206 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2021
    1. As if he wasn't there!

      So was he ever their or was she just letting prejudice stop her but then after she realized that if she just ignores it then it won't stop her?

    2. He sat there like a fool.

      When it says he sat like a fool I think this represents how the prejudice is just there and don't care and they don't mind being in the way

    1. The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.

      He ends the poem with describing the process of making the shirt and he ends the poem with the word shirt just how the poem title is shirt.

    2. Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,

      These are all the positions of the people who make the clothes, and it reminds me of when he mentioned all the different fabrics.

    3. Like Hart Crane’s Bedlamite, “shrill shirt ballooning.”

      He is referencing how this one guy jumped off the Brooklyn bridge and he is referencing what his shirt looked like to his clothes

    4. The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,

      It sounds like he is carrying something around on him and he is just going in circles and he isn't able to overcome it.

    1. A tiger under a rainbow

      A rainbow usually has gold at the end and a rainbow represents joy and if a tiger is a wild animal that can harm you is he saying that it looks innocent on the outside but when you come closer it can hurt you?

    2. She glows like the fat tip

      He uses another way of describing glowing because he used it first in the foxfire and now he used it to describe a cigar burning and glowing.

    1. Or fester like a sore—

      When he uses the word fester like a sore he is using this to describe what happens when you put off your dreams, he is describing it as the feeling and desire for the dream become more intensified as a sore being untreated.

    2. What happens to a dream deferred?

      I think he's asking a rhetorical question. I think he already knows what happens but he's saying what happens when you put off a dream? And how does it affect that dream?

    1. cultivation of strength to heal and enhance

      I think that when she talks about strength to heal and enhance she is trying to call people to her, so she can help them and I think this refers back to the title of prisoners, but not in the literal sense but prisoners of their feelings and she's trying to help them.

    2. I call for you

      I don't know who she is calling to but maybe it relates back to the title and she is calling for prisoners. Or maybe she's trying to get somebody's attention.

    3. Where it is dry.

      I think by her saying where it is dry she is talking about the bad things that aren't being fixed because it's like saying if there was water then it could grow but because it's dry nothing is happening.

    4. Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences.

      I think by this line she is meaning that she is under something, and the people above her are mean like wolves and coyotes and they silence her.

    5. in the hot paralysis.

      When she says hot I think she is meaning her desire on the inside to wanna do something but by paralysis she is saying she cant. So its something she desires to do but she cant.

    6. in the vertigo cold.

      I think she is referring to something like looking down on a situation, and its a cold situation so maybe she's meaning that its not good because cold represents bad like how warm would represent good.

    1. I cannot dance opon my Toes

      I don't think she means she cant literally dance, I think she's using it as like she's broken and she's expressing her emotions through as she cant dance because dancing is connected to joy, so maybe she's sad.

  2. Apr 2021
    1. Thinking back, I realize that this could not have been the first time the word was used in my presence.

      That wasn't her first time hearing the word but the meaning of the word was different and because of that, she didn't know how to take it because the way her family used it was different than how the young boy used it.

    2. He snatched his test from me and spit out that word.

      Because this boy said this word he was probably raised around the word and because of that it shaped his reality. And how she had never heard that word shows her reality. And this relates back to the last paragraph when she wrote,"And building from the meanings of what we hear, we order reality."

    3. And building from the meanings of what we hear, we order reality.

      What words we are raised around and how the words are used in our life determines how we use them and what we know about that word determines our reality, but our reality of something may be different than another persons reality.

    4. Dialogue achieves its power in the dynamics of a fleeting moment

      Dialogue is more powerful than spoken words because of who is saying it, what is being said, and how they are saying it.

    1. Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus

      He sounds like he's comparing his life to Tantalus. Almost like he's reaching for something in life but he'll never get to it.

    1. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers.

      When he says that the object is for the vision of seers I see it as him saying that only the people who can imagine a better future and the determined ones will truly be able to accomplish this and they will be the ones to make a change

  3. drive.google.com drive.google.com
    1. Even as you visualize such ideals you know in your hearts that these are not the things you really want

      When he last asked the audience what they would do with their freedom he mentioned a lot of luxurious things and then when he mentions that this isn't what they really want, it shows how all they desire is freedom and the rights like everyone else.

    2. If you tonight suddenly should become full-fledged Americans; if your color faded, or the color line here in Chicago was miraculously forgotten

      When he talks about becoming an American I think he sees being American as a colorless person and theirs no lines that limit you to anything and thats why he wants to be American so he can be free.

    3. We want to be Americans, full-fledged Americans, with all the rights of other American citizens. But is that all?

      He desires to be an American with all the same rights that White Americans have, but I think its hard for him because he sees how history of America has been tragic to Black Americans and I think by him saying he wants to be an American he says he wants freedom but what America was and is, he doesn't want to be apart of that.