Many of Hughes’s poems stand out in their description of the black experience. Some of the poems that stand out include “Ku Klux,” “House In the World,” and “Children’s Rhymes.” These poems delve into the world of fear, segregation, and the lost innocence of black culture. These poems genuinely demonstrate the difficult lives most black people had to live. Langston Hughes was one of the most influential black poets of the twentieth century. He took part in the Harlem Renaissance and taught the world about black life and culture.
He was one of the first African American poets. Due to his published success, he broke through the racial barrier in this country. During the Civil Rights Movement, he continued to write poetry and collections of works that demonstrated the hardship of blacks during the time. In his poems Ku Klux, Harlem, and Merry-Go-Round, Hughes shows the prominence of racial abuse, lack of opportunity, and segregation in African American life. The poetry of Langston Hughes impacted American culture by increasing awareness of the actual trials encountered by the African American population in America during this time period.
This is mainly because of the way that Gwendolyn looked. She received criticism from peers of her ... ... middle of paper ... ... Encyclopedia of Women’s Biography, “one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century”, and during her lifetime she wrote poetry that influenced others but also taught lessons, raised awareness on important issues. Gwendolyn’s poetry spoke about the everyday lives of African Americans, urban culture, as well as spoke about issues regarding race and gender and she did it to the best of her ability. She had a unique style of writing that was different yet, still literally correct. At the age of eighty three she died, in her home in Chicago on December 3rd, 2000.
In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society. Margaret Walker was born on July 7, 1915 in Birmingham, Alabama to Reverend Sigismund C. Walker and Marion Dozier Walker (Gates and McKay 1619).
We Real Cool “We Real Cool” is a famous poem which is concerned with the African American experience written in the year of 1959 by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem presents the reality that a lot of the African youth have to be faced with. As one of the most outstanding poems which are about the confusion and miserable destiny for the African Americans, this poem uses the simple words as well as the sentence structures to present and explain her deep thoughts. (Dickson, 1983) “We Real Cool” is quite worth reading for the readers who have the desire tohave an understanding about the identity of the young blacks in the United States. This poem is very short which only has eight lines in all.
Her writing began to be taken seriously as in 1945, her first book of poetry A Street in Bronxville won instant literary claim. A Street in Bronxville expressed her feelings about the urban treatment of the African Americans; "devoted to small, carefully cerebrated, terse portraits of the Black urban poor" (Kent 173). This first volume of poetry chronicles the dreams and disappointments of the citizens existing in the inner cities. This work also introduced her concerns for the next two decades: family life, war, the quest for content... ... middle of paper ... ... the time”(Lee 17). From that time to the present, she has seen the receiver of a number of awards, friendships, and honorary degrees usually selected as Doctor of Humane Letters.
Another leading poet that has a major impact to further demolish racism is Maya Angelou. She too has written a multitude of poetry over the years, and continues to be a major role model for young, upcoming poets. In Harlem by Langston Hughes it displays to the audience about a dream deferred. In Still I Rise by Maya Angelou there’s a constant repetition of “still I rise” stating to the readers that no matter what struggles she or people may face in their life, you must rise to greatness. Harlem and Still I Rise reveal to the readers about the similarity of the civil rights movement about racism in their poetry and the fact that people should never give up on their dreams no matter what circumstances one may face.
Many viewed this genre as a voice for the black communities and as “the New Negro poets expressed a deep pride in being Black” (Smith, 1983, p. 37) it is easy to see how this influenced their poetry. The main theme of Blues were the troubles of life and finding an escape, and this underlying dissatisfaction was incorporated into poetry as a response to many of the injustices present. For example, a clear example of this is Langston Hughes’ Homesick Blues which uses many of the key techniques from Blues songs, such as short lines to create urgency. The poem discusses the effect of prejudices and injustices on the black communities, especially when it comes to finding a home and an identity. There is a subtle, irregular rhyme scheme from words such as “sun… done” (Ramazani, 1994, pp.
Walker demonstrates through her writings that the oppression of Black women is both internal and external. Like most of the characters in her novels, Walker is a product of her racist, rural, Southern environment in which the rural Black woman faces oppression at every turn. Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944 at the beginning of the Civil Rights Era (Whitted). Walker faced segregation and discrimination while growing up in one of the most notoriously racist Southern states of the 19th and 20th centuries. She ... ... middle of paper ... ...27 Aug. 2013.
Original Writing My writing as a poet has been heavily influenced by writers like Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker and Slam poets such as Black Thought and the Last Poets. These writers write and speak about the struggles and uniqueness of Black culture. Their individual experiences and political stances as well as the influences of other artist are evident in their work. For example in Giovanni’s poem “Revolutionary Music” she quotes some of the lyrics from Sam Cooke and James Brown to illustrate her personal views on racism and the equal rights movements. Hughes in his piece titled “Message to the President” skillfully incorporates the political events of his time into his poem using it to sardonically articulate his view on racial inequalities that were occurring in his time.