- May 2021
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www.poetryfoundation.org www.poetryfoundation.org
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Like Hart Crane’s Bedlamite, “shrill shirt ballooning.” Wonderful how the pattern matches perfectly Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked
even before death, laborers think about clothing production
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He stepped to the sill himself, his jacket flared And fluttered up from his shirt as he came down, Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers—
imagery of standing on the edge, feeling the wind
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A third before he dropped her put her arms Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once
shows human want for connection with other people
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The witness in a building across the street Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step Up to the windowsill, then held her out Away from the masonry wall and let her drop. And then another. As if he were helping them up To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.
these women were jumping to their death to escape the factory
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At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven. One hundred and forty-six died in the flames On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes—
Triangle shirtwaste factory accident- showed the demand for better working conditions and led to a rise in unionization
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Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter, The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union, The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze
all the smaller factors that combine to make the shirt, do these small factors represent the seperate instruments playing music?
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Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break
They have more complex lives than just shirt production
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The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams, The nearly invisible stitches along the collar Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians
Talks about the production process and steps to make the shirt, does this allude to the formation of something else like his music?
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poets.org poets.org
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No one else is around.
Reenforces that figurative aspect
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The spoon which was melted scrapes against the bowl which was melted also.
The spoon and bowl melted by the heat of the fire which burned the house. All these are figurative so what part about the author could they represent? Her past, her present?
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You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,yet here I am.
The house and breakfast are imaginary. Do the house and breakfast figuratively suggest her mind as the house and her thoughts as the breakfast? Her mind houses her past and its baggage
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In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
Fire can represent knowledge and awareness as well as destruction. Something that's burned has already met fire, so has this house seen destruction within its walls? Or rebirth, or knowledge, etc? Meals always have a deeper meaning, and breakfast starts the day. Is this breakfast to symbolize the beginning to a good productive day/ period, or does it symbolize the beginning of a destructive day or a day of healing/ reflection among the author?
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poets.org poets.org
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She burns like a burning bushdriven by a godawful wind.
Wind spreads fire quickly
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She rises like dragonsmoke to my nostrils.
She stands out to him
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She burns like a shot glass of vodka.She burns like a field of poppies
Poppies contain sources to make morphine, is she like a drug?
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She burns like a shot glass of vodka.
Small yet effective and impactful
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A tiger under a rainbow at nightfall.
Tigers wouldn't take the time to admire the beauty of a rainbow like humans would. Is she missing a bigger concept or refusing to see beauty?
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She glows like the fat tipof a banker's cigar,
Banker- she burns at the expense of others like bankers, who does the banker represent?
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She burns like a cattail torchdipped in gasoline.
The fire gets stronger and more exaggerated
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She burns like oil on water.
oil and water don't combine they separate and oil goes to the surface. Is she conflicting herself or internally arguing/ separated?
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while she burns like a sack of dry ice.
oxymoron, burning and dry ice. Dryness is exaggerated here
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while she burns like a sack of dry ice.
oxymoron, burning and dry ice. Dryness is exaggerated here
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We stand with our handshanging at our sides,
The public ignores those who "burn," describes "we" as mindless and ignorant
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A skirt of flamesdances around herat dusk.
Fiery persona, dusk is when it's the most intense
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She burns like foxfirein a thigh-shaped valley.
Repetition of "she burns," does this represent aggression or passion or sensitivity? Thin-shaped valley seems like a trap, it's think and hangs low, does she feel trapped?
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At daybreak she burns like a piece of paper.
The girl is fragile and delicate, paper burning means she can vanish easily with the traces of ash
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belongs to a girl still burning
He carries the cry but it's not his, it belongs to a girl
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The cry I bring down from the hills
Starts poem off with cry and down, so a sad mood
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www.poetryfoundation.org www.poetryfoundation.org
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Or does it explode?
Will everybody get a small piece, or explode as in never exist again and fail?
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Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
sag like a disappointment or failed dream/ aspiration or weighs one down like a heavy load on their back
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ike a syrupy sweet?
syrup implies slow so while equality seems sugary sweet, the act of actually obtaining it is a slow process like syrup
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Or crust and sugar over—
Sugar as in sugar coated? Not the whole truth?
