A part of me thinks that there is something kinky about the biting here considering the inclusion of the word "pederasty," which I have just now learned is a sexual term. The other part thinks that the cooking is "wild" because it is he is trying to eat the detective.

Perhaps "chained" in this context could be literal, in the same way that protestors chained themselves into a human barricade? Is there any historical instance of this happening with subways?

From what I remember about the Henry Adams piece, isn't a dynamo itself another term for "machine"? I'm sure this line isn't about a "heavenly connection to the starry machine in the machinery of the night," so it makes me wonder if the "machinery of night" isn't the type to generate energy.

When I initially read this line I assumed the subsequent little child was a representation of future generations (which is most likely what the author meant in general), but on a re-read it feels way more personal knowing that this speaker herself bears the responsibility of bringing this metaphorical child into reality.

I'm curious as to where this sort of spiritual angle comes from: what context this poem comes out of where words of unity transition into words of worship.

Perhaps this is a sarcastic line taking the onlooker's ridicule of this man for "not being black enough" to its logical conclusion: describing a bar for "authentic black" culture that this crowd doesn't even aspire to.

This patch could be one in the material the speaker is so tired of sewing or perhaps a patch of "wasted fields," where there is so much death and suffering ("holocaust of hell, those fields of woe"). Either way, these details seem to be conjured out of the daydreams of somebody who is tired of sewing but cannot stop (or is not allowed to).

This being the first part of the line following "my head weighed down with dreams" makes me wonder if this is a dream to the speaker, if this is that weight, in the sense of an ambition.

This passion lurks, but it doesn't jump out until the "Your soul leaps up" line. There appears to be some sort of delay in the "power" that the poem's subject holds.

Recalling the "songs that are heard" and "songs that are unheard" theme from To Usward, it seems as though this poem—one that highlights forms of unabashed self-expression: shouting, strumming, crying, laughing—is both quiet as an arrangement of words on a page and loud as a form of rebellion.

What is the poem saying when Lotus flower is the only part that is written like how one would say it aloud? This might not be the case given the other examples of unfamiliar vocabulary throughout (I've never heard of "dearth" before), but the apostrophe just sticks out to me.

I'm detecting this theme/idea of quiet, muted passion going under the radar of loud, expressive passion (comparing this line to "have songs to sing / Of jungle heat and fires"); two types of "songs" being sung with only one of them being heard.

Could this have any relation to the "Maybe it sags / like a heavy load" line from Langston Hughes' Harlem?

Perhaps this is what makes Ma Rainey a figure who attracts audiences "riding' mules" or "packed in trains": her platform as a black singer being used to speak to the experiences of working class black people.

It is interesting to me that the speaker's dialect and accent are not only represented by the vocabulary but also by how it sounds when said aloud. I'm sure this is very common and historical, but the "Fo'"s stand out to me for some reason.

These final similes seem to confirm the singer's "wishes," as if he were a character written into the poem by Hughes; it's interesting that "a man that's dead" isn't the first suggestion, like it wasn't the first "thought" the speaker had in trying to describe this sleep.

The juxtaposition here sticks out so much to me: comparing this simile to "a raisin in the sun," "a sore," "rotten meat," and "a heavy load," the language being used is noticeably less nauseating but definitely still... warm, fleshy.

These sections stick out to me more after our lecture and assignment on "artistic" plagiarism (for lack of a better word); the proceeding lines make me wonder why those particular parts of that particular song were used in this poem.

When reading these words today, calling a group of people more "advanced" reads like a pseudoscientific description meant to put a lab coat and reading glasses on a racist statement; this isn't what the line means in this context, of course, but I had to re-read this sentence to get that image out of my head. Perhaps "advanced" meant something more class-related in 1926?

A strong reminder of how important self-determination is/was to civil rights movements—also a perfect response to those cries of "We have to consider what white people will think of this or that" Hughes relayed a few paragraphs before.

Here is another use of mountains as a symbol for oppression; Hannah pointed out that the previous one was used to define obstacles in (particularly) black art, which holds true for this instance as well.

I like the implication here that these dilemmas will carry on to future generations and that these philosophies as they currently exist will evolve with them ("that of the present").

There is an ongoing parallel here with other marginalized groups: this sort of "Your existence is an intellectual debate to me" -type of attitude towards human beings who simply want to live life.

