Like the “Wasteland” dreams-future is expressed as a difficult journey that one needs to face and understand. The struggle comes to an end in this line. The movement from east to “west” fulfills, maybe, an expectation of the expansion of American exceptionalism. We should, CAN, change for the better.

This is a complete change to what the first line where “hysterical naked” where the sense of dread takes over. Here, naked becomes a symbol of freedom and in charge of his destiny. It’s reminiscent of Walt Whitman and his notions of free unapologetic nakedness. The power of the rawness of the body that is free from society that keeps wanting to cover the body “with clothing.” Embrace of one’s body is what gives us true freedom.

Capitalism that turns everyone into zombies in search of profits, mindless pure consumerism. Money making mechanisms that are destroying the humanity in the American society.

A lost generation that is so underappreciated that it does not matter what happens to them. Their existence or death makes no difference to the greater machinery of society that just doesn’t care. At the same time, it argues that the “ghostly daze” remains to show us they even if they don’t have an big impact they still matter and their lives matter even after death.

This reminds me of the cycles and time that exerts it force on poetry as it too has a life cycle. I think he is looking at how poetry is breaking down and dying or at least becoming ash, perhaps in an attempt to let us know that it can be turned into something new. A new kind of poetry!

This opening remark reminds me of CWC’s “To Elsie” where it argues that “The pure products of America/go crazy.” They identify the craziness/illness in society that is eroding what makes America, America. This also reminds me of the Wasteland where we see the madness of its generation seeing the negative things to come.

Black Americans experiences are encompassed in these lines. This strikes a feeling of hopefulness that things are changing.

This seems to hint back at Hughes, still not being recognized even as striving to be as good. Not recognized as much as a white men.

This line seems to indicate that the speaker want's to return to a time when he was able to laugh, but this focuses on the temporal aspect of life. Seems kind of strange to get back to this time. The repetition at the end seems to suggest an aspect of location.

This reminds me of WCW's “To Elsie"

This reminds me of the poem "They feed they lion"

is this the human struggles ito shows how temporary they are in the context of the history of the world.

A new consciousness that transcends racial and cultural differences. Perhaps more pure artist!

Locke seems to suggest assimilation as to making an "American culture," this is in contrast of what Hughes argues since this will erase a culture in favor of the dominant one that has claimed what it means to be "American."

Double-consciousness?

This is a nice idea, having enlightened individuals from both groups have communication to promote a different kind of idealism and universality would be nice. The difficulty here is that as the minority of people who would be open to discussions on race already understand the struggles of the other and can come to a mutual conclusion of what to do. But, this is not the case for the population at large, this plays in a similar way that Hughes’ essay in the argument of individualism over race.

The idea that the Old “Negro” has been subjected to being an object that needs outside protection doesn’t seem to have changed with the New generation of African Americans. Knowing that they have been used to promote a kind of morality that makes the white culture needs to solve to make themselves feel better shows that instead of being helpful, it has forced the African American experience to be that of always needing someone else to help them progress. This idea reflects what Hughes argues about the Black Artist, being themselves should be prioritized above anything else while at the same time considering their identity as being forged on their experiences as a disenfranchised minority. Having some agency and being able to act upon their power to create art and not dwell so much on the past.

This paragraph encapsulates Hughes entire argument. To think of the mindset of the artist, not as a racial identity but an Artist should be the primary goal of all artists. The “racial mountain” is there not to be climbed, but to be ignored and forge our own path and choose the best one for ourselves. An artist should be free and not restrained and be who he/she wishes to be while understanding that they are complex beautiful and ugly at the same time.

The appreciation of the struggles of the black artist has historically being placed on a second tier in comparison to the white ones. Being stuck in the middle of two cultural expectations creates this friction that doesn’t allow non-white artist to just be themselves. I am not sure how much progress Hughes would have thought it has been made since he wrote this.

This reminds me of the double-consciousness that is always present in W.E.B Du Bois. Thinking of the artist in relation to how he sees himself and how he is perceived by others. Not so much as that the young poet wants to be white, but that whiteness is more important than being an artist. This reminds me of the new critics we discussed in class a couple of weeks ago, thinking of the American identity moving away from the Eurocentric culture in the arts. With this essay, Langston moves even further making specific to African American identity and thinking little of what the white man thinks of his poetry. It makes me thing about how we tend to read the artist into his/her art, would Hughes consider that the artist is irrelevant after he/she is separated from the art? Is there such a thing as art that is independent from its creator?

Thinking about this poem as a whole in comparison to T.S Eliot shows the difference in approach. The simple and vernacular language used in this poem gives an immediate gut response as it avoids making convoluted references as it continues with the theme life and death and its cycle. I can see the cycle as this stanza repeats at the end of the poem.

This reminds me of the "Death by Water" part of "The Wasteland" as it echoes life and death.

This ending is similar to “The Waste Land” as the idea of change is heightened so that readers can see that that’s what is at the center of the poem.

