Interesting that the devils here are white. Normally a color associated with purity, Brown flips the notion to perhaps challenge white supremacy and show that “white isn’t always right”. Also reminds of the phrase “blue-eyed devil” to refer to white people.

It’s like a personal mantra ine says to oneself after a really long and tough day. The repetition is used to encourage oneself to never tarry and never lose faith. No matter how hard life gets one should never surrender because “the strong get stronger”.

I think these are lyrics that Ma Rainey singing and it makes me think of Hughes’ scaling the racial mountain. Perhaps by accepting who she is and is unafraid to connect back to her roots Ma has been able to scale said mountain and look back at where she used to be. Or, perhaps, it is her scaling a racial “hill” but not the mountain because accepting her identity is just one step to scaling the racial mountain. The loneliness said hill may speak to the idea that very few have yet to face the challenge of embracing one’s identity.

Sing about the hardships of life - then, now and into the future. The blues recognizes the raw emotion that people feel. The poem also acknowledges the low down folk that Langston Hughes mentions.

This is like Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train” in that the train (or some form of locomotion) is taking people to a place of art, culture, and prosperity.

This is reminiscent of Langston Hughes’ view on jazz and why he writes about and loves it so much. It speaks to the courage to finally break free, spiritually. It speaks to independence and embracing identity.

That “something” speaks volumes to the attitudes toward the black population; they are neither equal nor fully human. They are an example. The fact that the “formula” they represent only have negative connotations further shows the superiority complex that the white population feels toward the black population.

This line contains an internal rhyme which is not found in other parts of the poem. Perhaps it creates a link of familiarity for the poet. Any other thoughts on the significance of the internal rhyme?

Very much a modernist tenet: break down the image or object fo “cleanse” it of other connections and then put them back together to challenge the viewer or view the object in a new light.

This phrase has a wonderful oxymoron to it. Cleaving is to split, yet the phrase ends with together. It creates a sense of togetherness alongside chaos.

This motif of rock and water used in the poem seems to show the world at a tipping point. Water is necessary for life, but too much water kills. The rocks can provide safe haven from too much water, but it is so dry people wish for water.

The repetition of this line emphasizes the barren state of the land. Nymphs are like woodland sprites or fairies and are used in pastoral poetry and imagery. They signify the fertility and wildness of nature. For the nymphs to have departed may mean that the land has lost its fertile state.

This entire dialogue feels very rushed. The reader gets the sense that these two people have very little time to talk. It is also interesting that Eliot stopped using quotation marks for this conversation. Any ideas?

It's quite interesting that only three of the four seasons are mentioned in this first section. Autumn, for whatever reason, is skipped over. If the different seasons symbolize different stages of life, then autumn would be season of transition and change. I wonder why autumn was left off.

Belladonna in Italian means "beautiful woman" and is also the name of deadly nightshade, an extremely toxic plant. Rocks are once again mentioned in this poem, and for Belladonna to be "the Lady of the Rocks,/The lady of situations" could mean tumult and chaos hidden in something beautiful.

A heap of broken images makes me think of abstract art, and subverting expectations to challenge the audience to view new perspectives. The part "the cricket no relief" for some reason makes me think of criticizing romanticism because a cricket is simply a cricket; it does not actively or consciously try to provide relief for a person.

Makes me think of

These two guys are saxophonists that were around the '60s and '70s.

This statement is tragically true. Hospitals are thought of as places where illnesses and injuries are cured; however, they are also sources of infection and death.

This imagery of grass gives me the impression of the pastoral; starts off soft, peaceful, and calm.

Makes me think of

This creates a tone reminiscent to Yeats’ “The Second Coming”: the center cannot hold. People’s faces are ghostlike as if lacking vitality and enthusiasm.

Definitely sounds like a jab at romanticism; he wants poets and writers to be direct rather than use flowery descriptions

I checked what this may have been/meant in Wikipedia. What I got was it may be a type of herbacious plant, a combination of crushed spices used in French cuisine, or a type of plant where a certain type of dye is derived from and is used for henna painting.

Any other ideas what this may be and how it may relate to the poem and/or its meaning?

Interesting that it goes from rusted iron core to aspen tree. It seems to go from metallic/man-made to a more natural aspect. I’m not too sure what the significance may be, if any. Any ideas?

The classic trope of heartache/heartbreak and loneliness which tempts some to end their lives. Tragic yet, as an earlier post stated, funny that we are reading this on Valentine’s Day.

That is an interesting and macabre thought process. The idea of starting "the morning right" isn't usually accompanied by "characters of death and blight". What could be the poet's purpose for putting these two thoughts/concepts together?

