African American poets Essays

  • Gwendolyn Brooks: An African American Poet

    1128 Words  | 3 Pages

    fact, Brooks’ used her obstacles to her advantage, and sprinted towards the finish line. Gwendolyn faced financial struggles, and limited opportunities due to her racial background. However, Brooks’ achieved many accomplishments and used her African American heritage to become one of America’s best poetic authors. Gwendolyn Brooks has said that her poetry was written for blacks and about blacks, yet any person of any race can relate to the universal themes portrayed in her pieces. Gwendolyn Brooks’

  • Maya Angelou: An African-American Poet

    1107 Words  | 3 Pages

    Maya Angelou is an African-American female who was born in 1928. She had a disastrous childhood, yet battled through it and wound up to a great degree persuasive, prestigious, and effective. She spent her childhood being hurled forward and backward in the middle of California and Alabama with her brother (Angelou 18). Amid her center years she needed to figure out how to grow up quick and bring home the bacon all alone. American poet Maya Angelou pulled through a troublesome life to compose wonderful

  • Langston Hughes: An African-American Poet

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hughes unflinchingly believed that the poet was the voice of the people. His own acute sensitivity

  • Phillis Wheatley: Trailblazing African-American Poet

    636 Words  | 2 Pages

    she has been in, have helped inspired her to become one of the first and greatest African American poets in the world. Phillis Wheatley’s background was not always the most conventional. She was an enslaved African American whose first language was not English, but despite that she still became a poet at an early age. Although, Wheatley did not have the best education she still became a famous role model and poet. In her early 20’s, she did have some positive experiences by meeting Benjamin Franklin

  • What Is An American

    1664 Words  | 4 Pages

    "What is an American". This country is full of individuals of many backgrounds, and diversities and each person has a different opinion on this question. In my opinion, an American is someone who values freedom and equality and pursues the "American dream." Every American exercises these rights and these are great adjectives to describe our country. Each of the seven readings, and the one image I compiled help mold this broader definition into a more precise description of an American. Robert Creeley

  • Poetry Essay

    1356 Words  | 3 Pages

    Contemporary female poets are a very powerful group of female poets that with their poems shows major events and issues in society. Contemporary female poets usually all have an underlying theme of politics, women rights, life events, and sexuality. Contemporary means living or occurring at the same time and some contemporary female poets are, Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovanni, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Adrienne Rich, Nikki Giovanni, and Gwendolyn Brooks were all writing in the late 1900s. The Women Rights

  • Samuel Sewall

    1141 Words  | 3 Pages

    of Samuel Sewall and the period he lived in. Sewall was a respected figure of his time and shared relations with other prominent icons of the colonial era. When Sewall entered Harvard he shared a home for two years with Edward Taylor, a famous American poet who became a lifelong friend of Sewall’s. Also in the year of the Salem witch Trials Samuel Sewall was appointed as one of nine judges by Govenor Phips, another fellow judge on this board was Cotton Mather. A famous individual of colonial times

  • Anne Bradstreet

    767 Words  | 2 Pages

    Anne Bradstreet: American Poet Anne Bradstreet is seen as a true poetic writer for the seventeenth century. She exhibits a strong Puritan voice and is one of the first notable poets to write English verse in the American colonies. Bradstreet’s work symbolizes both her Puritan and feminine ideals and appeals to a wide audience of readers. American Puritan culture was basically unstable, with various inchoate formations of social, political, and religious powers competing publicly. Her thoughts are

  • Symbolism in Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson

    979 Words  | 2 Pages

    Symbolism in Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson Symbols are often use in stories to portray more of a literal meaning. Conventional, literary, and allegory are examples of the different types of symbolism. Symbols can be displayed in many different ways. People, objects, and events are just a few of the ways. Throughout the short story, "The Lesson," Toni Cade Bambara uses symbolism in many areas. The title, "The Lesson," is one symbol that Bambara uses. Miss. Moore, the teacher with a college

  • Jim Jarmusch’s Unique Western Film, Deadman

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    Man, William Blake appears to be doing the same thing. He begins to use his gun for survival, but it is different. The gun actually stands for something in the film. Blake becomes a poet by the use of his gun, which mirrors the legendary American poet whose name he shares. The guns show how disgusting it is in American society to kill and Jarmusch doesn’t glamorize it in the way that Hollywood blockbusters about violence do. Further exploring the similarities on the surface, a true western always

  • An Analysis of Frost's Tree at my Window

    849 Words  | 2 Pages

    An Analysis of  Frost's Tree at my Window "Tree at my Window" was written by Robert Frost, an American poet who was born in 1874 and died in 1963 (DiYanni 624). His poem will be the basis of the discussion of this brief essay. The narrator in this poem appears to be speaking to the "tree at my window"; then, repeating the phrase in reverse order, he calls it the "window tree," as if to emphasize the location and nearness of the tree. Calling the tree a "window tree," might also suggest that

