The Full Text of “Plaits”
The Full Text of “Plaits”
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“Plaits” Introduction
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New Zealand poet Elizabeth Smither's "Plaits" tells a symbolic story of collaboration and justice. In this short poem, a speaker remembers how she used to wear her hair in two plaits (or braids). The plait on one side of her head was much thicker than the plait on the other—but tied together with a ribbon, the two supported each other, becoming "strong together." The speaker uses this image to imagine how society might ideally work: when the weak and the strong join together, the poem suggests, their strength only multiplies. Smither first collected this poem in her 2013 book The Blue Coat.
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“Plaits” Summary
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The speaker remembers that she used to wear her hair in two plaits (or braids). One was as thick as an anaconda while the other as thin as a little grass snake.
She wore her hair parted on the side, so that the thicker plait was like a bountiful harvest or a waterfall, and the thinner was just a trickling creek.
However, the two plaits were joined together in a friendly way with a broad ribbon tied in a perfectly symmetrical bow.
Tied together like this, the weaker plait and the stronger plait were both strong, their interweaving parts forming one big muscle.
These plaits, hanging down the speaker’s back, taught her a lesson about justice. Though she couldn’t see the plaits, she could feel how they were evenly distributed.
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“Plaits” Themes
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Cooperation, Collaboration, and Equality
In “Plaits,” Elizabeth Smither uses the image of a schoolgirl hairstyle to deliver a “lesson” on cooperation: when the weak and the strong come together, the poem suggests, they both become strong. Just as the speaker’s joined “plaits” (or braids) support each other, human beings can support each other and be “strong together.” “Justice,” in this poem, means just such a collaboration: it’s only when the “strong” and the “weak” unite that people can create a fair world.
The speaker describes how she used to wear her hair when she was a girl: in two “plaits” joined together with a bow. Because her “parting was on one side” (her hair was parted to the side, that is), one of these plaits was thick and heavy, the other thin and scanty. But when the two plaits were brought together and “tied with a wide ribbon / whose loops and bows were equal,” she could feel that the “weak and the strong / were strong together.”
This, the speaker points out, was a “lesson that hung down [her] back,” a metaphor for the way that human society should work. “Justice,” she suggests, involves the strong and the weak coming together, joined in “equal[ity]” and supporting each other. In this vision of the world, the strong shouldn’t oppress, dominate, or neglect the weak. Instead, the strong and the weak should join forces: a greater collective strength comes from everyone working together.
While the speaker doesn’t elaborate on this image further, readers might infer that this “lesson” applies to everything from economic inequality to discrimination against minorities. “Justice”—and the collective “strength” of all societies—demands cooperation and collaboration.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-15
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Plaits”
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Lines 1-6
I had two ...
... thin trickling riverAs the poem begins, the speaker remembers how she used to wear her hair in “two plaits” (or braids), with her “parting on one side” (that is, her hair parted to the side). This cute, girlish hairstyle suggests that the speaker is looking back on her childhood.
Because of that side parting, the speaker remembers, her plaits were of different thicknesses. She uses two metaphors to illustrate this:
- If one plait an “anaconda”—an extremely large snake—the other was a “thin grass snake.”
- If one was a “waterfall,” the other was a “thin trickling river.”
The juxtaposition within these metaphors stresses the ways that these plaits were alike and yet not alike, similar yet imbalanced. They’re both snakes, but one is a gigantic constrictor and the other is a timid little grass snake; they’re both waterways, but one is a gushing torrent and the other is just a trickle.
That juxtaposition between two things that are the-same-but-different will inform this poem’s broader reflections on the ways in which stronger and weaker forces in society can support each other. At the outset of the poem, though, readers just have this image of a little girl’s lopsided braids. This image feels intensely physical, too. It’s as if the speaker can still feel the uneven tug of the heavier and lighter plaits on two sides of her head.
The sounds of the poem support that physicality. For example, the assonant /ih/ sound in “thin trickling river” feels light and frail, suggesting how insubstantial that second plait was.
In these first two stanzas, readers might already have noticed that this free verse poem (a poem without a regular rhyme scheme or meter) itself resembles a plait: each stanza uses three lines of roughly equal length, a repeating pattern that mimics the three even, criss-crossing strands of a braid. One might almost call this a concrete poem, a poem whose shape on the page mimics what it describes (like George Herbert’s Easter Wings, to name one famous example).
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Lines 7-12
but they were ...
... and thick muscle -
Lines 13-15
a lesson that ...
