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negro poetry
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As I gazed across the book isles and leaned over carefully to pick one up out of the old dusty vaults of the library, a familiar object caught my eye in the poetry section. A picture in time stood still on this book, of two African American men both holding guitars. I immediately was attracted to this book of poems. For the Confederate Dead, by Kevin Young, is what it read on the front in cursive lettering. I turned to the back of the book and “Jazz“, and “blues” popped out of the paper back book and into my brain. Sometimes you can judge a book by it’s cover, I thought. Kevin Young’s For the Confederate Dead is a book of poems influenced by blues and jazz in the deep rural parts of the south.
This Book was pretty much an easy read for me. His poems are not very long and cut to the chase. While reading them I noticed there was always something exciting that caught my attention to keep me reading on. In the first couple pages of “For the Confederate Dead”, the poems names are very organic. This is one of the reasons I was drawn into this book. With names like Flame, Water, Ai...
The American Civil war is considered to be one of the most defining moments in American history. It is the war that shaped the social, political and economic structure with a broader prospect of unifying the states and hence leading to this ideal nation of unified states as it is today. In the book “Confederates in the Attic”, the author Tony Horwitz gives an account of his year long exploration through the places where the U.S. Civil War was fought. He took his childhood interest in the Civil War to a new level by traveling around the South in search of Civil War relics, battle fields, and most importantly stories. The title “Confederates in the Attic”: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War carries two meanings in Tony Horwitz’s thoughtful and entertaining exploration of the role of the American Civil War in the modern world of the South. The first meaning alludes to Horwitz’s personal interest in the war. As the grandson of a Russian Jew, Horwitz was raised in the North but early in his childhood developed a fascination with the South’s myth and history. He tells readers that as a child he wrote about the war and even constructed a mural of significant battles in the attic of his own home. The second meaning refers to regional memory, the importance or lack thereof yet attached to this momentous national event. As Horwitz visits the sites throughout the South, he encounters unreconstructed rebels who still hold to outdated beliefs. He also meets groups of “re-enactors,” devotees who attempt to relive the experience of the soldier’s life and death. One of his most disheartening and yet unsurprising realizations is that attitudes towards the war divide along racial lines. Too many whites wrap the memory in nostalgia, refusing...
Nikky Finney (1957- ) has always been involved in the struggle of southern black people interweaving the personal and the public in her depiction of social issues such as family, birth, death, sex, violence and relationships. Her poems cover a wide range of examples: a terrified woman on a roof, Rosa Parks, a Civil Rights symbol, and Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, to name just a few. The dialogue is basic to this volume where historical allusions to prominent figures touch upon important sociopolitical issues. I argue that “Red Velvet” and “Left”, from
To support his thesis he uses firsthand accounts on forms of diaries letters that were sent to the soldiers from home. He wanted to make sure that the readers would know exactly what the soldiers were feeling at that exact moment. He thoroughly illustrates what the common soldier was feeling and thinking as they fought the battle of the Civil War. One of the hardest and most important battles for America. I would totally recommend this book to another that is a must read for historian and avid
The author was born in Washington D.C. on May 1, 1901. Later, he received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College where he studied traditional literature and explored music like Jazz and the Blues; then had gotten his masters at Harvard. The author is a professor of African American English at Harvard University. The author’s writing
What This Cruel War Was Over evaluates the American Civil War through the eyes of both northern and southern soldiers. By examining the conflict through this lens, Chandra Manning delivers a narrative with intricacies that explore an in-depth perspective to a greater degree than other authors have in the past. Revealing how men thought about slavery and the Civil War frames her book, and the examples she utilizes to fulfill her goal in arguing her thesis conveys an original body of work. Additionally, several of the concepts established in the author’s book are also discussed through various methods in other books.
There are many different ways in which the war was represented to the public, including drawings, newspaper articles, and detailed stereographs. Stereographs such as John Reekie’s “The Burial Party” invoked mixed feelings from all of those who viewed it. It confronts the deaths caused by the Civil War as well as touches upon the controversial issue over what would happen to the slaves once they had been emancipated. This picture represents the Civil War as a trade-off of lives- fallen soldiers gave their lives so that enslaved black men and women could be given back their own, even if that life wasn’t that different from slavery. In his carefully constructed stereograph “The Burial Party,” John Reekie confronts the uncertainty behind the newly
On August 11-12 of 2017, white nationalist filled the streets of charlottesville and opposed anyone who stood in their way.The poem ”Black Confederate Ghost Story” by Terrance Hayes describes how racism existed in the past and how its presence is seen in significant events around the world today. Throughout this poem, Hayes develops a belief that the confederates deserve to be haunted. In the first part of the poem, the author emphasises himself as a peaceful racially motivated protester, but as the story progresses, his hatred and revenge comes into play. The author’s growing hatred and need for vengeance manifests as the poem progresses revealing the fact that racism exists in the world's present society.
