19 pages • 38 minutes read
On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City” is written in unrhymed free verse organized into nine quatrains and a single concluding line. Though it does not follow a set formal metrical pattern, most of the lines feature the unstressed/stressed paired syllables of iambic feet and sounds like conversational English. This pairs with the content of the poem—the speaker is telling a story.
Enjambment in the poem also contributes to the sense that the poem flows naturally like a thought pattern, as the speaker’s inner monologue continues from the end of one quatrain to the next. Adding to this effect, pauses in thought and in spoken words are scattered throughout stanzas.
The gaps also work to create spaces for juxtaposition and irony. In the last line of the opening stanza the other passenger “…points out the window past me” (Line 4). The next quatrain picks up the thought, “into what she has been taught” (Line 5). The shift takes the literal action of pointing out the window at scenery and moves it into questions about landscape, history, perspective, and power in the next stanza. Throughout the poem, the narrative offered by white America is met by the counter-narrative of the Native American speaker.
Repetition
Repetition provides structure and gives the poem a pleasant musicality. Alliteration is in play from the beginning, with the repeated “w” of “White woman” (Line 1), and the repeated “l” and “h” of “look at all the history, that house / on the hill there” (Lines 2-3). Sometimes Alexie’s use of repetition adds a bit of softness to pointed commentary: “I’m tired of hearing about Don-fucking-Henley saving it, too” (Line 22). Sometimes it hammers a point home: “…I know the Indians were living stories / around that pond before Walden’s grandparents were born / and before his grandparents’ grandparents were born” (Lines 19-21). The repetition of words and phrases add emphasis, and focus on history and experience as accretion.
Repetition also suggests the presence of a trap where thoughts, ideas, and systems get stuck in circular ruts. “’Walden Pond, / the woman on the train asks, ‘Did you see Walden Pond?’” (Lines 11-12). She fixates on the place but does not dig deeper. The speaker repeats the word “Walden” four more times. He says, “But I didn’t say a word to the woman about Walden” (Line 26). The phrase, full of repeated sounds, is unvoiced—its argument perhaps unheard.
Narrative Voice
“On the Amtrak” is a lyric poem. Though it is sharing a narrative, much of it is internalized, and the poem centers on the speaker’s perspective. Readers get to know the speaker and view the interactions on the train, and in American more broadly, from the speaker’s point of view."
The voice of the poem is a key facet of the work. It is familiar—contemporary and approachable. The speaker uses pop-culture references, swears, and tells their story in a familiar way that anyone might. The approach allows readers to easily connect with the speaker. This technique allows the tangle of American history, unquestioned privilege, and struggles of identity to move from abstraction to reality, giving the reader the possibility of relating to real people who exist outside of the dominant cultural narrative.
Using relatively relaxed and informal diction helps the poem avoid a didactic tone even as it teaches and asks its readers to think. It establishes potential common ground while it reinforces the need to consider multiple perspectives. As such, Alexie makes room for both humor and criticism in the space of the poem.
Unlock all 19 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Sherman Alexie