I've never noticed this before, but this title sounds regretful and sad. Yes, the poem talks about the poet's decision to take a path that is less traveled and that can mean venturing out of the status quo and finding new experiences. However, upon reading it again, along with some of the annotations on this poem, I get a sense of regret from the poem and from the title itself.

This notion, especially after reading the poet's response by asking what he would be walling in or out, seems to speak on the level of trust or distrust between people

Just like what the poet proclaims, walls and fences are borders that serve to keep things in or prevent things from getting out. Both purposes serve as a statement on how much or how little people trust one another, especially their own neighbors.

Whether it be a means of establishing and protecting privacy, the poet's neighbor may be stating that a reasonable amount of private space from one another is what makes them "good neighbors".

This is a very powerful statement that may have two (or more) meanings. The poet may be proclaiming that the individual must live life in order to appreciate it; or, perhaps the poet is claiming that it takes a full lifetime for one to love and appreciate the life that one has lived.

According to Wikipedia, these types of poetry all have repetition and rhyme and some date as far back as medieval times. Interesting that the poet used this technique in his own poetry, especially at the end where he (somewhat) repeats the lines from the beginning.

By placing "Poets" with "kings" in the same line and giving the same role, the poet is elevating the status of all poets to a regal status. Perhaps Robinson greatly values his identity as a poet and holds great respect for other poets.

This part reminds me of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "My Kinsman, Major Molineux". Perception of reality is questionable and is altered by variations in lighting/visibility. Perhaps it alludes to her mental state or something more like the contradiction of public vs. private life.

This seems to portray that the narrator has been afflicted with this condition because she has stepped beyond her gender role. As a woman she should not be writing or participating in academic activities; that realm belongs to men. She should be like John's sister who strives no higher than to be a housekeeper.

By having the narrator believe that John's sister believes this rather than directly stating that John's sister indeed believes this, Gilman is able to accentuate the narrator's mental fragility as well as establish an ironic tone.

This slippery slope argument that John makes for not changing the wallpaper is reminiscent of the attitude of people in power.

Those who have control do not want to see change and thus resist it as much as possible. The argument that if one small thing changes, then people will want more and bigger changes.

Change, to the ruling class, is perhaps equivalent to relinquishing control; the more things change and the more dramatic the change, the more power they lose. John wants to remain dominant over his wife and therefore refuses to comply to her requests.

The repetition of this line puts great emphasis on the inner conflict that the narrator feels as previous annotations had highlighted.

It emphasizes the helplessness and frustration that she feels; she yearns for work and activity but her gender relegates her to a passive social situation/expectation.

Perhaps this is the double life or double conciousness that women like the narrator must live and struggle with; live with the identity defined by one’s gender (and the norms and expectations that come with it) and live with the identity of an individual certain of (or at least in this case yearning for) their agency.

This line brings about an interesting thought/sets of thoughts. Within contemporary thinking, freedom is something one inherently has; it is neither bought nor sold. As stated by previous annotations religion was used to justify slavery. It is interesting, though, that God had to "buy" the slaves' freedom; it is one thing to think that God did not make slaves free and equal to white Europeans, it is another that even God Himself had to "buy" that freedom for them.

Connecting back to the previous poster's annotation, Dubois expresses his thought that the veil is at its thinnest, and perhaps even peeled back, when he proves himself physically or intellectually superior to his peers. He shows that his outward appearance has no bearing on his capabilities.

Choosing the horse a symbol of power and referring to this attitude as very “American” reminds me of American pride in the strength of industry. The horse is indeed a very appropriate symbol of power; even with the advent of steam-powered locomotion, horses still dominated modes of travel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

For Adams, it seems, science and industry pale in comparison to religion and faith when it comes to inspiration and embodying the power of people. After all, it was religion that inspired people to build the Gothic cathedrals Adams and St. Gaudens visited, not industry or science.

This seems to refer to Constantine, the Roman emperor of the time when Christianity was on the rise to become the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. The author seems to equate the Great Exposition of 1900 as a momentous event of or close to the same magnitude to that of the rise of Christianity.

The poetry has a lot of detail regarding consumption (earth eating trees) to descriptions of body parts involving digestion (hung belly). Perhaps this highlights the sense of "growth" constantly mentioned in the poem.

The imagery of "furred ear" and "full jowl" seem to create a conflicting depiction of the pig (which could possibly be cops to connect back to an earlier annotation); the "furred ear" may be seen as cute and innocuous while the "full jowl" pictures something visceral and even grotesque. Perhaps, if "pig" indeed refers to cops, it depicts their double nature of a source of comfort and as an object that can and does devour.