Rockland refers to Rockland State Hospital, a large mental health facility. Allen Ginsberg was a patient at Rockland.

The poems focus on Moloch shifts to Rockland and it seems to almost be the different side of the same coin. Moloch creates this madness and Rockland imprisons it.

Ginsberg mentions Moloch 39 times in Howl. In the Hebrew bible, Moloch is a Canaanite god who demands his worshipers to sacrifice children. Through Moses, God tells the Jews not to sacrifice children like the Canaanites. Ginsberg seems to equate Moloch with industry and society and larger bodies that are evil.

Whenever I think of Moloch, I think of Bohemian Grove.

This was extremely transgressive at the time and kind of still is today. Most would call this line vulgar for it's depiction of sex, specifically homosexual sex, it's use of the word fuck and the pleasure derived from the sex. This line and others are probably why this poem went to an obscenity trial in 1957.

Milly seems to be stating that technology and modernity is the downfall of man. Millay states that the man was silenced by the riveted pride (industry) he wore. The rusted iron column is a good analogy for technology's affect on nature, it is useful to have a column to prop something up, but eventually it will rust and spread through the column, affecting all it touches. Millay then mentions that it is power which brings the man low, so low, that not even religion could persuade him to reject modernity/technology/industrialization, which in this case is represented by tools, the lever and the spade.

I think this poem would pair nicely with Henry Adams' piece "The Dynamo and the Virgin."

Kneeling is often a sign of reverence and respect. With this line the speaker is expressing that we will be able to share our experiences with one another and be moved by them enough to pay respect.

This is piece seems to be an olive branch between white people and black people. What seems interesting about this poem is that speaker's ethnicity is not revealed, nor is it explicitly implied.

The speaker of this poem is saying that there is nothing she can do to save her black child from the evils of the world. The evil forces in this world are so strong that she rather not even give birth to a black child.

The speaker of this poem is accusing the dancing man of pretending to be white by wearing and accessorizing with certain things. He has been "bottled" by white culture. Even though he has been "bottled"/wearing white attire, his true self "shines" through.

This is the only pleasant and "soft" moment in this poem. It is the only expression of tenderness. The rest of the poem is so active and dynamic. The placement of "flower soft" is almost treated as a musical rest in the poem. It all is so active and somewhat jarring. Even the title, "You! Inez!" is so tense with those exclamations.

I love the contrast of the dramatic with the domestic in this poem. It is within that contrast the reader sees the oppression of the speaker. The servant is denied the experience of life and forced to only be concerned with work. This is reflected by the constant interjection of the task of sewing throughout the poem.

Contrasted with Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown, I wouldn't say this poem or either of these Alice Dunbar Nelson poems have any obvious signifiers attaching them to the new New Negro movement.

In "You! Inez!" the only word that seems to signify possible relation to the movement is the word soul. Even so, that word is extremely common with writer poets outside the movement. However, poems within the movement seem to provide more shape to this word.

Both Bennett and Nelson use the word minstrel. A minstrel is a popular type of show in the 19th and 20th century where white actors would paint their faces black and perform Black stereotypes for the entertainment of others. What the speaker in this poem seems to be saying is that they want to experience Black sadness that is not filtered by false outward facing happiness. A performative happiness to hide the pain from oppression.

Like other poets in the movement, Gwendolyn Bennett references Egypt. Writers in the moment seemed to pay respect to Ancient Egypt for it's rich and unique culture. It is something that Black Americans can be proud of while also taking inspiration from when forging a new Black culture in the Americas.

This line is beautiful. Using "sun-baked" in a poem these days would be seen as somewhat cliche, but in this poem it works because she is the progenitor of this style.

Gwendolyn uses this line to contrast lines 5 and 6. Instead of having moist lips, the speaker's lips are dry. I think this is in reference to spirituals helping black people endure the oppression that was omnipresent at the time, and still is. Singing helps make the oppression bearable. I think at the end of the poem we begin to see the song slowing down and the labor being felt by the speaker. The speaker encourages the group to continue singing a little faster in an attempt to lift spirits.

