The mention of Ma Rainey reminded me of this part of Hughes essay:"Let the blare of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith singing the Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near intellectuals until they listen and perhaps understand. Let Paul Robeson singing “Water Boy,” and Rudolph Fisher writing about the streets of Harlem, and Jean Toomer holding the heart of Georgia in his hands, and Aaron Douglas’s drawing strange black fantasies cause the smug Negro middle class to turn from their white, respectable, ordinary books and papers to catch a glimmer of their own beauty." I think both authors place great importance on the music, and art of black people, and also the authenticity of the black experience.

The south was equivalent to hell in this character's eyes.

Interesting that the devil would be placed in a mansion.

Slim is an interesting character. Not only is he worthy of heaven, but here we see bravery too...

I love this line. I suppose that the reference to religion is for christianity. It's a great line because it highlights the irony of slaveholders claiming to be christian, when christian values and biblical teachings are very much the opposite of what slaveholders practiced. The cynicism was real back then...

This is a beautiful stanza. Also, I think the use of the word "lonesome" is interesting. There is a sense of separation and isolation that comes with being up on the hill, and looking down...

An interesting ending line considering what the tune was about.

The Mississippi river is one of the largest rivers in the North American continent. The way that Hughes mentions all these rivers, most of which are both large in size, and historic, point towards the fact that his people, or the black man knows all these rivers, and is like the rivers a character that has been all over the world, and has an ancient history stemming from ancient egypt and perhaps as far back as the garden of Eden. These claims are important, because in a society in which the black man is seen as something relatively new, he argues that the black man is in a sense ancient.

I love this lone line because he takes pride in who he is by mentioning his darkness, but also creates a connection between all humans regardless of color baby using the word "brother".

The Nile is one of the longest rivers in the world. It is located in Africa, and passes through egypt. The nile river is where Moses was put as a baby, and found by the Egyptians. Once in Egypt, he eventually led his people out of slavery. The mention of this river reminded me of this story of liberation.

The Congo is the second longest river in Africa.

This river is mentioned in the bible as one of the rivers near the garden of Eden. Perhaps, Hughes is suggesting that his people have been around since the creation of humans.

This is a difficult task to accomplish even in today's American society where much of our media, and literature seems to be dominated by predominantly eurocentric ideals despite the racial and cultural diversity that our country holds.

This line makes me think of colorism, and how different shades of brown can mean different things depending on the society. This concept was very much prominent in the caribbean. However, generally speaking in the United States if you were even part black you were considered just black. Perhaps, colorism started making its way into American culture as more people from the caribbean started immigrating to the states. These lines also made me think of the book "Black Faces White Masks" by Frantz Fanon. Fanon speaks of how he is overdetermined from the outside by the color of his skin. It seems here that the exact shade of skin is made much more important than it should be in the society that Hughes describes.

He explores the reasons as to why the black psyche is burdened by internalized racism. It seems that their surroundings are saturated with the idea that whiteness is good, and the opposite of it is blackness.

Point out the conflict with using the word white as synonymous with goodness.

Mentioning this in important because it is a way in which "white mentality" infiltrates into the minds of black people. In other words, when the news, magazines, and media one reads is white, it is easy to want to aspire to be that.

Elliot juxtaposes the wet and the dry in these lines. The shore, and fishing indicate a place with water. Yet, the "arid plain" is in the scene as well. The word "arid" indicates dryness, and describes a barren land. This is the opposite of what water indicates. By placing these two fragments in the same section, we get uncomfortable contrast like we do in many other portions of the poem.

In German: "Dull and empty the sea"-Google Translate

Perhaps he's drawing attention to how our life, and existence all eventually adds up to an obituary. The sum of existence is a meaningless piece of paper?

How can one exist then?

His outlook on life is solely focused on death

This is interesting. It's as if we can only know things in halts, or portions depending on what the "sun beats" on at the moment. We can only understand in fragmented, "broken images"

Paradoxical comment creates tension.

Interesting word choice when speaking of bloom

starting phrases with a verb in this way suggests that they are imperative verbs. This may be the reason why the poem feels like one is getting bossed around.

This line made me chuckle, and I found it weird. A reasonable berry? It sounds like the berry has the ability to reason. Stein is again playing with the ambiguity of language, and delighting in the power of syntax.

I loved this pause because it literally reminds you to take a break. The poem is written in a way in which one becomes weary, short of breath, and dizzy after reading line after line. Nevertheless, the ambiguity is there as the "pause" is sandwiched between the lines "cordially yours".

I think these lines are interesting because although there is a repetition of "give it", and the words preceding the phrase are all similar, those similar words change the meaning of the line. The modal "shall" expresses an inevitable thing that will happen. It expresses the likely possibility to "give it". The word "please" is the most ambiguous, which is what I found interesting. Then, the word "like" expresses an emotional state of being. Lastly comes the repetition of "please to give it". I am not exactly sure of what that phrase means. I know that the syntax of the phrase suggests that "please" is functioning as a main verb. Additionally, the only phrase in which the "give it" functions as the main verb is in the "shall give it" line. In the rest of the phrases, "please" and "like" function as verbs, and by adding "to" to "give it" that phrase turns into an infinitive.