The repetition of cycles and giving way to the new generation and the possible future reminds me of the way T.S Eliot’s looks at the cycles. Asking Lenin to resurrect to continue with his work of helping those in need, the forgotten ones.

This reminds me of “The Waste Land” as the ideas of the horrors of war seep into the following decades. “Dempsey” a boxer who signifies the battle fought as the U.S is trying to fix the problem of the world and sacrificing a “million men and a million boys" in the process not knowing if their sacrifice was worth it for the following generations.

The poem comes to a close with an ambiguous ending that juxtaposes “water” in front of him and “aridness” behind thus the “The Waste Land.” There seems to be so fragmented that what was no longer is and what’s to come is not what it is now. There seems to be this feeling of isolation and being stuck in the middle of two completely different worlds. One that has been ravaged and the possibility of a future after having experienced the horrors humans bring to each other. A mental state that is capable of redeeming and being hopeful that things can be better as we meditate on the past and what it can teach us for future cycles of life.

This stanza seems to draw back from the four previous parts of the poem where spring, water, fire, and death and life take on a specific place in the cycle of life. Thunder without rain provides another ominous feeling as has been the entire poem. Things that should be looked as positive are turned on its head. These are some kind of feelings that “we” all of us including the narrator has to struggle with. The end of this stanza gives an eerie thought that those who died in the war would be wishing to be alive and those alive (and witnessed the horrors of war) would wish to die soon “with little patience”.

The cycles of life seem to continue as youth turns into old age and death. Entering the “whirlpool” keeps one stuck in that cycle. The forces of nature seem to dictate what we are and aren't able to do.

This an interesting follow up the ending of the previous stanza which looks at fire death by “burning.” But, as I have noted at the beginning of the poem there seems to be a contradiction of the virtue of “spring” which should be read as the beginning of life, “water” a thing of nourishment and provider of life is used to kill. It makes as much sense as cleansing by fire!

This looks to be a reference to the rapture. In a similar way that “Tiresias” waits for the “guest.” This looks to the ideas of the resurrection of mankind and the two possible outcomes, to be taken to the afterlife or to burn in hell. The ambiguity here plays with the assumptions of good versus evil. Knowing that even if the war was fought for “noble” causes, the consequences were great and changed perceptions of humanity to be flawed. Even you kill for the good of the world, you are still killing someone. I would want to ask what the answer is here.

I like this image, since the recognition of the passage of time and a better understanding of the future can be better seen after living long enough to have an idea of what’s to come. But, it also references the idea of the afterlife waiting for salvation. I think that this kind of thinking provides a sense of relief that there is something more after we die. It follows the cyclical nature of what we want to believe exists when despair takes hold.

Once again, I see a cycle of repetition. The sense that it is “TIME” to move on and live conflicts with what part I of the poem talks about. There is a feeling of apprehension to move on, but we are reminded once more that time does not stop for anyone and people get left behind.

Being suspended in time, not knowing what it means to be alive and evaluating the sense of purpose to keep on living. Given the interaction in this part of the poem, the conversation seems to become of a question of mental state than physical.

This line ties back to the depiction of the passage of time as the speaker seems to be lamenting death and the unfathomable recognition that “so many” had died. This gives a hint of the difficulty of grasping at the reality the destruction caused in the war based on the countless lives that were lost. Yet, there is life in the form of flowers , death-life cycles.

“April is the cruelest month” An interesting observation of this line seems to implicate “spring” which often is depicted as the season where flowers bloom and everything is full of life. The poem is written after the end of WWI which also can speak to what has been lost and time keeps “cruelly” moving on.

I thought the breaking down of the word “door” into “do or” plays really nicely with the entire poem. The fracturing of the theme seems constant and providing this little hint can help understand why Stein does it. The meanings behind each word looks to see past the “door” which can be crossed or exited from and to “do” finish “or” stay in the same kind ambiguous place.

This kind of interesting since we are being suggested to “pause” our reading and take a break from it all. The poem seems to be a really fast-paced one that it seems to require a pause. This also reminds me that the poem can perfectly end here, but we are only asked to pause and keep going.

This phrase seems a bit odd, “ the school Physician first/brought their hatred down on him,” since it kind of negates what the poem ends with. Instead of being a bad person that should be not liked, he (the Physician) is treated as a “friend and adviser.” I am not sure if William Carlos Williams is telling us that people have become accustomed to the situation and can do nothing about it? My thinking is that when you are poor, this is the only kind of treatment you should expect.

What are “The pure products of America”? In the poem, William Carlos Williams seems to wonder about the changes that are going on in the country. Going from a place of opportunity to a place that has lost its soul and positivity. He can’t be talking about legacy of racism to be one of the “pure products” can he? Maybe he’s trying to tell us that there is no such thing as something pure, that it is stained and we can see it with the passage of time.

Ezra Pound analyzes the drawbacks of the poetic style. He criticizes “vers libre,” to not make free verse the only poetry that is worth writing. There may be an idea of Ezra Pound that good poetry can be done through means other than free verse.

