Masks

With a direct, authoritative tone, the poem opens with a declaration concerning a person and the color of her skin. The person isn’t named but referred to as “she” (Lines 1, 4). The “she” is a character, which turns the poem into a narrative poem—a poem that narrates a story, typically (if implicitly) to an audience.

The blue skin is integral to the story. The “She” (Line 1) “had blue skin” (Line 1). Blue is a symbol that links to a musical genre originating from African American artists in the Deep South. In the late 1800s, a new type of music developed: “It was usually one singer accompanied by a guitar and characterized by ‘bent’ or ‘blue’ notes, not on the standard scale,” explains Stephanie Hall in “The Painful Birth of Blues and Jazz“ (2017). Hall adds, “The songs expressed a longing, loss, or desire and came to be called ‘the blues.’” In 1810, the German author Johan Wolfgang von Goethe published Theory of Colours, wherein he writes, “[The color blue] may be said to disturb rather enliven.