This reminds me of something Dumbledore tells Harry Potter in The Deathly Hallows, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Which concludes the point that mental representations can be more powerful than physical representations of events. That these roman candles are more justified in their hallucinations than of the "sane public"

These artists, with their crazed minds, search for the mortal necessities and higher truths and thus were considered mentally unstable in society of that era. The subjects families and possibly the state condemned them to mental facilities where electro-shock therapy was a common treatment. However Ginsberg says that shocks make the metaphysical journey the artists already make becomes the permanent residence for their souls. In this light, could Ginsberg be claiming that in this state, the subject has elevated to supreme understanding and thus in a better position?

I think Ginsberg is referencing the Romantic poet and artist, William Blake who wrote poems about the dualistic elements of life. Songs of innocence and Songs of Experience. Nothing can be true without it's opposite counterpart.

Fire and turpentine are destructive elements but are described as something of "paradise" and they fulfill the "dreams" of the subjects. It could also be described through the motif the beautiful and the sublime. The subjects search the vastness of life with the beautiful drugs, alcohol and experiences.

"El" is the hebrew word for God, and "Mohammedan angels" is reference to the prophet Muhammed of Islam.

The poor bear their brains to the heavens, but gain no solace from either form of religion.

Adams compares the new technology, dynamos, as divine because how incomprehensible they were for even the most accomplished scientists. His quest to unravel its mysteries almost seems like quest for something as weighted as the holy grail.

Rome is a city in Georgia yes, but it is also the site of the Vatican in Italy. The references to Catholicism are profound, as one of the characters is St. Peter and another, the Devil. There are references to the Church Steeple and Slim saying, "Lawd, Lawd Lawd".

I wondered if the purpose was to show an empty belief in God because with overwhelming evidence of hardship and evil surrounding the black community.

The double consciousness is apparent and also seems to be the driving force of growth out of discrimination. It rightfully angers Brown, but gives him faith that his people will progress to a position of power.

This section also resembles Hughes' poem "I, Too, Sing America" when the whites tell the speaker to leave. The speaker "laughs". The laugh seems to be a way to cope in the moment or is it foresight to what they have faith will happen?

They will grow, without permission, without control.

Sterling Brown depicts the poorer community of the African American population much like Hughes describes them, "But then there are the low-down folks, the so-called common element, and they are the majority—may the Lord be praised!"

They live by the riverand use it of a natural resource, free from any gas or electric company. They aren't playing the "white man's" game, not reading "the white newspapers and magazines" because " they do not particularly care whether they are like white folks or anybody else. Their joy runs, bang! into ecstasy."

This poem suggests that this is how the black man should live. Unapologetic and true to their nature.

Is the speaker saying the blues, the music, is the only way he can express his dissatisfaction? Does the emergence of jazz and blues music in this era help the African American population become aware of their struggles, does it help them understand it?

This line was used as a title of a play. It is about a middle class black family who struggle with the meaning of wealth and happiness and what it means to be successful. It's a comment on this poem, of the effects of poverty on an entire social class.

Tomorrow is meaning future, but the attitude this line carries shows the speakers faith that his race will one day be held in the highest regard, that the roles will be reversed. The attitude this line hold also reveals the contempt that the speaker has for the current state but since he is not in a position of power he must, "Laugh". Does this mean he has to "play a part"? He must play into the hands of the more powerful, bide his time and return, almost reborn, like a phoenix?

T.S. Eliot’s , “the Wasteland” is a true representation of the modernist movement. It is fragmented and anti-realist style drawing from the power of natural forces. Eliot discusses fire, thunder and water as prevailing entities that have a hold on life. However Eliot also makes references to wind, they are few and far between but are consistently referenced to be silent or nonexistent throughout the poem.

The wind is an invisible subject, and seemingly keeps bugging or reminding the speaker of something unpleasant much like a ghost. In a critique of the piece, it is stated, “Most words for spirit, ghost or mind and soul have evolved from words that once meant only wind or breath”(Brooker). http://bit.ly/1OUJsDt

The wind can be perceived to be the voice of an agent of fate or God. However the disillusion that “the wind” is doing nothing, saying nothing can infer the speaker’s disbelief in higher beings, that he takes the wind to be literal wind. For example, “There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.”