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Does it stink like rotten meat?
A dream which is a goal/aspiration, now turned stinky and unreachable and bothersome
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And then run?
Once you acknowledge this dream, it flees and becomes unreachable
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Or fester like a sore—
Instead of lose life and interest, does it bother you? Does it remain to linger and serve as a reminder which hurts you
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like a raisin in the sun?
old and dry
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Does it dry up
loses life or interest
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What happens to a dream deferred?
Sets the poems topic and subject
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gcs.instructure.com gcs.instructure.com
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I keep some E&J, sitting bent up in the stairway
bent up in a stairway- in a difficult situation or circumstance
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Y'all know my steelo with or without the airplay
Boasting about wealth
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Hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes
Another gun mentioned
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Bullet holes left in my peepholes, I'm suited up in street clothes
Street clothes to blend in, but there's peepholes, do these peepholes uncover his true identity/ self?
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Holding an M-16, see with the pen I'm extreme, now
holding a gun, does that make him more serious now? Does this make his threats go away?
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Of pain, I'm like Scarface smelling amphetamines
Scarface let the fame and things that came with the fame get to his head, so is Nas saying that the pain gets to his head?
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I be kicking, musician, inflictin' composition
Composition- is he saying it all starts with him?
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Rappers, I monkey flip 'em with the funky rhythm
His rhythm is unique compared to other rappers
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I don't know how to start this stuff, yo
A lot on his mind he has to organize into a song
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Where fake negroes don't make it back
If the rap isn't authentic or the rapper lies, they probably won't get that success or fame
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Straight out the friggin dungeons of rap
Rap has dungeons, some don't make it out to success or fame- it's hard to get out
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Yeah yeah, aiyyo black it's time (word?)(Word, it's time negro?)Yeah, it's time man (aight negro, begin)
Building/hying up for the song to start
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poets.org poets.org
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cultivation of victory Over
Why is over capitalized? The growth of victory is more important
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I call for you
repetition from first line-- sense of desprate established
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Where it is dry.
repetition-- author wants the reader to know they want growth but are kept in a place where it cannot happen (where it is dry)
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Where it is dry.
If it's dry, growth can't happen like in the dark gardening mentioned before
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Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences.
Wolves and coyotes howl and make noise-- more conflicting factors
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in the hot paralysis.
A cold which uncontrolably spins them and a heat which paralyzes them. Opposite senses conflicting or coming together to collectively handicap the speaker
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in the vertigo cold
An overwhelming feeling, maybe hopelessness, which takes control of the senses
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Dark gardening
Growing something but maybe the wrong thing, like a fear
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I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark.
They are desprate for authentic strength
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studio.edx.org studio.edx.org
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And though I had no Gown of Gauze ‑No Ringlet, to my Hair,Nor hopped for Audiences ‑ like Birds ‑One Claw opon the air ‑
She's awake she doesn't look the best but there's also no audience, no one to judge her
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That had I Ballet Knowledge ‑Would put itself abroad
Not knowing ballet is stopping her from expressing herself
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I cannot dance opon my Toes ‑No Man instructed me ‑But oftentimes, among my mind,A Glee possesseth me,
Ballet is comprised of movements to express emotion, so does this first stanza relate to her emotional maturity or ability to express herself?
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- Apr 2021
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www.collegiatetimes.com www.collegiatetimes.com
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But let’s not be upset with white girls on a lacrosse team who are simply singing along with the lyrics of a song.
It's probably still frustrating though to hear white girls saying the n-word, even if they're just singing along, because that word is still so divisible and painful for African-Americans to hear, especially from non-black people. As long as that word still carries pain and oppression with it, it's still going to cause arguments based on whether it should be said by certain people or not.
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President Sands, stop putting the responsibility of educating the campus community on the groups that are the victims of these repeated attacks.” I must say, I am in disagreement with HokiePRIDE’s perspective
Education on this issue shouldn't primarily fall onto the African-American community, I think it's silly to believe that Black people are responsible for educating others on the history and hurt behind the n-word. People need to educate themselves at some point and not rely on others to explain why something hurts them-- sometimes it's just common sense why you shouldn't say certain things.
