Chapter 16: Modern Sudanese Poetry — Summary, Themes, and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Chapter 16, titled “Modern Sudanese Poetry,” is a single, dense poem that unfolds as a meditation on grief, language, and identity. The speaker begins with a domestic image: her husband works his fingers into a knot in her spine, a physical tension that mirrors the emotional and linguistic knots she carries. While he does this, she observes that her dead remain dead—there is no resurrection, only the persistent presence of loss. Her hair is described as a “knotted cursive language,” and her amulets are knotted around her neck and wrists, suggesting that her body itself is bound to memory and ritual.

The speaker’s language is characterized as cursive, silent, glottal, and knotted—qualities that evoke both the physical shape of Arabic script and the difficulty of expressing grief. She reads books in translation, circling every word she recognizes: acacia, lupin, sandalwood, ash. These words are sensory anchors, connecting her to a homeland she may no longer inhabit. Her dead ululate—a traditional mourning cry—and squat like brides over clay pots of smoke, an image that blends mourning with marriage and ritual.

A crucial turn occurs when the speaker acknowledges that some of her dead are not actually dead; rather, she herself is the one who is lost, not counted among the living. This inversion shifts the poem’s focus from the deceased to the speaker’s own displacement. She declares that the poem is not owed to her, and that she was wed in all the colors of her dead—the reddening, the borrowed gold—suggesting that her marriage is intertwined with ancestral loss.

The speaker then describes writing the poem in translation, in the loophole, in cursive. She snarled it, picked apart threads, and wove a shroud—an act of creation that is also an act of mourning. She unfastened and broke her fast with apricots, which are furred like the ears of her dead. She looked laterally for ancestors, descending left and right, searching for connection. Finally, she reads the book in Arabic, knowing each letter and its sound, yet failing to recognize the words for “tallow” and “ululate.” Her languages and ligatures smoke in her loosened hair, leaving her in a state of unresolved in-betweenness.

Key Events

The speaker’s husband massages a knot in her spine while she reflects on her dead.
Her hair and amulets are described as knotted, linking her body to language and ritual.
She reads books in translation, circling familiar words like acacia, lupin, sandalwood, and ash.
Her dead ululate and squat like brides over clay pots of smoke, with a yolk suspended in each open eye.
The speaker realizes that some of her dead are not dead; she herself is the one lost and not counted among the living.
She states that the poem is not owed to her, and that she was wed in the colors of her dead.
She writes the poem in translation, in cursive, snarling it, picking apart threads, and weaving a shroud.
She reads the book in Arabic, knowing each letter and sound, but does not recognize the words for “tallow” or “ululate.”
Her languages and ligatures smoke in her loosened hair, ending the poem on an image of dissolution.

Character Development

The poem’s speaker undergoes a subtle but profound internal shift. Initially, she is positioned as a mourner, someone who carries her dead through physical and linguistic knots. Her husband’s touch is present but does not ease her; instead, it highlights the tension in her spine. As the poem progresses, she moves from observing her dead to recognizing her own lostness—she is the one who is not counted among the living. This realization reframes her grief: it is not only for the dead but for herself, for her own displacement and inability to fully inhabit any language or identity.

Her relationship to language evolves as well. She reads in translation, circling words she knows, but later reads in Arabic and fails to recognize certain terms. This suggests a fracture between her inherited language and her lived experience. She writes the poem in translation, in a loophole, indicating that she exists in a space between languages and cultures. By the end, her languages and ligatures smoke in her loosened hair—a dissolution that implies both release and loss. The speaker is not static; she moves from a state of knotted tension to a loosening that is ambiguous, neither fully healing nor fully destructive.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Grief and Mourning: The poem is saturated with images of death and mourning—the dead who remain dead, the ululation, the shroud woven from threads. Grief is not resolved but carried in the body, as seen in the knot in the speaker’s spine.

Language and Translation: The speaker’s struggle with language is central. She reads in translation, circles known words, and later fails to recognize Arabic terms. This highlights the untranslatability of certain experiences and the gap between knowing a language and feeling it.

Knots as Connection and Constraint: Knots appear throughout—in the spine, in hair, in amulets, in cursive script. They symbolize both the binding of memory and tradition and the constriction of grief. The speaker’s loosened hair at the end suggests a release from these knots, but also a loss of structure.

Ancestral Connection to the Dead: The dead are not distant; they are present through ululation, squatting like brides, and through the speaker’s wedding colors. The speaker looks laterally for ancestors, suggesting a search for lineage that is not linear but multidirectional.

Displacement and Loss of Self: The speaker’s realization that she is the one who is lost, not counted among the living, speaks to a profound sense of displacement. She exists in an in-between space, neither fully alive nor fully connected to her heritage.

Poetry as Inheritance: The poem itself is described as not owed to the speaker, yet she writes it in translation, weaving a shroud. This suggests that poetry is both an inheritance and a burden—something she must create even when it feels unearned.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 16 is a pivotal moment in Girls That Never Die because it crystallizes the book’s central concerns: the intersection of personal grief, cultural identity, and the limits of language. The poem’s title, “Modern Sudanese Poetry,” signals a self-reflexive engagement with the tradition the speaker both inherits and struggles to claim. By placing the speaker in a state of lostness, the chapter challenges the idea that mourning is only for the dead—it can also be for the self, for a language that no longer feels like home.

The chapter also deepens the book’s exploration of translation and untranslatability. The speaker’s inability to recognize the words for “tallow” and “ululate” in Arabic underscores how certain cultural and sensory experiences resist easy transfer. This resonates with the book’s broader themes of diaspora and the search for belonging. Finally, the poem’s imagery of knots and loosening hair provides a powerful metaphor for the tension between holding on to heritage and letting go—a tension that runs throughout the entire collection.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the speaker’s relationship to language change over the course of the poem?

Initially, the speaker reads books in translation and circles words she knows, such as acacia, lupin, sandalwood, and ash—words that evoke sensory memory and homeland. Later, she reads the book in Arabic, knowing each letter and its sound, but she does not recognize the words for “tallow” or “ululate.” This shift shows that her connection to Arabic is incomplete; she knows the mechanics of the language but not the full cultural and emotional vocabulary. Her writing in translation and in a “loophole” further emphasizes that she exists between languages, unable to fully inhabit either.

2. What is the significance of the speaker being “not counted among the living”?

This line inverts the expected relationship between the living and the dead. The speaker realizes that some of her dead are not actually dead—rather, she herself is the one who is lost. This suggests that her grief has consumed her identity to the point where she feels disconnected from life. It also speaks to the experience of diaspora or displacement, where one can feel invisible or unacknowledged in a new cultural context. The statement reframes the poem from a lament for the dead to a lament for the self.

3. How do knots function as a symbol in the poem?

Knots appear in multiple forms: the knot in the speaker’s spine, her knotted hair, knotted amulets, and the knotted cursive of her language. These knots represent both connection and constraint. They bind the speaker to her ancestors, her grief, and her cultural traditions, but they also restrict her, causing physical and emotional tension. The poem ends with her languages and ligatures smoking in her loosened hair, suggesting a release from these knots—yet this loosening is ambiguous, as it may also signify a loss of identity or grounding.