In “Leah: in Freedom,” Kendrick uses basic concepts—imagery, structure, and historical accuracy—to achieve her message of never giving up, even in the hardest of circumstances. Throughout “Leah: in Freedom,” Kendrick uses imagery to enhance the understanding of her theme. In the poem, Kendrick utilizes vivid imagery to show both the chases and the punishments. At the beginning of the poem, Leah attempts her first try at running away: “in moles’ holes and wolves’ caves and blackberry patches with my feet skiddin’ and bleedin’ on the thorns” (Kendrick lines 10-14). Leah took charge of her own life. As a slave, she was not in control, so she decided to run away. While she is running away, she realizes the damage it is putting on her …show more content…
When Kendrick started to write The Women of Plums, she knew she wanted to write it about enslaved women: “She became interested in the stories of Black enslaved women, since most of the slave narratives published were by men” (Ferguson 23). Kendrick knew that her poem would be significant because it was a new point of view. Furthermore, Kendrick used narratives of actual women who were enslaved to help provide her with inspiration. Kendrick explained her motivation for the poem: “‘I relied on the narratives to some extent. I would put the name on the top of the page and the poems began coming’” (Ferguson 23). As a method of creating the theme, Kendrick channeled the experiences of actual people who lived in the past because that made her poems more powerful and realistic. Knowing that Leah was a real person allows for readers to interpret Kendrick’s motive more certainty. Additionally, in a Washington Post article about Kendrick, her teaching side was uncovered: “she taught students not to ‘kill’ poems by over-analyzing them” (Smith). As a teacher, Kendrick believed that poems should not be held to a high-level of scrutiny. She wants the theme to be evident without having to analyze the poem for hours. As a poet, she puts the same belief into use. In “Leah: in Freedom,” the simplified message is about Leah’s continual attempt at freedom, so the theme would be to never give