Gwendolyn Brooks was an African-American poet most popular throughout the 1950s. Her work spoke volumes in such little words (Mills ¶7). Growing up she knew segregation was present. In “a song in the front yard” Brooks tackled the separation between the rich and the poor. Her stance on social classes is shown through a conceit for the front yard. By looking at the title of the poem, “a song in the front yard” it sets the location but there is no literal meaning. In the first stanza the persona is identified as a girl. The words “want” and “now” show the same selfish tendencies of a child (5). She wants to experience the backyard but first explains the differences between it and the front yard. Her mother is introduced in the third stanza …show more content…
Lines 18-20 propose that the persona imagines herself as a lower class woman, wearing makeup, and dressing in a somewhat unsophisticated manner. It translates into the adolescent overlooking the differences made by the wealthy. It unveils the purpose of this poem which is to show that ignorance leads to acceptance and the theme of separation. The front yard is separated from the back by stereotypes of social classes. The girl didn 't understand that the backyard was frowned upon by her people. She only saw the good times they were having and wanted to be a part of it (8). The overall rhyme scheme of the poem is ABCC. It is consistent throughout the poem except the last stanza is two couplets. They give the change from childhood to an adult lifestyle. I think it is a lyric poem because it uses many of the poet’s personal insight. Brooks grew up with segregation much like the little girl’s separation between social classes. The poem “a song in the front yard” uses symbolism to demonstrate the young persona’s desire to play in the back yard. The front yard is a metaphor for the restricted lifestyle of the wealthy. The back yard symbolized the carefree and un-kept lifestyle of the poor. Brooks reinforced the ignorance of a girl to show her acceptance for the lower class. It allowed the persona to close the gap of
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.
The text begins with the speaker musing about how her lineage is related to that of an album cover with one solid identity. In an album, each song forms an idea that is encapsulated in a large pool of its sister tracks to form one singular unit containing an idea or focus. By referring to her family as an album, Harper has directly stated that her family is deeply connected. Above the poem is the subtitle “for my father,” which means that Harper’s message is connected to her father the most. This metaphor strikes even further into the
The poem begins with a young woman (the dancer), she craves attention and has big dreams of ultimately becoming famous. She is young, full of life, talented and gorgeous. However, the attention she craves is only fulfilled through performing on stage. This limits her, in all aspects of her life, because this uncontrollable desire could lead to her ultimately destruction. As a result, Barnes wrote, “Life had taken her and given her. One place to sing.” (Barnes). The dancer is trapped in this life not only by the opportunities life had given her but also for her own selfish desires. Yet, the thing she desires more than fame is love. Although her life is busy, with performing and partying she is in search for love. Barnes explained the dancers quest for love, “looked between the lights and wine. For one fine face…. found life only passion wide” was an unsuccessful one instead she only found lust. In other words, although she is looking for love she is looking for it in the wrong places, because she is trying looking in between the “lights” she letting her desire for fame interfere with her definition of love. She should look for someone who yearns to care for her spiritually, mentally and physically. Yet, what she aspires is for someone to love her that has status and wealth. To obtain what she wants she is
Sociologists often employ intersectionality theory to describe and explain facets of human interactions. This particular methodology operates on the notion that sociologically defining characteristics, such as that of race, gender, and class, are not independent of one another but function simultaneously to determine our individual social experiences. This is evident in poetry as well. The combination of one poet’s work that expresses issues on class with another poet’s work that voices issues on race, and so forth, can be analyzed through a literary lens, and collectively embody the sociological intersectionality theory.
One of the great things about Composition and Literature is that the readings can relate to many other topics outside of the class. The poems and the stories read in this class give a more in depth look at a specific subject and give a clearer picture of what life was like and how people lived at that time. In most classes about U.S. History, the sections taught on segregation don’t give specific examples of how people were treated or the perspectives of the people who were mistreated. However, reading Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry in the Composition and Literature course gives students an opportunity to learn greater details about segregation through the perspectives of the people most affected by it and the
In “Blame It On the Blues” the author Angela Davis, argues against critics, like Samuel Charters and Paul Oliver, who say that the Blues lacks social commentary or political protest, by saying that the Blues was a subtle protest against gender and racial inequality. Davis uses various songs from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith to prove this.
