Blessing (Imtiaz Dharker poem) Literary Elements

The poem is from the point of view of someone recounting the scene of a burst water pipe in an impoverished community afflicted with drought.

The poem is composed of four stanzas of varying length written in free verse. There is no regular rhyme scheme or meter, though there are a few instances of rhyme ("pod" and "god," and "ground" and "around").

Metaphors
-"the voice of a kindly god" (Line 6): The sound of water is compared to the voice of a deity.
-"silver crashes to the ground" (Line 9): The water is compared to silver.

Similes
-"The skin cracks like a pod" (Line 1): Dehydrated skin is compared to a cracking pod.

Alliteration
-"the small splash" (Line 4): The /s/ repeats.
-"Sometimes, the sudden rush" (Line 7): The /s/ repeats.
-"the flow has found" (Line 10): The /f/ repeats.
-"polished to perfection" (Line 20): The /p/ repeats.

Assonance
-"Imagine the drip of it" (Line 3): The /I/ repeats.
-"the sudden rush" (Line 7): The short "u" sound repeats.

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Urban Poetry, Lyric

"Blessing" takes place in a large impoverished urban dwelling area. Though the setting is not explicitly specified, Dharker has stated that "Blessing" refers to Dharavi, India.

Critical, Hopeful

The protagonist includes the community of men, women, and children who gather to collect water from the burst pipe. The antagonist is the drought and all that conspires to keep the community impoverished and in need.

The major conflict in "Blessing" is that during times of drought, the community does not have sufficient access to water.

The climax of the poem occurs in the third stanza when the people gather as a congregation to collect the water from a burst pipe. This is the longest stanza in the poem, and the outpouring of words in these lines reflects the hubbub of the crowd.

The second line of the first stanza reads, "There never is enough water." While this does not explicitly foreshadow anything, it hangs over the rest of the poem. Even when the community can access water, such as when a municipal pipe accidentally bursts, the experience of scarcity and desperation will hang over them.

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The "roar of tongues" and the fact that "every man woman / child for streets around / butts in" to collect the water alludes to how densely populated the neighborhood is.

The "frantic hands" is a synecdoche for the people in the community.

Water is deified when it is referred to as "the voice of a kindly god" and a blessing that sings over the small bones of the children.

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This poem contains examples of onomatopoeia that describe the sound of water: drip, splash, and rush.