During the pandemic, everyone was suffering one form of grief or another. Many had lost family members or loved ones as well as the freedom to travel. This pandemic is a disaster that all humanity is suffering from, with no one left out. However “If The Trees Can Keep Dancing, So Can I,” a community poem compiled by Kwame Alexander identifies the different kinds of experiences of grief during the pandemic and links them to grief. The speaker shifts from a bleak to an uplifting tone to demonstrate that, although we are all suffering from grief, we can connect with others to share experiences to cope with the deaths, lack of freedom, and loneliness that the pandemic brought. 

The poem begins by describing all the different kinds of grief with the use of repetition, comparison, and diction setting up a bleak tone. The first line “What I am learning about grief” (1) is repeated many times throughout the poem. Every time this phrase has repeated the lines attached to its change to show the different forms of loss we experienced during the pandemic. For instance, grief “can come like a whisper or storm through loud as thunder” (18), it can be loud and emotional or something subtle that sneaks up and stays around all the time. Next it changes to “a hauntingly familiar song” (4), which demonstrates that grief has many forms. Each time “What I am Learning about grief” (1) is repeated, it is also another person, from the community, explaining what kind of grief is experienced as the poem is compiled from many people's different experiences[AP]. This shapes grief as something always trying to surprise people, and each time it has a new way of causing pain: grief “Comes in the dark steals the warmth from the bed” (3), “And, It chokes you” (16). The lines following the repetition pictures grief as a representation of many kinds of pain to show that there are many kinds of loss, especially during the pandemic, an extremely unstable period[AP]. 

To further create this painful depiction of grief, the poem uses comparison to compare grief to many things such as a creature, song, or person. Grief “Visits, then visits again” (8) and “Reaches out her tiny claws/And bats my ankles” (11-12). This comparison describes grief as a mysterious creature that will come back over and over again to “bat” and hurt them. These devices, which compare grief to creature, also describe grief as something terrifying coming from outside the mind, explaining that grief is outside of people’s control and we cannot not prevent it from happening. Grief is also compared to someone around us that we see everyday: “Grief shows up unannounced/Like when your husband tells you last October/That he's never loved you” (46-48). No one wants grief in their life but comparing grief as something all around us tells the fact that it is unavoidable and unpredictable causes a bleak and hopeless feeling as it is difficult to enjoy life without being in grief. Deeping this hopeless feeling, the speaker describes grief with harsh words: “hauntingly familiar” (4) and “Grief sneaks up” (13). The usage of diction describes grief as something fearful, mysterious, and deadly, and a large section of this poem has these negative connotations, which give the readers an idea that grief is something hard or even impossible to deal with, thus expressing hopelessness and discouraging to the reader creating a bleak tone. The combination of these three devices, repetition, comparison, and diction, creates the tone of bleakness and the inevitable of grief; however, it does help readers see the different kinds of grief around us during the pandemic[SCT]. 

The bleak tone at the beginning helps shape grief as something fearful and deadly that is a part of everyone’s life, but with the use of rhyme and change in pronouns, the poem shifts to an uplifting tone by showing how grief can also be used by people to connect and support each other. The speaker shifts the tone from bleak to uplifting after “Knead grief, as you would bread/ Weave grief, as you would thread” (65-66). This is the only obvious rhyme in the whole poem which brings the reader's attention to these specific lines. The speaker changes from the description of the nature of grief to wanting people to work with grief. The rhyme reveals that the solution can be as simple as threading or kneading, something that people do all the time. Both threading and kneading can take time to do and won’t give that quick satisfaction to people; however, when it is completed it gives the sense of enjoyment and accomplishment as you spend the time making clothes and bread by hand rather than buying them[SCT]. This process can be applied to grief as the solution is simple and can be inspiring for people who are still suffering in grief as it is clear that there is hope. 

Then a shift happens from singular pronoun to collective pronoun to express the uplifting tone: “What I'm learning about grief/I learned a long time ago” (63-64) to “but in these times it is something we have” (68). This shift in pronouns helps the readers to have a connection with the poem by using “we” to better include everyone who is reading to express that everyone is going through the same things. The switch to “we” also explains that the speaker wants us to connect to other people, even though the majority of the poem is about one person but now it is clear that “I am” not the only one [ADVSC]. After building this connection with the poem, it can then give the advice of “acknowledge its presence/its many forms and guises/Then, to use it, while reaching out/Connected to everyone who is braving this same storm” (76-79). The change in pronouns better includes the readers which can feel warm to the reader as the speaker is acknowledging their struggles. Thus readers, suffering from grief, will want to try out the solution and to cope with the difficult situation and help others and themselves[PrPP]. Despite many bleak passages at the beginning of the poem, the speaker actually uses them to lead the audience back to the tone of uplifting as the speaker is trying to educate the readers, and the bleakness expressed earlier is just a way for readers to identify with the poem. 

Grief has become a daily part of many people’s lives during the pandemic, and Kwame Alexander wants us to recognize the forms of grief and to better comprehend them and make grief a part of our life and use it to our advantage. Grief may be shaped as something deadly and fearful that causes pain, it teaches the readers to look back and reflect and eventually strive towards getting past the pain while connecting with others. The poem itself is a sign of inspiration as it is a community poem compiled from different people’s experiences and that form demonstrates that the community is going through an experience of loss.