I shall return, I shall return again, To ease my mind of long, long years of pain.
Here we see the low-down folk again and this time we see him strong and with the determination to "return again." White supremacy will not stop him from thriving. This poem reminds me of Brown's "Strong Men" since the speaker states that they cannot stop strong men from getting stronger.
Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, Has pushed the timid little feet of clay, The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!
Like Sterling Brown and Langston Hughes, McKay talks about the "low-down folk" but this time in a way where he shows us their struggle. He is not ashamed of announcing what constant struggles they go through.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?” Nothing again nothing. “Do “You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember “Nothing?” I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes. “Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
Not only does Eliot incorporate another language in his poem but he also alternates characters like we see in this second part of his poem.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.
"Desolate and empty the sea." Once again we see Eliot alternating from English to German and vise versa. What is he trying to convey by doing so? Why not just one language?
You gave me hyacinths first a year ago
hyacinths are spring-flowering plants from the Mediterranean region and Africa. 
Egg in places. Egg in few insists.
Stein's poetry is hard to understand, random words are connected. Not sure what meaning she is trying to portray. I did notice that throughout the poem Stein mentions Eggs very often in different ways.
her great ungainly hips and flopping breasts addressed to cheap jewelry and rich young men with fine eyes
Makes me think of a poor and unhappy servant, surrounded by rich American women and men.
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast
I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would.
Doubleness is shown throughout the poem. The speaker begins talking about love being unimportant because it does not provide any physical needs, though she is hesitant about giving up love for other commodities.
Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
The speaker seems to contradict himself. When choosing one road, he seems to resent not taking the other one. The speaker states that he will possibly come back another day to take the other road, but is doubtful that he actually will come back. My question is, how does he really know what road he wants to take? He states that they are both equally worn out, but he would say that he took "the road less traveled."
“Good fences make good neighbors.”
The speaker in this poem is trying to go against this belief that his neighbor posses, "Good fences make good neighbors." Throughout the poem the speaker tries to find one reason or another in order to demonstrate that the wall between his neighbor and himself is not needed. In fact, I believe this poem is about not building walls that separate us from others.
For those of you who could not see the virtue Of knowing Volney’s “Ruins” as well as Butler’s “Analogy” And “Faust” as well as “Evangeline,”
The speaker is addressing this poem in a tone where he specifically talks to the people that do not appreciate literature and all its wonders. Posing society as ignorant and a waste of intellect.
WHEN I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring minds, Was sold at auction on the public square, As if to destroy the last vestige
The speaker talking after his death about himself and his creation makes this poem a narrative. He wants to see what is left of his literature and himself after he died, but expresses that his legacy was ultimately destroyed.
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus, Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics
The speaker, "Petit, the Poet", mentions different types of poetry in this particular poem. This is considered meta-textuality.
The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.
The narrator has now clearly stated that the figure behind the wallpaper is "like a woman" creeping out of the wall, almost "as if she wanted to get out." The interpretation I get from this is that the this woman represents the narrator herself being trapped in this scary nursery where she is going insane under her husband's control.
So I will let it alone and talk about the house
The narrator uses the house as an escape from thinking about her condition. It is clear that she suffers from depression, though she describes it as a "slight hysterical tendency."
an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
Du Bois mentions the double consciousness once again, and explains it in a way where it is a burden for him to have "two souls" in one body. This is not a good experience for him and it is something that he would rather not have. Why then, would Adams want to create this double consciousness for himself?
the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.
Du Bois explains how a Negro in America at that time, was a Negro without consciousness, or with double consciousness, and created by White America. Where he saw himself through the eyes of others. In relation to this, Adams constructs a double consciousness in his writing, where he alienates himself from his own actions. Du Bois alienates himself from whom he really is in a society that treats him like a problem.
An American Virgin would never dare command; an American Venus would never dare exist.
Adams seems to be stating the existing sexlessness of America. The American Virgin, representing virginity obviously. Venus, emphasizing sexual activity, "would never dare exist."
No more relation could he discover between the steam and the electric current than between the Cross and the cathedral. The forces were interchangeable if not reversible, but he could see only an absolute fiat in electricity as in faith.
It is very compelling to me how technology is being compared to religion in this case. Though it makes complete sense how the writer is trying to address that to Adams, technology is a powerful force just as religion is. Emphasizing how important technology is to Adams.
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness, From the furred ear and the full jowl come The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose
Seems to me that the pig is being fed to the Lion. In this case, the narrator is speaking for this creature that cannot nearly defend itself against the Lion. The Lion being the oppressor and the pig representing the oppressed.