Levittown Poem

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Do you know the feeling of breaking through something? Maybe you finally reached a goal, it feels great. Have you ever felt like you broke through something with somebody else? Somebody else’s feelings? Somebody else’s oppression? Imagine being in their place and having their feelings and emotions. Imagine being oppressed with them. It feels like you’re chained to something and you can’t get out, you can’t escape. How would you feel? It isn’t a good feeling to be held somewhere, not able to escape, held against your will. Can you feel what oppressed people feel? Ross Gay can make people feel oppressed with a character with just his words. The imagery he uses makes the reader feel as though they are with the character of his poems. In the poem, …show more content…

Levittown has a bad history of racism, blacks were being harassed and there was an unofficial policy the homes in Levittown were not to be sold to minorities/blacks(ushistoryscene.com). Gay is a black man that grew up in a racist community so he most likely had a hard time living there. Living Levittown influenced many of Gay’s poems with all the racism that went around. Being black and growing up there had to be tough. The history of living there also had an influence on his poems because of all the racism and communism that had happened. Families were threatened from other residence and police didn’t help much. There were mobs of racist townspeople outside of their houses congregating, gathering and staying there day and night(ushistoryscene.com). The knowledge of his towns history influenced Gay’s poems and influenced the way he wrote …show more content…

He uses critical race theory to explain to the reader the oppression the character is going through. It helps the reader understand the situation that the character is in and it helps them realize what’s going on. Gay uses critical race theory because of his childhood and where he grew up. Gay grew up in a place where there was a lot of racism and oppression. He grew up in a place that had a big history of racism where blacks were treated very bad and they were oppressed. Where Gay grew up with all the racism around him that influenced his writing to show people that blacks are not oppressed anymore, to show people that blacks came back from their oppression and to show people that racism a real thing and that it happens all the time. Gay is trying to show everyone that reads his poems that racism is still a thing and that it happens all the time, oppression is still happening. Gay’s childhood was rough, he grew up in a town with racist history. Gay is black and he grew up in a town that was racist towards blacks. His childhood influenced the way he writes his poems a lot. Most of Gay’s poems are on critical race theory because of the fact that he lived in Levittown with a racist

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