During the poem the speaker does not address his readers. The readers are simply overhearing a man assessing the society in which he lives as he daydreams about what is could be and yet what it is not. It is evident that his goal is to get the readers to look down upon this society which is so caught up in daily routine; prohibiting anyone from having freedom of imagination. This detachment that is created between the speaker and his readers incorporated with the boring monotone at the very beginning of the poem gives the readers a negative impression of the society before they begin to analyze the actual words of the poem.
The house symbolizes either a mausoleum or her grave, which, if the latter, she describes it as a house in the ground to portray that she is comfortable and accepting of her death and her grave. In the final stanza, the speaker states that she, “first [surmises] the Horses’ Heads [are] toward Eternity” (lines 23-24). She uses the horses’ heads as a warm sense of direction, which ironically isn’t towards any concrete place but a place oblivious of
The title of the poem ‘In The Park’ immediately gives us an image of the geographical landscape in which the poem is set in and from further analysis, the poem is written in a sonnet structure where its 14 lines broken up into two parts of 8 lines and 6 lines with a break in between. Though we normally associate sonnets with romantic love poems, it is a different scenario with this poem as it is slightly ironic because challenges us by attempting to show the negative effects of love where the woman’s life has been destroyed basically due to the children and how love is no longer present in her life.
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
In conclusion, this poem shows the progression of desegregation throughout the south. When the poem is placed in context to the time in which it was written, it is easy to identify the injustices of African Americans. The most notable observation is when the beach is marked “colored” (Trethewey). Analyzing this poem via historical criticism allows the reader to fully understand the injustice and also experience the growth of society towards desegregation.
Brooks writes, "the damp small pulps with little or no hair." In the last half of the poem (lines 20 to 33), she changes who she is addressing. Instead of telling the mother what she is missing she is now talking to the "child". When she does this it expresses other emotions. These new emotions are ones of sorrow, love, searching for forgiveness, etc.
In the opening verse of the song, the speaker discusses the need to see her childhood home at least once more before moving on with her life. She shares with the current homeowner some of her experiences while growing up in the house. For instance, she says, “I know they say you can’t go home again, but I just had to come back one last time.” This shows that the speaker realizes that returning “home” is going to be a different experience than it was when she lived there, but she cannot resist the temptation of a final visit to the “house”. The speaker says that “Up those stairs in that little back bedroom, is where I did my homework and learned to play guitar. And I bet you didn’t know, under that live oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard.” This indicates some of the significant memories the speaker has of her time in the house, such as honing her...
She only allows her to see her worth in having a clean home and a satisfied man. She never once tells the girl to follow her dreams or even talk about what they are. The mother only keeps on instructing her on even the simplest things like smiling : “...this is how you smile to someone you don 't like too much;this is how you smile at someone you don 't like at all;this is how you smile to someone you like completely...” this poem is filled with the phrases “this is how”. “ don’t do this”, and “ be sure to..” the speaker does not even give the girl a chance to speak her mind or form her own thoughts. The young girl was only able to get one sentence out the whole poem : “...but what if the baker won 't let me feel the bread?”
Gwendolyn Brook’s “Ballad of Pearl May Lee” came from her book called Street in Bronzeville. This book exemplifies Brook’s “dual place in American literature” (Smith, 2). It is associated with Modernist poetry, as well as the Harlem Renaissance. This book is known for its theme of victimizing the poor, black woman. “Ballad of Pearl May Lee” is a poem that uses tone to represent the complex mood of the ballad. While tone and mood are often used interchangeably, there are differences even though they often work together in a poem. A poem’s mood refers to the atmosphere or state of mind that the poem takes on. This is often conveyed through the tone, which is the style or manner of expression through writing. In this poem, Brooks uses tone to enhance the mood. This paper will shed light on the idea that the mood of the poem is affected by the tone in several ways in order to make the mood inconsistent. Some of the ways that tone does this is by several episodic shifts in the scene of the poem, the repetition of stanzas at the end of the poem, the use of diction, and the change in the speaker’s stance throughout the poem. These poetic techniques enhance the speaker’s current feeling of self-pity and revengeful satisfaction by her mixed emotions associated with this reflection.