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Symbolism in modern poetry
Symbolism in modern poetry
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Nikki Giovanni’s poem entitled “Nikki-Rosa,” depicts a personal reflection of Giovanni’s life growing up. The poem concentrates on the fact that people have different childhood memories depending on their social status’. Giovanni reconstructs her most powerful memories and creates an identity of what the black population stands for. She establishes the different ways in which black families were rich, which did not necessarily include an abundance of wealth. In addition to, she compared these non-monetary riches to the memories of those who were raised with a silver spoon. The poem implies that there are many intangibles that cannot be acquired through one’s wealth. Giovanni brings warmth to her readers as she identifies how, “Black love
In this poem “Luxury”, Nikki Giovanni examines the word luxury and by doing this she realizes what it means to her. She realizes having more materialistic things in life isn’t all that we need. We need something that’s going to last forever something that can’t be taken away. So instead of finding contentment in the things we as society find luxurious, she found all the luxury in the world in her soulmate. To Giovanni love is the state of great comfort and extravagant living, meaning it’s more important than fame, money, fast cars and expensive clothes. Love by definition is a strong feeling of deep affection for somebody/something and this is what she felt when she was held that “one evening” (23).
While Anna Williams views escaping the confines of marriage as a desirable thing, Charlotte Lennox’s greatest lament, as expressed by her poem “A Song,” is merely to have the freedom to love who she pleases. Although Charlotte Lennox has a more romantic view of men and love than Anna Williams, neither woman denies the need for companionship. Charlotte Lennox’s opinion towards love is expressed clearly in her piece “A Song.” The poem’s female speaker is experiencing unrequited love.
In “My Brother Bailey and Kay Francis,” a snippet from autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, author Maya Angelou and her brother Bailey face the challenges of segregation and the abandonment of their parents while growing up in Stamps, Arkansas. Their sense of identity is tarnished through incidents of racial discrimination and the historical conditions of this time period and location further depict the tone of this story. Throughout their lives, racism towards blacks during this time period is evermore present and is the main cause of Angelou and Bailey’s struggle to find security in their identity.
The award-winning book of poems, Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, is an eye-opening story. Told in first person with memories from the author’s own life, it depicts the differences between South Carolina and New York City in the 1960s as understood by a child. The book begins in Ohio, but soon progresses to South Carolina where the author spends a considerable amount of her childhood. She and her older siblings, Hope and Odella (Dell), spend much of their pupilage with their grandparents and absorb the southern way of life before their mother (and new baby brother) whisk them away to New York, where there were more opportunities for people of color in the ‘60s. The conflict here is really more of an internal one, where Jacqueline struggles with the fact that it’s dangerous to be a part of the change, but she can’t subdue the fact that she wants to. She also wrestles with the issue of where she belongs, “The city is settling around me….(but) my eyes fill up with the missing of everything and everyone I’ve ever known” (Woodson 184). The conflict is never explicitly resolved, but the author makes it clear towards the end
Angelina Weld Grimké, besides working as a teacher in the capital, was also a well known playwright, essayist, and poet. Her work has caused her name to be forever connected with the Harlem Renaissance, as most of it was produced during that time. In particular, most, if not all, of Grimké’s poetry contain images or references to nature. It is only reasonable that there is some use that it serves in her poems. Her focus on themes of nature allows Grimké to do a number of things, among which include: displaying her prowess as a writer and poet in the way that she aptly and vividly describes nature; portraying a number of topics concerning the racial issues of her time; and representing the sadness and troubles she dealt with throughout her life.
With the celebration of Black History month, the importance of Robert Hayden’s “The Ballad of Nat Turner” reflects the significance of how far African Americans have come. During the time of this poem, the civil rights movement making quite a noise, allowing African American musicians, artists, and writers to express how they felt about the issues going on in America. One of the writers would be Robert Hayden. A poet with a strong interest in African studies writing about those whom like Nat Turner would pave the way for African Americans down the line. “The Ballad of Nat Turner” gives an insight to the intense tension between African Americans and Caucasians, which society can see till this day. The poem also paints the picture of the two
The Norton Anthology of AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE is filled with many awe inspiring writings that reveal the true literacy history of the African American struggle with their identification. Gwendolyn Brooks brought her own life experiences to paper, and showed the man different ways one can create their own identification through lives many difficult challenges. Gwendolyn Brooks made the purpose of her work clear, she wanted to give a voice to people who had no voice; to let all different types of black people feel united as one under one voice. In her writing of the Kitchenette Building Gwendolyn expressed her feelings of the small cramped apartment that was known to be overbearing which resulted in crushed dreams, and hopes. In the mother Gwendolyn Brooks takes a great political issue head on; she gives a unique perspective, giving a first person point of view that seems to be confusing by showing her pain through guilt and blame. The final writing of a song in the front yard, gives the audience an experience almost everyone can relate to; the struggle of a girl who was only allowed to play in the front yard eventually gets curious and wants to see what’s going on in the back alley. Through these different life experiences of the tough living situation in a kitchenette, the intense battle one has when going through an abortion in the mother, and the battle one has with herself when trying to not be jealous of others. A person creates their own unique identity once they have come out of their own struggle; they enter into the situation as a girl and come out a woman.
