In Lewis Allen's poetic work "Strange Fruit,” he utilizes a simplistic metre and sometimes-naive rhyme scheme that mirrors the stupid, and brutal treatment of Black Americans in the southern United States during the last 250 years of institutionalised racism. Allen's simple and poignant statement regarding the duality existing within "the land of the free and the home of the brave,” as a yet unrealised dream for Black Americans, rings as true today as it did in 1939 when Billie Holliday first recorded it.




Lewis Allen had multiple social crimes working against him. First, he was a Jew and he, as many Jews living in the pre world war II America, was aware of what was happening to Jews in Europe and the U.S. complacency regarding anti-Semitic actions by the Nazis. Second, he was an outspoken critic of the failing American justice system and rampant hypocrisies therein. His second line in the first stanza "blood on the leaves and blood at the root " was quite possibly a play on words intended to mock the Thomas Jefferson Statement; "Occasionally the Tree of liberty has to be watered with the blood of Tyrants and Patriots.” What Allen was commenting on in this particular line, was that America had been built on the blood and suffering of others, and that legacy of pain will surely reap a "bitter crop.” This incredibly harsh and stark statement, delivered in the metre of a nursery rhyme, is both ironic and brilliant. Whereas, “singsong” lyrical poetry usually depicts beauty, Allen describes pain and abandonment, abandonment of the sons and daughters of this failed American dream. Ultimately, who better to speak against this failure of lady liberty than one of her sons? "Truth and justice for all" seem as much of a fairy tale as the "pastoral scene of the gallant south.”

The work "Strange Fruit" is divided into three four-line stanzas, or quatrains. Each with two rhyming couplets arranged in the classic iambic pentameter of the closed couplet variety, except in the final stanza where he switches to one continuous en-jammed statement. Allen’s first two stanzas are end-stopped rhyming couplets. Taken by themselves each couplet is vaguely reminiscent of the duality Allen's work hints at, as the second line in each couplet balance the soft sibilance of the first with hard consonant repetition. With the use of simple language usually used to describe fauna, juxtaposed against the harshness of visceral images, Allen immediately gives the reader the sense that something is drastically wrong with this "pastoral scene of the gallant south"


"Southern trees bearing a strange fruit,” within this opening line occurs one of two tetrameters, the other being the closing line: “here is a strange and bitter crop.” Quite possibly Allen’s intention with this, opening and closing tetrameter, was to illustrate the cyclic nature of hatred and its self-perpetuating prophecy. Taken into consideration with the natural motif he maintains throughout the work his metaphor regarding human actions as producing “fruits” is a unique and powerful image. With the opening line Allen portrays, via a troche variation, a distinct location and event that seem curious and out of place, much as this eight-syllable tetrameter is out of place with the rest of the poem In fact this entire stanza paints this disturbing, yet a strangely familiar picture. This abhorrent image of natural beauty, sanguine and complacent, acts like a literary car accident. We the reader wants to turn away, but cannot for the morbid curiosity within us all compels us to venture further into this ugly reality Allen so painfully paints for us with the printed word. Additionally, the natural metre of iambic pentameter has the flow and ebb of nature and the cyclic pattern of life. What sense we the reader gain from this effortless grace is that of simplicity, as with the dawn of a new day. However, this new day's light begins to shed the shadows that conceal the ugly truth of a national shame. In Allen's America, "Strange Fruit" was not only a political statement by a card-carrying member of the U.S. Communist party; it also served as a purely altruistic and humane way of affecting some social change.

Stanza two begins with the sarcastic statement "Pastoral scene of the gallant south." This line serves as a direct attack on a sacred American institution and historical fallacy. This Affront on the fictionalised version of history has been the vanguard of misplaced American idealism for far to long. This seemingly straightforward line serves as the Volta for this work. As Allen slams the reader with the ugliness of reality, in the next line "bulging eyes and twisted mouth.” This hard consonant and multi syllabic line delivers the “one two” punch of cold hard truth. A staccatic cacophony of hard consonant sounds delivers his overtly disgusted and regretful message. Within this stanza and Allen's harsh juxtaposition of images and sounds, I feel he achieves his most dramatic depiction of the duality or dichotomy in American culture. Upon closer inspection of these lines, the reader realizes the sibilance in the first line is contrasted by the hard consonants of the second. The soft sounds and images of "scent of magnolia sweet and fresh" are slammed against the corporeal horrors of "burning flesh.” These last two lines in stanza two come as close to perfection as Allen gets within the body of this work.
"Scent of magnolia clean and fresh,” "then the sudden smell of burning flesh” Brilliant on its own accord, becomes more so in the body of the text as a whole. Allen uses the soft sibilance usually reserved for the murmurings of a lullaby to describe the sickness and apathy pandemic in American culture. This second stanza is almost a lamentation to lady liberty, "why have you forsaken me? How can we the people of this nation turn away from this basic truth? I commend my spirit in self righteous suicide, and you have forsaken me!"

From this epiphany of horrors the reader is cast into the third stanza. This last stanza speaks of the disposable society that casts aside human life like refuse for the scavengers "here is a fruit for the crows to pluck.” Allen's tone switches here to one not unlike the detached tone of a reporter who is describing a scene so horrific they are only able to assimilate what they see by acting in the third person. Is this a possible warning by Allen on the bitter crop of dissatisfaction and anger surely to follow, "You reap what you sow?” Possibly, but more likely a warning, a possible future not yet set in stone. A desperate plea to mend the ways that have brought such misery and polemics to a nation he so obviously loves and cherishes. If this last statement is taken as truth then the entire works takes on a different light. Allen's simple nursery rhyme approach to such an important topic makes sense, as he is obviously delivering a simple message to an audience unable to make sense of it on their own. Accordingly he adopts a tone suitable to the childish and unenlightened masses in this sea of humanity. Hence, this childish and naive rhyme schemes, serves as not only a statement on the idiocy of the situation, but also as a direct pejorative against the citizens who permit such obscene behaviour to continue.