If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso

Gertrude Stein’s “If I Told Him” consists of a single, 91-line stanza. The poem’s line lengths vary wildly. Some lines, such as Lines 3 and 74, contain a single syllable. Other lines, such as Lines 12 and 41, contain over 50 words. These massive inconsistencies from line to line means that the poem does not follow any clear metrical pattern. Instead, the poem shifts form line to line as new thoughts occur to the speaker. Considering the poem’s non-hierarchical approach (See: Poem Analysis), each line is best understood as an individual unit no more or less important than any other. The resulting effect means that the poem’s lines co-exist in a collage rather than in a linear procession.

“If I Told Him” is technically in free verse, an open form of poetry that does not organize itself through meter or rhyme. Stein’s approach, however, is highly idiosyncratic and also removes itself form the speech or grammatical patterns that often help to structure free verse. Instead, the poem is structured around a series of repetitions and variations instead of an established form and meter. The focus of these gnomic repetitions slowly morphs from line to line, giving the work a sense of progress or movement that would otherwise come from grammatical or logical connections.