In the first stanza of the poem, the reader finds out and is puzzled by the fact that Isabella and Lorenzo, live in the same house. One may suppose that Lorenzo works for Isabella’s parents or is a guest, or even horrifyingly a relation of Isabella. Those speculations notwithstanding one can see that the two can barely be in each other’s presence without wanting to confess their true love for each other. A perfect example of their feelings is:
She defines her idea of what is right in a relationship by describing how hard and painful it is for her to stray from that ideal in this instance. As the poem evolves, one can begin to see the author having a conflict with values, while simultaneously expressing which values are hers and which are unnatural to her. She accomplishes this accounting of values by personalizing her position in a somewhat unsettling way throughout the poem.
Graduation by Maya Angelou really touches on the fact that discrimination towards blacks in the hundred or so years following the end of the civil war was an endless and relentless torture that had to be endured even at an event as innocent and important as an 8th grade graduation. To hear the superintendent go in front of the school and talk about white accomplishments made Maya feel insignificant even though she had n...
In all of her poems Grace Nichols explores a variety of themes such as immigration and emigration in her poem “Icons”. However in “Black” she also explores several other themes such as race and perception. In this essay I aim to determine whether or not “Black” is mainly a poem about skin colour or of it can simply be perceived as such.
Maya Angelou tells her story of coming to age from her perspective as a child until the age of 17, when she gave birth to her son. In the title and dedication of Angelou’s autobiography, Angelou relates her story to the metaphor of a caged bird as she encountered racism and oppression throughout her adolescent years and further relates it to a specific audience as she dedicates it to her son “and all the strong black birds of promise.” She uses this metaphor to illustrate her message of hope, that despite any situation, Black children can become strong, independent individuals and strive for success. Angelou provides detailed accounts of specific instances in her life where she overcame cruelty, and relates it to the metaphor of “strong black birds of promise.”
The role of African American literature in recent years has been to illuminate for the modern world the sophistication and beauty inherent in their culture as well as the constant struggle they experience in the oppressive American system. When writers such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois and Alice Walker present their material, they manage to convey to a future world the great depth of feeling and meaning their particular culture retained as compared with the culture of their white counterparts. Without this attempt at preservation, much of the richness of this community might have been lost or forgotten. At the same time, they illuminated some of the problems inherent within their society, including lack of education, lack of appreciation for their own value and lack of opportunity for the future. All three of these writers work to capture the important concepts of their society within the figurative elements of daily life, urban or rural, as they are defined from within rather than without. In poetry such as Hughes’ “Mother to Son”, W.E.B. DuBois’ work Souls of Black Folk or Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”, one begins to understand the unifying theme of the black community as a constant struggle between attaining higher social status and more comfortable conditions while still remaining deeply connected to the cultural and spiritual richness of their heritage and families.
“The Lovers of the Poor” by Gwendolyn Brooks truly shows Brooks’s social awareness. It is a satire on people with neither respect nor genuine charity. The theme of the poem is poverty while the subject is the Ladies’ Betterment League attitude towards the poor. The women from the Ladies’ Betterment League feel it their duty to step outside their affluent environment and help the less fortunate. However, they are totally unprepared for the raw, teeming poverty that they encounter. Brooks’ use of language reveals both the attitudes of the ladies toward the poor as well as the speaker’s attitude toward the ladies, all while creating an important contrast between these two attitudes which proves necessary to the theme of the poem as an example of “poetry of witness”, as well as reflecting the ideals of the Black Arts Movement.
In this Alice Walker story, the reader meets a girl named Celie. In this novel, Walker takes the reader on a journey through much of Celie’s life. While taking the reader through this tale, Walker draws attention to a number of social aspects during this time period. Through Cilie’s life, Walker brings to light the abuse and mistreatment of African American women from 1910 through the 1940’s. “Women were also regarded as less important than men – both Black and white Black women double disadvantage.