Compare And Contrast Frederick Douglass And Gwendolyn Brooks

In Langston Hughes’s poem “I, Too, Sing America”, the context of the poem is based off of when he was segregated with an American family and how he will take a stand without hesitating. Langston Hughes is able to show the confidence and the beauty of a different race to another race showing that individuals are all equal. In Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise”, she is talking to a single person and communicates the potential of an individual when it comes to fighting for what is right. Maya Angelou describes her personal characteristics that may have obstructed the individual’s life. Although the individual that she is talking about has bashed her and mistreated her, she is seen as a great example to many other African Americans who have faced segregation by still standing up to what she believes in despite the bitterness she may have received.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, a famous American author from the antebellum period, notices the emphasis on individual freedoms in the works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists during his residency in the Brook Farm’s community. In response to these ideas, Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter, a historical novel about Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s lives as they go through ignominy, penance, and deprecation from their Puritan community to express their strong love for each other. Their love, even though it is true, is not considered as holy nor pure because of Hester past marriage to Roger Chillingworth, and thus Hester gained the Scarlet Letter for being an adulterer. Hawthorne utilizes biblical allusions, such as the stories of

“Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die, Life is a broken-winged bird,That cannot fly.” Langston Hughes held onto his dream of equality for all, and shared his dream with the world through his poetry. Hughes’ poetry speaks of the struggles of African Americans in their daily life, as well as his personal experiences of social injustice (Langston Hughes Biography). Hughes gave a voice to many experiencing social injustices in the African American community as well as outside of it (Langston Hughes Biography). Hughes’ works talk mostly about the lives of African Americans as well as his personal interests and a hope for a better America (Langston Hughes Biography). Langston Hughes’ focus on the civil rights of every American and contribution

Then received his M.F.A at the University of Pittsburgh. He has won several awards for his work such as his most recent, light head, which won the National Book Award in Poetry in 2010. Now he is a professor at his Alma Mater University of Pittsburgh teaching creative writing. Hayes tries to get the audience to look at thing in a different angle then most poets and can let them relate easier. Hayes talks about the problems of racism in Talk through a poplar experience that doesn’t have to do with slavery or segregation.

Without meaning to she eventually broke down the barrier and created their own African American literature. Most of her writing were based on historical Figures that she admired, such as George Washington, and she often wrote about the Revolutionary war and shared her opinions about them. “Wheatley’s poems reflected several influences on her life. For example, the famous poets she studied, such as Alexander Pope and Thomas Gray.” As shown about Phillis wrote about topics that she felt very strongly about and who she had the utmost respect

Aristotle, in his Poetics considers poetry a mimes form that has language, rhythm and lyrics. Moreover, in those days, any literary piece of work could be written in lyrics. The using of delicate forms of transmitting the message distinguishes poetry from other forms of literary texts. (Billy Mills,2008) Samuel Taylor Coledrige has a famous quote: "I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose - words in their best order; poetry - the best words in their best order." Well, I do not think there could be something more added, as long as we are all aware of the fact that poetry is a fine art that requires not only a developed vocabulary, but also a brilliant mind to put all those words in a specific order.

Poetry as defined from Webster’s Dictionary is the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts. That definition does not only describe how Nikki Grimes writes her poems, but the poetry written in her novel Bronx Masquerade. Tyrone Bittings never liked school, his friends were the only thing keeping him there. When his high-school English teacher speaks about the Harlem Renaissance, his class starts to write poetry of their own. We learn more about Tyrone and his classmates that we may have never known before.

Hughes citied Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as some of his main inspirations. Today we remember Langston Hughes for his insightful, and his very vivid portrayal and personal views on the black life in America from the 1920’s throughout the 1960’s. He wrote many novels throughout his life along with short stories and plays, as well as poetry. His life work were important in the early shaping of the artistic contributions to follow after him. Some have considered him to be one of the earliest innovators of jazz poetry.

Hughes’ uses African American vernacular throughout the poem with typical words, phrases, and grammar used like “ain’t been no”, “with no carpet”, “a-climbin’ on”, “goin’ “, “’cause”, and “I’se”. This manner of speaking adds character and personality to the mother by allowing the reader to infer that she is most likely Black, not a society or high-class woman, and that she is a working-class mother. The use of colloquial language adds to the generalization that blues is an African American originated genre and how personal the speaking can be for singers or poets due to them not changing their lyrics to have proper or acceptable English grammar. The language also adds to the maternal tone by using “you” in lines 1 and 18, the familiarity allows the reader to feel the fondness of the mother’s remembrance of her struggles and reprimands to her son in order to encourage him to not give

A talented poet always have thoughts in the littlest thing that people tend to ignore. We have seen examples of talented poets who overview the world in a more sensitive way than normal people. My favorite poem by an author that we have encountered this semester is Lucille Clifton’s “The Mississippi River Empties Into The Gulf.” I think this poem is a great example on how poets recognizes features that normal people cannot interpret out. First, Clifton personified a river to have the characteristics of humans. Clifton noted rivers to carry, to empty, and to drag the memories from the past.