Reminds me of W.E.B. Du Bois' theories of the veil and double-consciousness; seeing as how The Souls Of Black Folk came out about 20 years before this piece, it's tempting for me to try and seek for signs of irony that might have trickled down from Du Bois' work.

Reminds me of Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 and the baffled reaction it garnered for its cubist style: how "there were prizes offered [In American Art News] to anyone who could find the nude," as if to suggest that the painting couldn't truly be of nude bodies because they aren't immediately recognizable or "pure."

Robert Delaunay Windows on the City, No. 4

This seems like another instance of the author using the title of the poem as an opening line, setting a groundwork for the rest of the piece to build on. I remember first seeing this painting by Robert Delauny and dismissing it as anything other than abstract until I saw the title and realized that it also set a base for interpretation.

Perhaps this line would suggest second thoughts on the opening line—especially considering that this is the closing one, maybe there is an arc somewhere in the poem's own reflections on love?

The lengths of these plants would be consistent with the vocabulary of the poem ("stalk," "spiny," "pierce me"); making these plants sound like a field of penetrating spikes.

Perhaps (given this poem's placement under "Love Is Not All") a reminder of what love couldn't conquer, what the rain was able to surpass.

Makes me think that the "you" throughout this poem could only ever be directed at the titular clerks themselves and not, say, the author or the reader or society as a whole.

Makes me wonder where this author is coming from by equating poetry with opulence in apparently trying to uplift those living out lives mundanely and quietly.

Perhaps equating Walt Whitman and Homer to lions (or whatever else acts as predator in a land of pines)—speaking to the smallness ("Petit, the Poet") and insignificance of the speaker/subject by comparison.

Given what I think this sentence is listing off, I wonder if the contradictory nature of this advice is coming from friends and conflicting with those of foes, or if the advice of both parties are equally as contradictory and unhelpful. If it's the latter, it would be yet another example of that sort of "half-hesitant sort of way" that even the most innocuous of non-black people of Du Bois' time would approach the topic of race to him and others ("they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town," which reminds me of that line, "By the way, I would have voted for Obama a third time if I could," from Get Out).

Another instance of a conflicted "on one hand there's X, on the other there's Y" situation—though I'm not sure what these "two unreconciled ideals" are (again, my misunderstanding of the language). It seems that one of these ideals involves a black person's liberation and self-determination (if those are the right words) being everyday for their white counterparts ("a twice-told tale to his white neighbors")—but I am lost at how "Greek" serves as the other ideal (or if these even are the ideals, or just part of them).

A strong observation of experienced racial oppression (where it is so ingrained in your everyday life that it is inseparable from your own consciousness) that, in comparing it to the text by Adams, reminds me of that author's comparison of faith with technology as it becomes his "present"—granted, of course, Du Bois's philosophy addresses a more immediate and devastating effect on the people involved

Maybe it would be more obvious to me if I had a stronger reading comprehension of early 20th century English, but this line makes me wonder if Adams' ambivalence towards the sex of the dynamo is spoken out of disdain or fear of that sex, or even if he's speaking sarcastically or ironically.

Another example of Adams comparing the dawning 20th century's technological advancements with the long-running faith its consumers have had (and will continue to have). The previous paragraph had the line, "he began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross," which was far less absolute of a comparison than this line, wherein the similarities between the two concepts seem to be lost on Adams completely ("No more relation could he discover").

What huge wheel? Is this a literal dynamo Adams grew accustomed to in the great gallery of machines? Is this a figurative comparison between the sun's(?) daily revolution and a non-existent, spinning wheel going around humanity at arm's length, trying not to wake a non-existent baby? Is this non-baby us, the future generations?

I'm definitely missing what context informed these lines, but their tone, as well as that of "Come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower," remind me of working/playing in dirt: pulling up weeds, picking up a muddied hose, earthy skid-marks across the hands. There's something less bleak and somber about this section (or stanza? I'm not sure what it's called) in comparison to the "Earth is eating trees, fence posts" and "industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride" that make up the first half of the poem.

EDIT: I've just now learned that a "reed" is a part of a shovel! This whole time I've read it as the reeds of a lake.

Maybe it's simply the use of "bearing" here, but this first line makes me think of birth—comparing the experience to goods being carried out of shipping containers (barrels, burlap sacks, anything else industrial, as Hannah pointed out).