A person cannot change their body; therefore, they cannot change the color of their skin. Trethewey uses phrases like “cold lips stitched shut”, “expression of grief”, “language of blood”, and “muck of ancestry” in order to describe the constant verbal abuse and ignorant insults she received due to the nature of her genetics. The words of the body, which describe her physical features, are paired with the negatively connotated words to compare racism in the 70s and 80s with current racism in America. In comparison, Trethewey dissects the issue of racism by describing the lack of monuments for black soldiers as disrespect. In the poem “Pilgrimage”, Trethewey describes the lack of memorials for the Native Guard in Mississippi as a clear sign of Southern racism. Mississippi is “a graveyard for skeletons of sunken riverboats”, “hollowed by a web of caves . . . like catacombs.” The city floods with the soldiers from the Civil War, but the bodies are “stone, white marble, on Confederate Avenue.” The soldiers honored in Mississippi are Confederate generals and colonels. Mississippi distinctly decided against recognizing and celebrating one of the first all-Black regiments for the Union, the Native
It is important to not that the direction of Brooks’s literary career shifted dramatically in the late 1960’s. While attending a black writers’ conference she was struck by the passion of the young poets. Before this happened, she had regarded herself as essentially a universalist, who happened to be black. After the conference, she shifted from writing about her poems about black people and life to writing for the black population.
When discussing the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, due to the strength of their relationship, one must look at Blues and Jazz. 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. 152-3) which strengthens the influence. The dull, full rhymes create a sense of dissatisfaction and boredom, as if the speaker has given up on life. Hughes similarly uses many colloquialism and phonetics, which were common in Blues songs, such as “De Railroad Bridge/ a sad song in de air” (Ramazani, 1994, pp. 152-3), which furthers racial pride and identity, present in Blues and Harlem Renaissance poetry. However, perhaps the strongest example of how the Blues genre infl...
On Easter Sunday in 1928, Luster drives Benjy to the cemetery, after much convincing of his grandmother Dilsey. As the carriage approaches the Confederate soldier monument on the courthouse square, Luster attempts to show off in front of a “group of negroes,” and decides to change the route that Benjy is accustomed to, which proves to be utterly disastrous (Faulkner 319). Luster only alters the route slightly, and ...
In Natasha Trethewey’s poetry collection “Native Guard”, the reader is exposed to the story of Trethewey’s growing up in the southern United States and the tragedy which she encountered during her younger years, in addition to her experiences with prejudice. Throughout this work, Trethewey often refers to graves and provides compelling imagery regarding the burial of the dead. Within Trethewey’s work, the recurring imagery surrounding graves evolves from the graves simply serving as a personal reminder of the past to a statement on the collective memory of society and comments on what society chooses to remember and that which it chooses to let go of.
Finally the coal mine war ended in 1933, many dead bodies were buried of innocent people, with many untold stories. The emotions Diane fisher used in her lyrical poetry can be relate to any of the culture, not only to the people of West Virginia. It’s a responsibility of the poet to give his readers entertainment, but at the same time the information about what they are talking. She did a great job in this. She not only told us the situation of miserable people, but also helped us to heard the untold stories.
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement during the 1920s and 1930s, in which African-American art, music and literature flourished. It was significant in many ways, one, because of its success in destroying racist stereotypes and two, to help African-Americans convey their hard lives and the prejudice they experienced. In this era, two distinguished poets are Langston Hughes, who wrote the poem “A Dream Deferred” and Georgia Douglas Johnson who wrote “My Little Dreams”. These two poems address the delayment of justice, but explore it differently, through their dissimilar uses of imagery, tone and diction.
The Civil war is one of the most iconic turning points of history the aftermath made waves throughout the literary society, influencing Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ernest Hemingway. These three authors made a large impact in the literary society, each in their own way. Whether it be pushing boundaries, or going the extra distance, these authors along with many others, influenced many writing styles for it to be the way it is today. Not only is today’s writing more advanced. It is no longer just writing, it is emotion, and compassion. It is showing people the secret identity that most keep hidden. Writing is a way that many escape and become the person they dream to be, and these writers do an excellent job at showing this.