I'm not completely sure what any of this means semantically. However, I thought the changes in grammatical structures were interesting, and they caught my attention immediately.

These lines describe a chaotic, muddled, and uncomfortable setting.

This line seems to touch on the process of understanding, and the acceleration of that process in the context of the modern.

This part highlights the unfamiliarity, and the uncomfortableness that is often depicted in modern works. The word "naked" suggest vulnerability, along with the phrase "new world". In addition to that, the words "cold" and "uncertain" are used right next to each other, and are only divided by a coma. This is juxtaposed to the last line in which we see the "cold, familiar wind". In the last line, the words "cold" and "familiar" are also only separated by a coma. This is extremely interesting as "uncertain", and "familiar" convey opposing, and sometimes contradicting ideas, yet in one instance the cold is one, and in the next it is the other. Perhaps even, the cold is both familiar, and uncertain all at once.

This part reminded me of the part of Berman's quote that says, "To be a moderns is to make oneself somehow at home in the maelstrom, to make its rhythms one's own, to move within its currents..."Similar to the "maelstrom" one is meant to get used to, this poem suggest that the subject got familiar with "their hatred". Perhaps, they felt at home in the hatred.

There is great contrast in these two lines, and the title. There is a distinction between technology (the metro), and nature (the petals on the bough). Yet, as the lines are placed so close together we see how unreal the division of these two things is. Metros and petals all exist at the same time, and perhaps even in the same place. I find it extremely interesting that between the metro, and nature lies the "apparition of faces".

It is supremely interesting that Ezra Pound analyzes free verse, and even arrives to understanding that it has its drawbacks. It is especially delightful because he wrote free verse himself. However, he is still able to pinpoint the drawbacks of the poetic style he uses. I think that it's risky to criticize free verse as it is so widely regarded as "freedom" in the poetic sphere. However, it is interesting to consider that free verse has the possibility of being as "stale" as formalist poetry. I recently read an article about how "free verse" should not be the only poetry that is produced, and how it should not be regarded as the only poetry that is progressive. The article, which you can find here, argues that although there are many good things that come from free verse, there is also much to be appreciated from more traditional forms and rhyme schemes that can be used to push poetry forward. Progress does not equate free verse, and I think Ezra Pound might be hinting at this idea here. He at least suggests that free verse does not by itself constitute good poetry, and that there is much more to pushing poetry forward than changing the rhyme scheme, or stress pattern.

This line describes extreme loneliness and isolation. This notion is a persistent one throughout the poem with phrases like "empty shore", and lines like "the rains have tunneled like an aspen tree" which reinforce the feeling of lonesomeness.

This word along with the word "cortex", and the phrase "food for thought", draws ones attention to the brain, and those things associated with it.

The very first thing that caught my attention about this poem was the rhyme scheme, and content. This is written with the rhyme scheme, and form of a Shakespearean sonnet. The volta, that happens in the final couplet, turns the argument of the rest of the poem, and emphasizes the importance of the final two lines. I loved this poem, because it takes the sonnet, and makes it a little heavy, and difficult. It complicates love. The final two lines, give upmost importance to love, but the understanding of it is still not traditional, or truly resolved.

This poem is a lot different than a lot of the other readings we have been assigned this semester in that the form is different, However, the content still encompasses a bleaker, and new look at topics that have traditionally been explored differently.

this wording along with the very first line "something there is", create ambiguity of what the subject is. What is that "something", and what is the work of hunter other than "another thing"?

These lines specify to the notion of divisiveness that the poem earlier suggests with lines like "Set the wall between us", and "we do not need the wall". The highlighted lines bring the reader deeper into the logic behind why building a wall is unfavorable.

I think this line encapsulates one of the main points of the poem which is to say that fame and money do not amount to friendship and company.

This line emphasized the monumental moment at hand. There is a great choice to be made, and once made one might never have the choice again. This poem plays with the anxieties of nostalgia, and how pivotal moments can play into that feeling.

It seems appropriate to use this word in the first line, as the entire poem describes the loneliness that changing times bring to an old man.

There is a lot of ghostly imagery in this stanza. It is definitely strange, and it changes the poems mood.

Using the pronouns "them, they and their" creates distance between the reader and these characters because those pronouns are not specific in any way. They beg the questions, who are they? The closest we come to knowing is that they are men.

After all this ambiguous diction, the only insight we get on these characters is that they are "just as human as they ever were". This is definitely unsettling, as most humans don't need to be explicitly described as human-like.

This is again a moment of chills, and eeriness for the reader. It's mystical almost, and the ghostliness adds both a little excitement of fear, and somehow a sense of beauty and appreciation.

Very interesting word choice to start the poem. "WHEN I died" Describes the moment he's describing, let's us know a little about the speaker (he's dead, and apparently writing poetry for us from the other realm), and sets a creepy mood for all the following lines. It's impressive how three one syllable words can make such a huge difference when picked correctly.

