Essex Hemphill's Commitments

Commitments Essex Hemphill was a gay African American poetry writer. He focused on issues like identity, race, sexuality, AIDS, and his family throughout his poems. The poem “Commitments” was published in his book “Ceremonies” in 1992. This poem he wrote to show his relationships with his family and how he keeps his sexuality a secret from them. Essex Hemphill uses detailed imagery, repetition, and symbolism in “Commitments” to illustrate that on the outside he makes everything appear normal, but on the inside he feels alone because his family does not understand him or his sexuality. Hemphill uses detailed imagery in his poem to describe what the background of his family photos look like. An example of this is in stanza 2. “In the background

Once they vision the scene in their head, they can better relate it to one of their own family barbecues or holiday celebrations. They can now see that Hemphill and his family appear to be happy and like to spend time bonding with each other, like most other families. Hemphill uses his smile as a symbol to show that in photos he appears to be happy with his life, but internally he is filled with loneliness and confusion about his sexuality. “When the photographs are examined I will be pictured smiling among siblings, parents, nieces and nephews.” (Hemphill 3-6)

This lets readers know he appears to be joyful, just like the rest of his family members.

In the last line of “Commitments” Hemphill wrote, “I smile as I serve my duty.” He used this line to illustrate that he smiles because he believes it is his responsibility to look happy for his family, so he does not worry them with his homosexuality or any internal problems he has going on. Hemphill uses repetition of the phrase, “My arms are empty” to convey that he feels sad and lonely.

“In the photos the smallest children are held by their parents

My arms are empty, or around the shoulders of unsuspecting

Family members are the first people you are able to develop a relation with. If you do not build a strong healthy relationship with them, then how will you be able to build a relationship with anyone else? Hemphill is informing us that his relationships with his family are not the best, so he is afraid he will not be able to hold onto a relationship with a lover. This makes him sad because he does not want to go through life without a partner. Hemphill uses many strong poetic devices to illustrate his emotions in his poems. After reading “Commitments”, you can understand that Hemphill does not like when his family sees him upset or confused about his sexuality. That is why he keeps all of his lonely emotions bottled up inside him and keeps a grin on his face all the time to appear like everything is