Margaret Walker’s poem “Childhood” talks about the speaker’s life and alludes to life in the south for African Americans in the line, “I also lived in low cotton country….where sentiment and hatred still held sway and only bitter land was washed away.” It has a lot of rhyming at the end of the stanzas and lines. The poem talks a lot about mining and the bad conditions of the mines.
After reading “After the Winter” by Claude McKay, I found out that he came here from Jamaica. He was a head figure in a revolution for racial rights and equal economic rights in the Harlem Renaissance. He also used his poetry to convince people and move people.
I read “Always Something More Beautiful” by Stephen Dunn. It written in a way that makes it seem as if it is about running, but I think it represents life when it says, “some feral distraction down a side path, allowing myself to pursue something odd or beautiful, becoming acquainted with a few of the ways not to blame myself for failing to succeed”. The poem is a sestet and all of the stanzas follow that form.
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It has an apostrophe when it talks about the girls. It has an A, B, A rhyme scheme, and 4 lines in every stanza. The meaning of this poem to me is the decisions that can completely change your life.
Linda Pastan’s poem “The Obligation to be Happy” reflects her dissatisfaction with being a house-wife and feeling that her true talent wasn’t being shown. She is Jewish and grew up in the Bronx and writes about how this affected her. She put writing on hold for her family, but soon started up
Claude McKay was born on September 15th 1890, in the West Indian island of Jamaica. He was the youngest of eleven children. At the age of ten, he wrote a rhyme of acrostic for an elementary-school gala. He then changed his style and mixed West Indian folk songs with church hymns. At the age of seventeen he met a gentlemen named Walter Jekyll, who encouraged him to write in his native dialect. Jekyll introduced him to a new world of literature. McKay soon left Jamaica and would never return to his homeland.
The poem is written in the style of free verse. The poet chooses not to separate the poem into stanzas, but only by punctuation. There is no rhyme scheme or individual rhyme present in the poem. The poems structure creates a personal feel for the reader. The reader can personally experience what the narrator is feeling while she experiences stereotyping.
...did through his poems. Although the themes of slavery, past and longing were depicted in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems, he provided a different aspect in each one; portraying ‘A Drowsy Day’ of a lonely reminiscent narrator, who was trapped in their confined home as well as their mind, being unable to escape from the constant swirl of memories. He uses ‘An Old Memory’ to convey the past as positive and full of hope, although disappointed by his present day, the past remained to have a ‘subtle charm’ – contrastingly in ‘Sympathy’, the poet describes the past as ‘cruel’, thus portraying it in a more dark and unwelcome light. Arthur Miller portrays the past as full of regret for Biff, but also of ambition for his father. All of these texts portrayed the past as a place where identity was stronger, however it could be argued that the past was where slaves had no identity.
Fulfilling the roles of both mother and breadwinner creates an assortment of reactions for the narrator. In the poem’s opening lines, she commences her day in the harried role as a mother, and with “too much to do,” (2) expresses her struggle with balancing priorities. After saying goodbye to her children she rushes out the door, transitioning from both, one role to the next, as well as, one emotion to another. As the day continues, when reflecting on
In “We Real Cool,” by Gwendolyn Brooks, one can almost visualize a cool cat snapping his fingers to the beat, while she is reading this hip poem. Her powerful poem uses only a few descriptive words to conjure up a gang of rebellious teens. Brooks employs a modern approach to the English language and her choice of slang creates a powerful jazz mood. All of the lines are very short and the sound on each stop really pops. Brooks uses a few rhymes to craft an effective sound and image of the life she perceives. With these devices she manages to take full control of her rhyme and cultivates a morally inspiring poem.
Claude Mckay was a jamaican poet, a huge figure in the Harlem Renaissance, he wrote many books that have been published and he was apart in the civil rights movement even though at the time he was not an American citizen. One of his most famous quotes was “ If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.” I think what he was trying to say was you need to be individualised before you can be trusted to help other people. This is why I think he is such an important person because he is not just a poet or a writer but he puts what he writes in to his everyday life. Claude Mckay was an important person in American history because he helped with civil rights he was a major part in the Harlem Renaissance he was an amazing poet and he wrote many books but most importantly he used his writings ho not just change America but to change the world.
