It is his most anthologized poem after he wrote "We Wear Masks" because of the lines, "I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, When he beats his bars and he would be free." ... He was also a poet who wrote in black dialect and Standard English. ... He was the first black American poet to gain this national praise, although white and black writers before him have used it also (Laryea 108). ... This states that he knows why the people caged up like the bird are singing for freedom and redemption. He is using his skill with wording to show that a sl...

• Word Count: 1623
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Me--who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. ... I guess being colored doesn't make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races. ... This expansion forces him, as well as the reader, to acknowledge that his blackness doesn't automatically make him dislike preferences of other races (line 25 and 26) - the underlying message being that his blackness doesn't automatically make him like the same things as other blacks either. ...

• Word Count: 1896
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Me--who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. ... I guess being colored doesn't make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races. ... This expansion forces him, as well as the reader, to acknowledge that his blackness doesn't automatically make him dislike preferences of other races (line 25 and 26) - the underlying message being that his blackness doesn't automatically make him like the same things as other blacks either. ...

• Word Count: 1930
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Gwen Harwood is a poet who appeals to me in many ways. ... I find Harwood's poems particularly fascinating, and this is one aspect that that really attracts me to her poetry. ... To the wind she says, "They have eaten me alive." ... The language used in this line creates a very clear image - it is almost as if they are in a black and white movie, expressionless simply "rehearsing" their lines, in this case being the children's names and birthdays. ... The melting west is striped like ice cream. ...

• Word Count: 1594
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Through these poems, Blake is making us see the situation from their perspective, and makes us understand what their lives must have been like. ... This stanza also gives a hint of something else; Tom Dacre's hair is white and curls like the back of a lamb. ... This can be seen in the second stanza, and the first two lines of the third stanza: Because I was happy upon the heath, And smil'd among the winters snow: They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe. ... Blackness has devoured all parts of the chimney sweepers lives. The third line in the ...

• Word Count: 2076
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The moon glows like phosphorous on vagrant waters. ... Oh the black cross of a ship. ... I see myself forgotten like those old anchors. ... As soon as the night comes Neruda says "night comes and starts to sing to me". ... The biggest stars look at me with your eyes. ...

• Word Count: 1395
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Jazz was a flourishing art form that Hughes often liked to write about. ... Like the earlier poem "Harlem Night Club-, it is a fast-paced, forceful piece. ... It represents yet another case of whites letting blacks down. ... The poem is a speech made by a black defendant, who is arguing to a white jury. ... The comparison of shame to a painful burn is most apparent in the last stanza, "When you throw Cold water on me, I'll sign the Paper..."" ...

• Word Count: 1313
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

"She is a black ugly reality, not a whitened dream. ... Maya's first collection of poetry, Just Give Me A Cool Drink Of Water Fore' I Diiie, was published in 1971. ... The second section includes Maya's opinions on the lives of black people during slavery and also the oppression of the black culture in the 1960's. The themes of these poems include the rejection and injustice that blacks faced at that time. ... "In this hymn-like poem to a woman's self beauty the self confident speaker reveals her attributes as a phenomenal woman. ...

• Word Count: 1347
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

'You do not do, you do not do/ Any more, black shoe/ In which I have lived like a foot/ For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breath or Achoo', is the opening description provided by Plath of her circumstances in 'Daddy'. ... Plath, representative of women, is forced into submission by the notion of her deceased father, the black shoe in this instance. This commonplace simile, combined with the diction of 'black shoe; and 'poor and white' contributes to sense of suffocation in the poems opening stanza. ... Plath describes Hughes as a metaphor...

• Word Count: 2183
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The contrast is just like that of looking at the same picture in two different ways. The first picture printed in color and the second in black and white. There always seems to be more truth and emotion in those pictures that are printed in black and white. ... I would like to think that Burns was portraying a culture rather than mocking it. By placing this tail within a story that seems common helps me to believe that he is sympathetic. ...

• Word Count: 1853
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

In fact, the whole poem is shaped like a '1' (200). ... "black against white" is an example of such a description in the poem; the clashing colors create a feeling in sync with '!'. ... In it, he wrote, "for me, this poem means just what it says . . . and the ! ... As stated above, the poem's theme is the cycle of life, and "black against white" could be indicating life death versus life. ... blac may seem like a simple mess of words, but in reality is much more complex than that. ...

• Word Count: 1411
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

In fact, the whole poem is shaped like a '1' (200). ... "black against white" is an example of such a description in the poem; the clashing colors create a feeling in sync with '!'. ... In it, he wrote, "for me, this poem means just what it says . . . and the ! ... As stated above, the poem's theme is the cycle of life, and "black against white" could be indicating life death versus life. ... blac may seem like a simple mess of words, but in reality is much more complex than that. ...

