In the poem Epitaph by Dennis Scott, the poetic voice is a descendant of a black slave and speaks on the behalf

of other descendants. By writing this poem Dennis Walcott is giving honour to the dishonoured mistreated black slave. The first stanza tells us about the unfair gruesome disrespectful treatment the black slaves endured. They hanged him on a clement morning emphasizes the white slave owners rendition of control over the slaves. Breathing like an apostrophe to pain representing the pain that was omitted to history and the way the hung man was positioned. The emotional impact of the hanging results in the children's "hushed" hopscotch joy," and the "women's breathing," the speaker highlights the physical and emotional effects of the hanging balanced against nature's indifference, " the cane kept growing" and the slave becomes part of the oral histories of so-called Negro spirituals, swinging "sweet and low." What the white records failed to produce were the suffuring of the black slaves. In stanza two the narrator remanises on the death of the foreparents and the unfair treatment they endured. The anger so great that it is personified. The rememberance of what was omitted in white history.

POETIC DEVICES
Contrast There is contrast present in the poem Epitaph by
Dennis Scott. Stanza one shows a contrast between a beautiful

thing and an awful one. They hanged him on a clement morning shows this. The bright pleasant morning contrasting with the gruesome act

Similie the womens breathing like a black apostrophe to

pain is a present similie.

Punctuation Diction Denis Scott accentuates the fact that he

is retelling the black story as a tribute to the black slaves pain that was omitted in white history