By describing poetic forms in a list like this, he almost highlights the triviality of them in that they mark a sort of repetition in the history of poetry. The line "ballades by the score with the same old thought" further suggest this idea of repetitiveness. He then expands the "same old thought" to encompass his metaphor about love. Or better said, love within the context of poetry, and how it has been described repeatedly throughout poetry. "and what is love, but a rose that fades", this is the first, perhaps, traditionally poetic line we get. It's beautiful, theres that. now what? He starts listing things again, "tragedy, comedy, valor and truth, courage...." the list goes on.

I think the overall commentary the poem makes is a critique on the outdate forms and traditions of poetry. It all repeats and sums up to what?... more ticking and lists of things to make up poetics. His very last line about Homer and Whitman, I think, is placed there to give a last example of what poetry should be more like.

The repetition of this line is daunting. Also, it's redundancy creates brings to mind things that are ongoing, cyclical. It also made me think of a clock and how time goes on, and on. The repetition of all of these "ticks" and the end completes the cycle, or is a real representation of the ongoingness of time. It's almost as if the poem is saying, time ticks and ticks and ticks, and look things happen in the middle (the body of the poem), but time keeps ticking on.

This part of her writing is relevant even in modern, and contemporary discourse. I have recently read many articles about the way that mental illnesses are not taken as seriously by family members, and even doctors, as physical ailments are. It also, in an oblique manner, comments on the way that women's pain is often disregarded in the medical field. I only say this because she is in fact a woman. Perhaps, if it were a man, his mental illness would be taken more seriously. This is a topic that has been is constant discussion recently. Women's pain, even physical pain, is often not take seriously because of the supposition that women have a lower pain tolerance.

This section screams out the need for agency over how blackness is perceived. It's as though his blackness defines him, rather than him being able to define blackness. This reminds me of an excerpt of Frantz Fanon's "Black Skin, White Masks" which says " I am overdetermined from the outside" and later elaborates "I am a slave not to the ‘idea’ others have of me, but to my appearance” (Fanon 95).

This is a clear example of the alienation that a black man experienced. A sense of disharmony within his identity, and between him, and how others saw him. The sentence almost implies complete isolation, both from himself and from others.

This along with the very first line of this paragraph, "Between me and the other world..." are lines that cast a shadow of disjunction between his feelings and the reality of the world.

This phrase caught my attention because it's so exclusive and ridiculous. The superlative "the best" suggests that there is such a person that is most informed in the entire world... which is such a meaningless and unrealistic way to think about knowledge. The first few lines really underline Adam's fixation with knowledge, and his expectations of it.

He's drawing a parallel between how christianity changed the western society, and how this new technology would change modern society as it was known.

His discussion on history is contrasted by the idea of "forces totally new".

This word is repeated 3 times in this passage, along with the word occult. It's interesting, but I am not quite sure what the reason behind the repetition is.

Occult is an interesting word choice when speaking of scientific things. The word has mystical connotations of fantasy or magic. Usually, this word is associated with taboo religions, or witchcraft, which points back to his various religious references that suggest that the dynamo is a sort of new god, but since occult also carries an association to witchcraft, this could also be suggesting that the new technology is in opposition of godly things; an antichrist of sorts. Yet, the word continues to be delightfully ambiguous as all of the previous references to religion are made towards christianity, and christianity has strains of mysticism. From the visions of John, to the Pentecostal division of the church, there are elements of mysticism. In the very least, this word adds tension, and discomfort to the passage.

This is one of my favorite paragraphs of this entire reading. Adams seems to resent the devaluing of art, but he see's the practical logic behind why it might be devalued. The first word that points to this is the word "inert". With this word, he introduces the idea that the education that he had learned was unable to cause action-- he points towards art, and then marxism, and how all the knowledge in the world about these things could not create the same kind of "forces" as motors. The fact that he mentions marxism got me thinking of the word commodification, and how perhaps knowledge in this world of technological advancements is commodified. According to Purdue University, commodification means "The subordination of both private and public realms to the logic of capitalism. In this logic, such things as friendship, knowledge, women, etc. are understood only in terms of their monetary value. In this way, they are no longer treated as things with intrinsic worth but as commodities. (They are valued, that is, only extrinsically in terms of money.) By this logic, a factory worker can be reconceptualized not as a human being with specific needs that, as humans, we are obliged to provide but as a mere wage debit in a businessman's ledger." This paragraph, with it's reference to Marx, seems to hint at how knowledge of the arts, and political theories are not of enough economic value, or they do not contain enough "force", and so they should be discarded, exactly in the way that Langley throws out the entire art exhibit. What is the usefulness of an art exhibit? From a perspective that values knowledge on it's ability to produce, there is not very much usefulness in it. This all cycles back to my initial claim of how Adams seems to both understand this concept, but resent it, as he says "... and threatening to become as terrible as the locomotive steam-engine itself..." There is conflict in his words as he describes these more pragmatically useful things as both "astonishing" and "terrible".

Very intense, and slightly disturbing visual line.

Something that stuck out to me was the repetition of the preposition "out of" in the first stanza, and the first line of the second, and then the switch to the repetition of the preposition "from" in the in the last stanza. I am not yet sure what this repetition indicates, but it definitely seems to add rhythm and a sense of intensity to those stanzas.