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www.huffpost.com www.huffpost.com
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and perhaps more importantly, I don’t have a desire to do it.
With white people saying the n-word, they may feel that desire to do so because as it's later stated in the article, they're raised in a society which communicates to them that everything belongs to them.
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This will give you just a little peek into the world of what it means to be black
I've never looked at it this way before, and this paragraph was a very strong and moving paragraph.
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moodle.smith.edu moodle.smith.edu
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But I didn’t “hear” it until it was said by a small pair of lips that had already learned it could be a way to humiliate me.
More shocking to hear when it's said by someone who shouldn't say it and used it as an insult
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n the plural, it became a description of some group within the community that had overstepped the bounds of decency as my family defined it.
Gloria gives examples of how the word has developed different uses within different situations.
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but it was set within contexts and inflections that caused it to register in my mind as something else
She could recognize in her third-grade class that that wasn't supposed to be said to her even though she's heard it before- this establishes the importance of context, meaning, and consensus.
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Had he called me a nymphomaniac or a necrophiliac,
Represents the environment this little boy has grown up in, no little kid should know those words let alone remember them and know to use them as an insult or when they get mad
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innocuous
not harmful or offensive.
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we manage to capture in even the most transcendent passages falls far short of the richness of life
The complexity of life or experiences can just be too rich to describe even with vast languages.
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I consider the written word inferior to the spoken,
With written words, the writer has time to think out what they're going to say, with spoken words, they just role off the tongue. So with writing, people have time re-read and take back any mistakes, but with spoken words they just role off the tongue, so they could be more harmful because it's easier to just say mistakes than write them because writing gives that buffer time to consider what's going be be released and re-written.
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faculty.wiu.edu faculty.wiu.edu
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So I am ashamed for the black poet who says, "I want to be a poet, not a Negro poet,"
at first I thought I understood this phrase and agreed with it, I thought the poet meant they didn't want their work to be restricted because the writer themselves wasn't white. But now I understand that was the writer fearing their own self, their own skin color, their own features because they wouldn't be accepted by the public opinion.
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too Negro
used to oppress the works of black people, making their racial work seem like it can never obtain success unless it's fallen to the assimilation of standardization.
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cabaret
a place like a nightclub where entertainment is preformed before a watchful audience.
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Our folk music, having achieved world-wide fame, offers itself to the genius of the great individual American composer who is to come.
if their music can be widely accepted and celebrated, soon too, then, could their art and individualistic expressions be accepted as well.
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The Negro artist works against an undertow of sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own group
Black artists are opposed by their own race unintentionally and possibly made to feel like a burden
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The road for the serious black artist, then, who would produce a racial art is most certainly rocky and the mountain is high
Black artists have whites and their own race supressing their work and individualistic expression.
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The drab melodies in white folks' hymnbooks are much to be preferred
white culture preferred over black culture by the public and reasserts this standardization.
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there is sufficient matter to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work
individualism and expression comes without limits and endless possibilities to take form in
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restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him,
restrictions and pressures of assimilation in order to be accepted by society
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But then there are the low-down folks, the so-called common element, and they are the majority
the majority is "low-down" because thats their only option, society doesn't give them equal opportunities for success
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The family attend a fashionable church where few really colored faces are to be found.
Put themselves in places and surround themselves with as little colored people as possible to be better accepted and fit in.
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"Don't be like niggers" when the children are bad
Bad behavior associated with being Black. Certain stereotypes so deeply enforced by society that Black people would tell their own kids that phrase.
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But this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America--this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.
Black artists wanted to fit in to the only praised and appriciated group of America: whiteness.
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And I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself.
Quality of work might be affected if the poet is subconsciously doubting/ wishing circumstances were different.
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www.amerlit.com www.amerlit.com
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Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
the tempting fruit just within reach but unobtainable
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Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Tantalus was punished by Zeus and consequently forever thirsty even though stood in a pool, and forever hungry, almost in reach of a fruit tree.