• Word Count: 1396
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

His viewpoints and achievements set the tone for Harlem Renaissance and earned him a lot of respect from the younger black poets of the time (poets.org). ... For example, as McKay writes that the dancers voice was like "blended flutes blown by black players," he is explaining that it is not just any players, but specifically the black players. ... She does not like this "flattery" and does not enjoy the fact that she feels very out of place in this "strange environment." ... As I began to read this poem, I thought it was a look into the world of a struggling black female during the...

• Word Count: 1662
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

His viewpoints and achievements set the tone for Harlem Renaissance and earned him a lot of respect from the younger black poets of the time (poets.org). ... For example, as McKay writes that the dancers voice was like "blended flutes blown by black players," he is explaining that it is not just any players, but specifically the black players. ... She does not like this "flattery" and does not enjoy the fact that she feels very out of place in this "strange environment." ... As I began to read this poem, I thought it was a look into the world of a struggling black female during the...

• Word Count: 1634
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The description of how he would like to love me - of how I deserve to be loved - is enough to turn a girls head. ... More than that, it is like a secret shared between him and me, don't tell anyone but ' This subtle waywardness, gentle conspiracy, quiet understatement is characteristic of Frost, but in this poem he almost explains how he came by it. ... The words are wild and joyful, elemental and rugged, inescapable - like the call of the sea. It reminds me of the sea in other poems. ... The poem has an added poignancy for me because someone was kind enough to read it to me o...

• Word Count: 1553
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

The "bloodsucking bat" takes life out, like people who use, take advantage of you and drain you of your positive energy and everything you have. The "rat", an animal that rings on plague, disease and infection, like evil cursed people who bring trouble, torment and disaster. The "stoat", a sly, sharp-toothed, quick-footed animal like a person who leads you into traps and deserts you when you need them most. ... The line "club-footed ghoul" creates an image of an awful person that haunts and hassles you, with an eerie, low moan-like sound created by the assonance. ... The third line of the seco...

• Word Count: 2163
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

The flies have swarmed the dead beast and make it appear as a dark black cloud has descended upon the carcass. ... Much like Ghazal V, Ghazal XII also displays a sense of sadness and yearning. ... It seems like the narrator is depressed and has nowhere to turn to, which is the ultimate sadness. ... Now that you are here, let me touch you like the forehead of the beggar that touches the ground. It's not surprising that you came to find me because you care for the ones in pain like me. ...

• Word Count: 1751
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

However, one could imply a caesura after the word "eyes," making the phrase "My mistress" eyes, are nothing like the sun" rather than "My mistress" eyes are nothing like the sun." ... My mistress" eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips" red; If snow be white, why then here breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. ... If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. ... "If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." ... Thi...

• Word Count: 1776
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

Reference to the word "time" is used constantly as in there's "time for you and time for me", before they have some delightful upper-class tea. ... There is this simile, "when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table." ... The kinaesthetic imageries like, "the yellow fog that rubs its back" and "the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle." ... Finally, the visual imagery of "where wind blows the water white and black" also reflects pollution. The black water is probably because of the waste materials from the factories. ...

• Word Count: 1454
• Approx Pages: 6

The Life of Emily Dickinson After getting my midterm prospectus back and reading all the feedback given to me, I realized the original topic I chose was too broad. ... "Her subjects are often parts of the topography of her own psyche; she explores her own feelings with painstaking and often painful honesty but never loses sight of their universal poetic application; one of her greatest techniques is to write about the particulars of her own emotions in a kind of universal homiletic or adage-like tone ("After great pain, a formal feeling comes") that seems to describe th...

• Word Count: 1665
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

"And to give me a little scarlet bud, that was dying of frost, to wear" (801). ... "When I saw your corpse in your coffin, I flung back your flower to you; it was all of yours I ever had; you may keep it, and-keep from me" (801). ... She is asking why God isn't pursuing grander things like the stars and planets, but she also asks why he isn't concerned with the starving or the dying. ... This is like saying that the purpose women have had and what they have done so far no longer matters. ... By women finally earning this change, it was a step closer towards changes in other aspects o...

• Word Count: 1554
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Maybe the dream breaks up like a raisin, damaged and old, but the essence of it is still intact. Later there are lines about festering like a sore. ... It further underlines and describes her play's themes, and it also emphasizes the heritage of black American literature, a heritage that portrays a very different conception of America than the literature of dominant white culture. ... Hughes also asks the question: "Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?" ... After analyzing both Langston Hughes" poem and Lorraine Hansberry's play it give me a better understanding of what exactl...

• Word Count: 1645
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

One of the more popular war poets is Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), who began his career as a poet sometime before the War, and whose earlier style of writing, observed in poems like 'Sonnet Written At Teigmouth, On A Pilgrimage To Keats's House' (1911) was derived from that the Romantic ideology, which stated that poetry 'should be personal (to the point of appearing confessional), sincere (which meant limitations on satire and humor) and richly loaded with imagery' (Purkis 82.) ... Thus, snow which is of course white, seems to color the air black and is conveyed as host...

• Word Count: 2437
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School