakes her head desperately, as if/ I had

deliberately deceived her. (Derricotte 10-12) The sarcastic tone is carried through majority of

the poem. Another apparent instance of a sarcastic tone is when Derricotte describes a scene

from the book Passing where a woman is racially passing in a restaurant. Derricotte says,

Though no one checked her at the door-/ Hey, you black? (Derricotte 20-21)

Her attitude, or perspective, adopted towards the main subjects of the poem, racial

passing and identity, becomes evident across the entire poem. She feels negative toward the

subject because in most cases it is assuming someones race instead of asking. She explains that

concept in lines fifteen through seventeen, Why presume/ passing is based on what I leave

out/ and not on what she fill in? (Derricotte 15-17) The context of the quote comes from the

scene of the poem in the black literature class where the white woman assumed Derricotte was

white. Although her attitude is negative, she does not display it in an aggressive or angry way,

and instead shows it through her use of sarcasm in her tone.

Derricotte intentionally used many literary devices, mainly diction, tone and attitude, to

convey her mood toward the main subject and bring light to issues such as assuming race, racial

passing, and racism in general. Passing, along with most of Derricottes work, brings
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awareness and explanation to the wrongness of racism and the manor at which people generally

deal with racial identity. Her work remains to this day relevant and influential to people, and

should be understood respectively.

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Works Cited

Passing : Poetry Out Loud, www.poetryoutloud.org/poems-and-

performance/poems/detail/42878.