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Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
is "mirrors" referring to a double consciousness? one day the double consciousness must be shed
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And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
Cullen was gay and scared no one would accept this about him. He didn't tell that many people
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I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind
Grew up religious and with a religious family
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newtfire.org newtfire.org
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The tallest tower Can tumble down If it be not rooted In solid ground.
importance to start from the ground instead of starting halfway to prosperity and success
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You may carve a dream With an humble tool.
dreams of prosperity obtained by humble beginnings
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He started out In a simple way— For yesterday Was not today. Sometimes he had Compromise in his talk— For a man must crawl Before he can walk—
Washingtons ideals that individuals should build themselves up from the ground to prosperity.
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For smartness alone's Surely not meet— If you haven't at the same time Got something to eat.
smarts can only get you so far but if you don't have a way to use that intellect for a job or to obtain success, it's not serving you
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and your hand
reference to his atlanta compromise speech where he calls whites and blacks as separate fingers but working together as the hand
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Your fate is here And not afar
accepted reality, didn't fight for rights or try to change injustice
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Let down your bucket Where you are.
Start from the bottom, not any higher, build yourself up to prosperity
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He said, Till the soil And learn from the land.
advocated industrial trades and humble occupations
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Was a practical man
accommodationist- adapts to or compromises for another point of view
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dbdprints.wixsite.com dbdprints.wixsite.com
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If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men
Establishing a quality within someone but not making a whole new person
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Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task.
Many unique minds, perspectives, opinions, ideologies, biases, etc
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contamination
Being the worst of a population is so much easier than being the best. Being a role model takes time, effort, and commitment but being the worst is easier to spread.
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it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass
Du Bois claimed role models must be established to carry the image of the race and better the worst in their own races.
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drive.google.com drive.google.comDuBois14
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But I will say that there are today a surprising number of white people who are getting great satisfaction out of these younger Negro writers because they think it is going to stop agitation of the Negro question. They say, "What is the use of your fighting and complaining; do the great thing and the reward is there."
White people believed that if they allowed for black artistic expression, then the artists would be contempt that their work is utilized. No goal, just contempt, and he doesn't support.
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And many colored people are all too eager to follow this advice; especially those who weary of the eternal struggle along the color line, who are afraid to fight and to whom the money of philanthropists and the alluring publicity are subtle and deadly bribes.
W.E.B. claims that Washington is just a follower. He claims Washington is too afraid to fight for equality so he just follows the advice from white people. He calls the financial advisors of Washington "deadly bribes."
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They say, "What is the use of fighting? Why not show simply what we deserve and let the reward come to us?"
Indirect but obvious reference to Booker T. Washington.
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widens and you begin to see the world
The same way art interpretations holds so many possibilities, widened perspectives
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if you want romance to deal with you must have it here and now and in your own hands
Only the individual can romanticize their life, one the observer can determine what they precieve as beauty and what they don't.
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ey are for me unseparated and inseparable.
Beauty can bring truth with it and they go hand-in-hand. Does beauty bring worth?
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is a different kind of youth,
Each generation grows up and lives with different problems, different issues, different forms of oppression, but also different opprotunities.
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Who shall let this world be beautiful?
Creating a sense of responsibility for restoration
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a single phrase of music in the South --
Ending his mention of beautiful things with the South, but not the location, the music he heard filling the South.
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You realize this sooner than the average white American because, pushed aside as we have been in America,
Whites may not realize the true intent of those questions because they wouldn't understand what Du Bois means by a beautiful America- an accepting, equal America
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what is it that you would want?
Asking the audience to look beyond the present and current problems. Puts the audience in a position they probable haven't been before, and ask a question they probably haven't been asked before.
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We who are dark can see America in a way that white Americans cannot.
Whites will never know the hardships and misery black Americans have been through.
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rather satisfactory after all this talk about rights and fighting to sit and dream
Civil unrest is already tiring enough and any art they make shouldn't have to be judged
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what have we who are slaves and black to do with art?
Alaine Locke's perspective, that art should be in authentic form without altercations to prove a point. W.E.B. states this view and is nor about to rebuttal
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nationalhumanitiescenter.org nationalhumanitiescenter.org
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Surely we must take some cognizance of the fact that we live at the centre of a social problem.