... it was distributed.
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“Plaits” Symbols
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The Plaits
In the poem’s central symbol, a pair of uneven plaits (or braids) joined together into one sturdy hairdo become an image of “justice.” The poem’s speaker describes how, when she was young, she wore her hair in two plaits. Because she had a side parting, these plaits were of different thicknesses. One was heavy and sturdy, the other little and thin.
However, rather than looking lopsided and unequal, these two plaits were “companionably joined” with a ribbon, so that the “weak and the strong / were strong together.” This, the speaker declares, was a “lesson that hung down [her] back.” The fact that these two uneven plaits could come together in “equal[ity],” supporting each other and becoming “strong together” (rather than, say, the thicker plait being weakened or dragged down by the thinner plait), taught her that a just society involves just such a collaborative and fair arrangement between the strong and the weak. The plaits, in other words, become a symbol of “justice” itself. Justice isn’t about an exactly equal balance, in other words, but about uneven parts joining together to create a new collaborative strength.
By making this point through the image of a schoolgirl’s plaits, the speaker suggests that this lesson is one that even a child can instinctively feel to be true.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 1-3: “I had two plaits; one thick / an anaconda plait and the other / more like a thin grass snake.”
- Line 7: “but they were companionably joined”
- Lines 10-12: “The weak and the strong / were strong together, the raised segments / of hair a wide and thick muscle”
- Line 13: “a lesson that hung down my back”
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“Plaits” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Juxtaposition
A big part of this poem’s message comes through its juxtaposition between two plaits (or braids): a thick one and a thin one. This was the hairstyle the poem’s speaker wore as a child, and at first glance, it looks pretty unbalanced. Because the speaker wears her hair parted on the side, one plait is thick and luxuriant; the speaker imagines it as an "anaconda" and a "waterfall." The other is thin and frail, a scrawny "grass snake" and a "trickling river."
These juxtaposed images focus on the way that the speaker’s plaits are both like and unlike. They’re both plaits; their shapes both put the speaker in mind of long, thin things, snakes and waterways. But while they’re the same kind of object, they’re very different in dimension and strength.
This, the poem will go on to symbolically suggest, is exactly what’s true of people in a society. We’re all people, but some of us are stronger than others: some have more money, more power, more social status, more freedom, more rights, etc. The speaker’s major point will be that uniting people across these differences produces one stronger unit. A thin braid and a thick braid together make a single braid that’s even sturdier—and a society that joins together gains in shared power and “equal[ity]” rather than being diminished.
Where juxtaposition appears in the poem:- Lines 1-6: “I had two plaits; one thick / an anaconda plait and the other / more like a thin grass snake. / My parting was on one side / a harvest, a rich waterfall / and a thin trickling river”
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Metaphor
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Repetition
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Assonance
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Enjambment
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"Plaits" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Plaits
- Anaconda
- Companionably
- Distributed
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “I had two plaits”; Line 2: “an anaconda plait”)
Braids. Pronounced "platts."
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Plaits”
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Form
“Plaits” takes its form from its subject matter. The poem’s five stanzas are all tercets (or three-line stanzas) with lines of even lengths—a shape that mirrors the three even strands of a plait (or braid). This shape makes the poem into an image of what it describes. One might even call this a subtle concrete poem: a poem that, printed on the page, forms a picture of what it describes. (See George Herbert’s The Altar or Easter Wings for some other famous examples.) The poem’s regular, repeated three-stranded shape hangs down the page just like the plaits hang down the speaker's back.
Within that shape, Smither uses free verse with no rhyme, giving this poem a thoughtful, conversational tone. The even, unrhymed lines run along at a calm and steady pace, evoking the speaker’s own calm conviction as she describes the important political “lesson” her two schoolgirl plaits (one thicker and one thinner) taught her: the “justice” of the strong and the weak uniting to be “strong together.”
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Meter
“Plaits” is written in free verse, so it doesn’t use a regular meter. Instead, it gets its steady rhythm from lines that are all carefully measured to about the same length. Smither is very precise here: the lines run in a narrow range, five to seven words, never longer and never shorter. This effect produces a measured, reflective tone. There are no surprises in the poem’s pace: it moves along evenly and calmly, making the speaker’s voice feel assured and thoughtful. This regularity supports the measured tone of the poem’s reflections, suggesting that this speaker deeply and calmly believes what she’s saying.
The only little development here is that the longer seven-word lines all come toward the end of the poem. The speaker thus lets her voice take up just a little bit more space as she delivers her concluding message about the “justice” of collaboration and cooperation.