The speaker believes that the chapel is empty of a divine influence. It reveals the speaker has presumably lost faith in God and purpose. As Vanessa says in her post, this poem reflects , “the effects World War I had on both the land and the people”. That after such loss and tragedy the idea of God and Fate seems to be an empty voice, an empty idea and belief system that left a generation abandoned.

Eliot pairs the frosty silence with the gardens. Gardens, though they are natural, are a place where nature is manipulated by man. The voices of shouting and crying are is response from being controlled by society. This is similar to Frost's The Road Less Traveled.

Whispers have the connotation of intimacy and closeness but the action of picking reflects a harvest of sorts. Is the death a harvest of bones?

The natural world deciding to make its opinion known

The speaker says that he had not thought death and the war would have such a profound effect of the people left in its wake. Is this imagery of frustration of the surviving men, show that they wish they had perished too?

Is this a reference to Franz Ferdinand? His assassination triggered the beginning of World War I, in which the Germans were blamed.

Is Stein saying it takes time to learn the significance of the things that happen to us? Whatever happens may be hard to accept or understand, and over time, she says she writes about it.

Death and grief are both alluded to throughout the poem. Especially in these lines where a funeral is happening for Susan, with 'blackness' of death being the reason for going to church on Saturday. I am not sure the significance, possibly to juxtapose the highs and lows of life, since most of the other lines are of happy and pretty things.

the repetition of these two words shows how Stein sees cycle of history. Events happen, they are recorded, similar events happen and are recorded. And her comment that things never change.

Does the reference to driving the car, represent the motif of "the road"? Do the people never change and adapt?

Have these women lusted after money and status so much that they have disregarded the earth as useless and "excrement"?

Could it possibly the author's comment on the desire for economic prosperity a la the 'American Dream'?

The poem is addressed to a specific person named Elsie, but here the speaker addresses some woman like her. This makes me think she is a dime a dozen, and represents a much larger grouping of people that William Carlos Williams is commenting on.

With no connection to the traditions of the people or Elsie specifically, are these "showy and purely ornamental" things seen as divine to them? Is it to show how desolate and mundane this low social class has become?

We want so much to live in happiness, but we are always preoccupied and wallow in our faults and our fates (death) rather than focusing on the positive or the sublime.

No one is exempt from experiencing dullness or dissatisfaction in life. Poets try to express their discontent, Kings try to control it. This does nothing for them in the end, much like the latter poem, you should just "ebb and flow"

I just watched the movie, 'Straight Out of Compton' and if this was true during Du Bois's era is sure as hell true during the 80's and 90's and systematically generated the genre 'gangster rap'. N.W.A.'s beloved song, "Fuck tha Police" is a direct reflection of society's treatment and "disdain for everything black".

As terrible as the crimes endured by Africans, Du Bois believes that the entire race has learned "the meaning of progress" humbly through this process. He is saying that African consciousness has elevated to a purer truth and are essentially better off for it, as hard as that may seem.

Du Bois uses very strong visuals of prison, shadows, light and darkness to emphasize the hopelessness he feels for his own race.

He describes how racism is perceived by whites, as something "strait" in other words: honorable, right and "stubborn" which has the connotation of something that is pesky or a nuisance.

Juxtaposed to how the reality of the situation is for blacks: "relentlessly narrow" contorting an entire people, "tall and unscalable" showing there is no escape and "plod darkly on in resignation" revealing all attempts to change the status quo are futile.

I think someone wrote above that the pig could be referencing cops, and then I read the third stanza again and now I concur.

I see a parallel between the oppressed and the oppressors in this poem to that relationship between whites and blacks in the antebellum south.

I think this is a stretch, so I will explain. There is a constant motif of generational turmoil, "mothers hardening like pounded stumps," and "from my children inherit," or "out of buried aunties". Which makes me think of the generations that were born and died within slavery.

There is a strong emphasis also on religion. As someone pointed out earlier, "They Lion grow" could be a reference to Jesus. Phrases like,"pig driven to holiness," and , "all my white sins forgiven" to show the emergence of christianity within the slave population.

Lastly, there is a deep connection to the earth and nature throughout the poem. If the lion is a reference to Jesus, it should be noted that he is represented by an animal, the oppressors are pigs and hams respectively. I get the sense that nature is a driving force and on some level, worshipped, in it's own right by africans who live off the land.

Like I said, a stretch. To wrap it up, I would say that the poem creates the idea that we are slaves to waste and pollution.