This social dilemma, art or propaganda, is anthropogenic and we live in the middle of the problem, surrounded by the falsehoods we spread through artistic expression.
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To date we have had little sustained art unsubsidized by propaganda;
To this day, most art is tainted with propaganda and it's rare to find an authentic artistic piece free of any trace of propaganda.
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Not all of our younger writers are deep enough in the sub-soil of their native materials
young writers have been closed off by a cultural limiting public, so their native and fulfilling expression has been chipped away at.
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The sense of inferiority must be innerly compensated, self-conviction must supplant self-justification and in the dignity of this attitude a convinced minority must confront a condescending majority.
Ones feelings of inferiority must be held accountable rather than just blindly justified and with that transpiration the small group following blind justification must face a superior feeling majority.
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National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox The Making of African American Identity: Vol. III, 1917-1968 Alain Locke ART OR PROPAGANDA?*Harlem, Vol. I, No. 1 November 1928 Artistically it is the one fundamental question for us today, ⎯ Art or Propaganda. Which? Is this more the generation of the prophet or that of the poet; shall our intellectual and cultural leadership preach and exhort or sing? I believe we are at that interesting moment when the prophet becomes the poet and when prophecy becomes the expressive song, the chant of fulfillment. We have had too many Jeremiahs, major and minor; ⎯and too much of the drab wilderness. My chief objection to propaganda, apart from its besetting sin of monotony and disproportion, is that it perpetuates the position of group inferiority even in crying out against it. For it leaves and speaks under the shadow of a dominant majority whom it harangues, cajoles, threatens or supplicates. It is too extroverted for balance or poise or inner dignity and self-respect. Art in the best sense is rooted in self-expression and whether naive or sophisticated is self-contained. In our spiritual growth genius and talent must more and more choose the role of group expression, or even at times the role of free individualistic expression, ⎯ in a word must choose art and put aside propaganda.
Alain Locke claims propaganda asserts inferiority among groups and attacks those it seeks to down play. Propaganda is too easily spread to control, so one wishing to obtain individualistic expression must make the sophisticated decision, propaganda or art.
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comicsandthecanon.wordpress.com comicsandthecanon.wordpress.com
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changing his identity to be the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Augustus Freeman I.
Represents how racial injustice continued throughout several generations just taking on various forms and altercations as time passed.
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a Black man who seeks to destroy the organization he once supported after he realizes their supposed Black outreach is actually a form of Black subjugation,
Somewhat represents the idea of double-consciousness and even Washington, when he funded Jim Crow opposing organizations and Black newspapers.
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Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X
2 other figures with differing views but within the civil rights movement period. MLK advocated for confrontational and peaceful protests such as marches, boycotts, and sit-ins, while Malcom X promoted more violent approaches such as riots.
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While “The Atlanta Compromise” doesn’t directly critique Du Bois, Du Bois’s response deliberately excoriates Booker T. Washington’s stance.
Just as the poem we had to annotate as well, Washington speaks his views first, and Du Bois follows with his rebuttal.
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He deemed agitation and civil unrest for the sake of social equality to be “the extremest [sic] folly,”
Since Washington was born a slave, it's easier to understand why he has such views. He was born into an oppressive system and may not see a light at the end of the tunnel that Du Bois saw in which protesting for reform would bring him closer to.
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higher education
One of the common grounds shared between Washington and Du Bois, both were highly-educated individuals.
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a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
My Harlem Renaissance figure, Ida B. Wells, was also a founder of the NAACP.
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“The Atlanta Compromise,”
Washington was tasked with the objective to publicly speak to a majority-white crowd upon race relations and justice.
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Educator Booker T. Washington was born into the institution of American chattel slavery.
Washington was born into slavery, which Du Bois was not. This differing factor could contribute to their differing views concerning the strive for racial equality.
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The debate over the best sociopolitical direction for African Americans not only crosses over to different generations but also crosses over to different forms of media.
Refers to the various approaches to obtain racial equality presented from 2 different advocates. This problem has spread over generations and media outlets upon national coverage.
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in doing so often found many of their solutions standing in stark contrast to the ideas of their fellow Black intellectuals and activists.
Introduction to the differing ideologies between activists Washington and Du Bois
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