The lines’ even lengths also makes them resemble the three even strands of a plait (or braid), making this a concrete poem: a poem that takes the shape of what it describes.
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Rhyme Scheme
A free verse poem, "Plaits" doesn’t use a rhyme scheme. However, it does contain a flicker of internal rhyme. When the speaker describes her plaits being “tied with a wide ribbon,” that long, echoing /ide/ sound helps to make the line sound as neat and elegant as the speaker’s braided hairdo. This single rhyme, standing out all alone, also draws special attention to the important image of the ribbon, which ties the two uneven plaits together with “loops and bows” that are exactly “equal,” symbolically suggesting that justice involves bringing the weak and the strong together in collaboration and equality.
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“Plaits” Speaker
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The poem’s speaker is a woman looking back at the way a long-ago hairdo taught her something about “justice.” She describes her memories of wearing her hair in two “plaits” (or braids), uneven because she wore a “side parting” (had her hair parted to one side, that is). This cute, childish style suggests she’s remembering her schoolgirl days; certainly she’s not wearing her hair in plaits any more.
But her memory of the way those uneven plaits felt when they were tied together into one strong unit left an impression on her that remains with her to this day. The feeling of the “weak and the strong” sides of her hair becoming “strong together” as one unit helped her to perceive that “justice” involves just such a collaborative union between strong and weak people. Fairness, in other words, involves cooperation, not dominance. This is the kind of lesson one can “feel” but “not see,” she says: the kind of thing you can suss out by instinct, intuition, and example. Her use of her childhood braids to share this lesson with her reader hints, however, that even a child could figure it out.
Readers might reasonably interpret this poem’s speaker as Elizabeth Smither herself, communicating her own heartfelt beliefs.
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“Plaits” Setting
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There’s no clear setting in "Plaits." The image of a little girl wearing her hair in plaits could come from just about any place and any time. If readers choose to read the speaker as Elizabeth Smither herself, then they might imagine the little girl as a New Zealander growing up in the 1940s. Really, though, the setting just doesn’t matter that much here. The poem’s reflections on “justice” are clearly meant to be universal: the speaker is describing a big truth that transcends the boundaries of place and time. Even the metaphors the speaker uses to describe her plaits—snakes, waterfalls, harvests, rivers, muscles—suggest that there’s something simple, organic, and natural about the truths the poem describes.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Plaits”
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Literary Context
Elizabeth Smither (1941-present) is a prolific and respected New Zealand poet and novelist. She has served as New Zealand Poet Laureate and has been honored with prizes including the New Zealand Book Award and the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize. She first published “Plaits” in her 2013 book The Blue Coat.
“Plaits” is a good example of Smither’s characteristic style. Usually writing in free verse, Smither often plays with light, witty images taken from everyday life and then moves beyond these ordinary moments into bigger reflections. She also writes poetry rooted in her native country, reflecting on New Zealand’s colonial history and its haunting landscape. (For a comparative take on New Zealand girlhood, more recent and quite different, readers might want to take a look at the young Māori poet Tayi Tibble.)
Smither has remarked that her favorite poets and greatest influences are “tough” writers like Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson, and Elizabeth Bishop—writers whose strange, sometimes cryptic images and language require you to “use all your senses to crack them open.”
Historical Context
Smither published this poem in 2013, and its reflections on strength and collaboration might speak to contemporary concerns about injustice and discrimination. Smither’s observation that the “weak and the strong” can be “strong together”—presented through the image of a thinner braid and thicker braid uniting to form one bigger, stronger braid—encourages a vision of society in which everyone works together, and particularly one in which stronger or more dominant forces invite weaker or oppressed forces to join with them to form a powerful, mutually supportive alliance.
Such thoughts might have felt particularly relevant and hopeful in 2013 New Zealand. In that year, New Zealand passed laws legalizing same-sex marriage—a perfect example of cooperation and equality winning out over exclusion and separation. But perhaps the poem also offers a “lesson” to an increasingly divided world, a warning that “justice” demands unity and mutual support over factionalism and suspicion.
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More “Plaits” Resources
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External Resources
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A Brief Biography — Learn more about Smither's work via Poetry New Zealand.
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An Interview with Smither — Read an interview with Smither from the Academy of New Zealand Literature.
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More of Smither's Work — Listen to Smither reading some of her poems aloud.
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Smither on Her Favorite Writers — Watch a short video interview with Smither in which she discusses some of her favorite writers.
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