Imitation 3: The Bottle

Gil Scott-Heron’s The Bottle is a powerful piece of spoken word that addresses the issue of alcohol abuse. Scott-Heron wrote this in a time when black ghettos (which had previously had a great deal of community) were slowly being destroyed without being replaced. As a result many African Americans found themselves facing even more trouble with finances and with just trying to find a place to live as their opportunities were limited. This sparked a rise in drug abuse as an escape from a system that didn’t want them. Scott-Heron addresses the issue of one of the oldest forms of drug abuse by telling stories of alcoholics he had known ranging from his father, to a girl he knew and eventually to him. There is an emphasis on “the bottle” which refers to a bottle of alcohol. He creates this emphasis using repetition at the end of many of his lines as opposed to rhymes. Despite this there is a good deal of both in line rhyming and end line rhyming. Still Scott-Heron relies heavily on the repetition however; he emphasizes how when you are “…livin in the bottle” all one care cares about is getting drunk. That’s why the poem has this feel that it’s all about the bottle. The poem is very narrative containing three different stories that help stress how many people with alcohol abuse issues Scott-Heron knew (even touching on his own abuse with it). He also makes use of metaphor such as referring to the US government as the “dollar eagle”. It is this sort of language that makes his poetry more dramatic and impactful. When his wording is so poetic it makes you take what he has to say more seriously even when he’s claiming to be an alcoholic in the poem.