  • Walt Whitman's Influence on Germany

    5654 Words  | 12 Pages

    Walt Whitman's Influence on Germany Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is considered to be one of the greatest American poets of the nineteenth century. While Edgar Allan Poe may have been more widely read, Whitman had more international writers actively respond to him and his poetry than any other American poet. A century after his death, writers around the world are still in dialogue with him, pondering the questions he posed, arguing with him and elaborating on his insights. People have been attracted

  • Paul Laurence Dunbar

    1570 Words  | 4 Pages

    Paul Laurence Dunbar Outline Thesis: The major accomplishments of Paul Laurence Dunbar's life during 1872 to 1938 label him as being an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. I. Introduction II. American poet A. Literary English B. Dialect poet 1. "Oak and Ivy" 2. "Majors and Minors" 3. "Lyrics of Lowly Life" 4. "Lyrics of the Hearthside" 5. "Sympathy" III. Short story writer A. Folks from Dixie (1898) B. The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories (1900) C. The Heart

  • My Papa's Waltz, My Papa's Hat, Those Winter Sundays

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    the kitchen. The poet describes how the poet feels, as his father whirls him around. Roethke wrote, “breath and death,” “dizzy and easy.” (“Papa” 1-4) The reader imagines the father whirling the boy around, and the boy holding on tight to his father. The poet wrote, “We romped until the pans/slid from the kitchen shelf.” (“Papa” 5-6) and “My mother’s countenance/Could not unfrown itself.” (“Papa” 7-8) The mother appears to dislike the whirling around in the kitchen, but the poet uses the word “romp

  • Reflection Essay: An Analysis Of Single Parents In The Family

    1815 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the world we live in today, we see the majority of families being broke up and a lot of single parents. This means that kids do not have the opportunity to have both parents in the same environment to raise them. The reason I chose family as my topic to read about is to learn more about how people were affected from this and how it made them feel. For children to feel like they belong to a family, they need both of their parents there for them, mentally physically and emotionally. The short stories

  • Comparing and Contrasting Self-Awareness in the Works of Emerson, Whitman and Poe

    2160 Words  | 5 Pages

    Defining Self-Awareness in the works of Emerson, Whitman and Poe Literature in the American Renaissance influenced the Romantic sentiment that prevailed during this period: the emergence of the individual. This materialization evolved out of the Age of Reason, when the question of using reason (a conscious state) or faith (an unconscious state) as a basis for establishing a set of beliefs divided people into secular and non-secular groups. Reacting to the generally submissive attitudes predominant

  • Free College Essays - The Sun Motif in The Stranger by Albert Camus

    574 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Sun Motif in The Stranger Many artists, authors, and composers have put the beauty and warmth of the sun in their work. The Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh created landscapes that expressed his joy with bright sunshine. The American poet Emily Dickinson wrote a poem called "The Sun," in which she described the rising and setting of the sun. The Russian composer Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakov included a beautiful song, "Hymn to the Sun," in his opera The Golden Cockerel. Uniquely, Camus' usage of

  • Charles Baudelaire: Romantic, Parnassian, and Symbolist

    1696 Words  | 4 Pages

    Charles Baudelaire: Romantic, Parnassian, and Symbolist Often compared to the American poet Edgar Allen Poe, the French poet Charles Baudelaire has become well-known for his fascination with death, melancholy, and evil and his otherwise eccentric yet contemplative style. These associations have deemed him as a “patron saint of modernist poetry” while at the same time closely tying his style in with the turbulent revolutionary movements in France and Europe during the 19th century (Haviland, screens

  • A True Patriot: Walt Whitman

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    A True Patriot: Walt Whitman When one talks of great American Poets, if the person has any since of intelligence, then they can in now way fail to mention Walt Whitman. Whitman is unmistakingly a great American poet, So great, that Ralph Waldo Emerson said that he was an “American Shakespeare” (Tucker 247). While the debate still goes on about that comment, there is no debate about the greatness of Whitman. Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, NY on May 31, 1819 on Long Island. He was the second

  • An Interpretation of E.E. Cummings' Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town

    782 Words  | 2 Pages

    E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) is an American Poet whose works are some of the harder ones to understand. That's what Cummings is known for, his typography, language, punctuation, and his use of capital letters to give words special meanings. It has been stated that he has his own language known as Cummingsian. Cummings has done a lot of experimentation with language along with other poets during the Modernist era. Not only was Cummings an artistic writer and poet but he was an accomplished painter