I am completely confused as to what these things have to do with a Metro Station. It seems as if he's talking about alienation, but I am not sure.

Here, loneliness is described as an intense isolation. In a similar way to “love Is Not All,” the poem reinforces the forces of death and forgetting people in the line “dust among us.”

The poem gives a great account of what is necessary in life and the values that we have for the concept of “love.” This poem seems to be intended for people who need affirmation on the need for someone else or that once we are dead, love is no longer needed on either end of the dead to the living or living for the dead.

Thinking of the Designer as the the composer of the poem shows intricate aspects of life as an artist and creator. This poem reads to me as a Sonnet as it tries to get to a conclusion in the last two lines. The creator uses "darkness" as way to describe designing powers.

I am a little confused by this poem. I do not get a sense that the narrator is clear on what he wants. This lines specially make it problematic, in that it can be read that the traveler wants to die/"sleep" in the snow or that he actually wants to go home and "sleep." The contemplation and the lack of action leads me to think that he is in fact looking to die.

In response to the troubles that life brings, this line provides a good closing statement of what it means to be human. Acceptance that life can be cruel and being O.K with it seems to be the overarching theme in the poem. Live life, Love life!

Here, Masters changes tune from the destruction of "the circulating library." His contemplation of how important his work was while he was alive now that he is dead shows how things that get forgotten often get destroyed. Only memory is what remains after one is gone!

I look at the poem as an allegory of the changing times and the appreciation of poetry. It looks that time is equated to distance that changes the reader's response to poetry-no longer interested in it as it once was.

This is an interesting turn from the first stanza. As the you poem shifts from "I" to "you," but it still keeps the idea that poets are nothing more than just humans as the "I" refers to them in the past tense (dead). They, in the afterlife have still this idea of grandeur that is still separates them from mere mortals.

The wallpaper becomes the representation of the ways society limits married women. In order to escape her condition, she finishes peeling the paper of the wall giving her the authority to see what’s behind it. All this freedom has given her an opportunity to break free from her husband’s domination. This is noticeable because she walks over the body of her husband over and over again. This is not to say that she only breaks free, but that she becomes the agent of her own life. If what seems to be out of conventionality is to be different or “crazy” (wanting to not be just a wife or mother), then the lady in the wallpaper represents freedom from the chains of cultural expectations for women.

Another aspect of domesticity and subjugation to make everything about someone else except the woman. She needs to get better not for her sake, but for him and their “child’s sake.” It seems as if everybody refuses to see her more than a wife and a mother. Looking at her as an individual with specific needs, she finds refuge in the woman in the wallpaper.

When we look at the agency of women during this time, we can clearly see that the John contributes to her sickness. As a physician, John should know what ails his wife better than she herself. In a strange set-up of the story, we are able to garner that their relationship is not the best one and that her sickness is brought by him.

Here he tries to address how to fix being “a problem” in the broader society. He’s not interested in making the distinctions between races the important part of his argument for the power of black people, but instead insist that what gives them power is the similarities to every other culture. But to assimilate, they need to have equal rights and dreams of this happening in the future.

Du Bois looks past at the experiences of marginalization of black peoples. He looks to the past as a reminder of the “powers” of a culture that has been all but erased. He brings back and makes a connection to the origins of civilization as a way to point out that there is more to him than being black.

Here, Du Bois frames the question “How does it feel to be the problem?” not in relation to him being the problem, but how others see him as the problem. As he observes the differences between what he sees the problem to be and how he’s seen as the problem. To answer this question, Du Bois questions how society as a whole has created a separation of peoples where speaking about the black man seems taboo.

As a “Virgin” Adams saw himself looking and being immersed in a world worshiping the dynamo. He tries to use a scientific approach to un sequence of history as his change between religion and technology seems to become interchangeable. The part of “its values, equivalents, conversions” speaks to his difficulties to coming to terms with the complexities of the world as it becomes harder to ignore the forces of technology in this “new” world.

The modern man believes in science as the way to obtain truth in the same way that men look at the Church when they seek truth as well. Given that these “forces were interchangeable” or “reversible,” gives credence to the forces of technology over the religious beliefs. Believing in technology and scientific progress as the possessor of truth in the future.

In this passage, the “sequence of force” is summoned again as he looks at the limitations of human nature. The motivations and attractions as the “force” pull them together. Looking at the chronology of life and what makes life what it is, he acknowledges that time will keep on going with nothing to stop it.

Austen uses the term "endowment", to draw attention to the acquisition of knowledge not innate ability. “The word may be properly used in opposition to the gifts of nature” (Johnson).

The striking surroundings that are within her view (Johnson).

The plotting of a malicious contrivance against Catherine (OED).

In this sentence, Austen tries to over dramatize the event by using “presentiments” of misfortune or something evil (OED).

An artificial behavior or putting on of airs (OED).