Cynthia in the Snow

Snow takes up a large amount of the poem, becoming a character in itself, representing whiteness as seen by the poem’s speaker, a young Black girl named Cynthia. The snow has a quieting effect as it “sushes” and “hushes” (Lines 1-2) much like whiteness oppresses and quiets the voices of Black people. It can move with intention, shown as it “twitter-flitters” (Line 4) away from Cynthia. It laughs, like a person would, mentioned twice, as the narrator says “it laughs away from me” (Line 5) and “it laughs a lovely whiteness” (Line 6). These personified actions have an antagonistic quality: The snowflakes distance themselves from the girl observing them, and their laughter excludes her or is possibly at her expense.

The snow is also inaccessible; when it leaves to go “some otherwhere” (Line 9), Cynthia feels that it is “so beautiful it hurts” (Line 11). The young girl longs for its whiteness to remain, but is aware that she is catching the snow in a moment not intended for her. She feels a sense of inadequacy. However, even as the snow “sushes” and “hushes,” she remains unsilenced, willing to express her hurt and desire. In her 1964 forward to the collection New Negro Poets: USA, edited by Langston Hughes, Brooks wrote: “Every Negro poet has ‘something to say’ […] His mere body, for that matter, is an eloquence. His quiet walk down the street is a speech to the people. Is a rebuke, is a plea, is a school.” Cynthia’s quiet walk down the street is “an eloquence” in this sense. Her expression of joy and longing is a rebuke of the snow’s white quieting.