Feminist authors often tend to cast strict gender roles throughout their writings. Socially, economically, and politically it is known that women will always be inferior to men and these authors demonstrate this theory in a few words. Feminism does not favor the role of women, but rather prove that there is an distinct line that separates the two genders in society. Linda Pastan, a feminist critic, writes a short poem that focuses on a wife’s duties being graded by her family as if they were her homework assignment. In her poem Marks, Linda Pastan utilizes the reduction to body, denial of autonomy, and the act of ownership to temporarily re-evaluate her position within her family.
The poem also focuses on what life was like in the sixties. It tells of black freedom marches in the South how they effected one family. It told of how our peace officers reacted to marches with clubs, hoses, guns, and jail. They were fierce and wild and a black child would be no match for them. The mother refused to let her child march in the wild streets of Birmingham and sent her to the safest place that no harm would become of her daughter.
As far as organization goes, there are three stanzas which I believe represent three different ages of the main character. There is no rhyming nor iambic pentameter; this lends a casual and more natural tone to the piece. Also, the stanzas don't all have the same number of lines. This makes the poem less structured, formal, and loose as if the character is telling you the story of her past.
The poem America by Claude McKay is on its surface a poem combining what America should be and what this country stands for, with what it actually is, and the attitude it projects amongst the people. Mckay uses the form of poetry to express how he, as a Jamaican immigrant, feels about America. He characterizes the bittersweet relationship between striving for the American dream, and being denied that dream due to racism. While the America we are meant to see is a beautiful land of opportunity, McKay see’s as an ugly, flawed, system that crushes the hopes and dreams of the African-American people.
Margaret Walker is able to immediately draw the reader into the context of her poem, beginning it with a descriptive metaphor of her husband, while using singular, possessive pronouns which exemplify her love. By beginning “My monkey-wrench man is my sweet patootie,” Walker evokes not only her personal ties to her husband through the pronoun my, but she also uses the metaphor to demonstrate her husband is hard-working and lovable, which are both necessary components to the “American dream relationship” where both love and hard work are necessary to create a lasting relationship (1). Moreover, Walker reveals a relationship where feelings are reciprocated: “the lover of my life, my youth and age/ My heart belongs to him and to him only” (2-3). Walker demonstrates the permanence of her relationship as she asserts that she has given her heart to her husband, while acknowledging her husband has loved her throughout her life. Therefore, the possessive pronouns take the two individuals away from individuality and bring them together. Walker provides support for this interwoven relationship through her description of their childr...
I think it’s a very straightforward poem. How a home tenant talk or express his feeling to landlord.
oaken. His wife was oaken too. And his two girls and his good little man
The poem contains the central idea that many of these children never understood what home really means. In Native American culture the people venerate earth and it is referred to as mother nature which we see in the poem. The rails cut right through their home but they don’t view them like the average person. They view the tracks as if they are scars across mother earths face and her face is the Native American’s homeland. She is scarred for eternity but she is perfect in their dreams. This symbolism is ironic because the children try to reach home using the railroad that ruined natural life for them and many other Native Americans. In the second stanza the speaker says “The worn-down welts of ancient punishments lead back and fourth” (15-16). Which can be talking about the marks on the children’s bodies after getting caught while running away. But the “word-down welts” can also symbolize the welts that were put on mother nature throughout history. The last five lines of the poem sums up the symbol of hope through their memories and dreams. The last line of the poem says, “the spines of names and leaves.” (20-24). The “spines” symbolize the physical strength of the children and their ability to maintain hope individually “names”, and for their tribe
This poem speaks about children in the literal sense. Browning uses children to describe harsh conditions and uses these children’s feelings to really connect with her audience and to really connect the reader to these factories and coalmines, as if you were their working with these children. Browning says in the poem, “They are weeping in the playtime of others, / in the country of the free.” (Browning 1124) Browning was expressing her feelings towards child labor, and the treatment of these children under these circumstances. Browning also uses men a lot in this poem, almost degrading them. Browning was a feminist and she thought the way that t...