So much meteorological goodness in this poem. Sterling Brown blends the weather, the environment and geographical locations to amp up the friction in the poem. He uses these elements to set a scene of darkness and also allegorically to represent the turbulence of the Black experience in America.

I wonder if this is a reference to Carl Sandburg, the Pulitzer prize winning American poet. This poem seems to be about the adversity Black slaves overcame in America and how it made them stronger, not only physically but mentally.

Carl Sandburg, a white poet, seems like an odd reference point in a poem about slavery. He worked in social justice . He was a poet of the working class, possibly an influence or peer to Sterling Brown?

Backwater Blues is a blues standard written by Bessie Smith. The song is was written about floods in Cincinnati and their impact on Black people and people living in poverty. The song is commonly associated with the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 (pictured above) which occurred two months after the song was written.

This reference has piqued my personal interest in looking for environmental history that was recorded in song and in poetry.

This poems seems to be critical of the neighborhood of Harlem, located in Upper Manhattan. Harlem was once a thriving, and almost utopic, Black neighborhood. After the great depression and getting closer to the middle of the 20th century, crime and poverty increased in Harlem. This poem seems to address Hughes' disappointment.

This poems speaks to the horror of racism and prejudice in American society while also speaking to the upward mobility "available to all" in America.

The speaker is experiencing this sea change, Black Americans becoming more accepted, as is America.

Langston Hughes uses the symbol of rivers often in his poetry. In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" Hughes writes about the rivers Black people have known throughout history. He then compares his soul to a river. Just as this river is old, deep and flowing so is the Black soul.

The river is often used in Black American spirituals as a sign of freedom. To pass through the river to freedom, to be carried by the river to freedom etc.

In Hughes' poem "Suicide's Note," he writes:

The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.

Here we see the river providing freedom in different a way. Through the taking of ones life. It is a very dark poem, that has little hope in comparison to songs like "Deep River and poems like "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," while the speaker finds freedom, it's because they could no longer persevere.

The tom-tom drum is the metaphysical heartbeat of the Black American's soul. It continues to go, whether in pain or in joy. It is not concerned with white America's approval or disapproval, it beats regardless. If Black Americans don't care for it, it doesn't matter. The drum continues.

Building More Stately Mansions - Aaron Douglas

Before reading this I was not familiar with the artist Aaron Douglas. This particular painting reminds of the Soviet Union's anti-church propaganda posters of the 20th century because of it's use of layering flat images.

This painting shows the great feats of architecture Black people were responsible for building. It pays tribute to them while simultaneously critiquing the system that put them there in the first place. The radiating effect from the globe in the lower right hand quarter is especially powerful. It seems to point out that what is presumed to be the product of white culture is really the product of world culture.

How beautiful it is to experience life. Langston Hughes rallies behind the working class Black American who does not have it easy and lives in a constant state of flux. This way of life is what gives one their individuality. The voice of America seems to say be white and be wealthy. Real wealth is in the individuality that comes life, spirit and music.

Locke addresses the financial and business sectors unwillingness to engage in conversation with Black Americans. He states that it is starting to happen, but as we see almost 100 years later... too little too late.

Locke is observing a shift in the psyche of young Black Americans. They are no longer nostalgic about older generations sense of Blackness. This lack of sentimentality for the past is sad to some, but the new generation of Black Americans see this is as something to celebrate. The shedding of past sentimentalities positions Black Americans, and all Americans, closer to new potentialities.

Locke clearly articulates where Black Americans find themselves in the American psyche. In this essay Black Americans aren't even afforded doubleness, they are reduced to an inconvenience and a problem. Black Americans involuntarily see themselves from the perspective of whites and are expected to address it.

Kenneth Hayes Miller - The Waste

I chose to include The Waste in this particular annotation because I feel like the painting evokes a similar sense of unease and impending carnal depravity the is being presented in the poem. These elements ultimately resulting in a feeling of isolation.

Henri Julian Rousseau - A Centennial of Independence

Williams seems to claim that America lacks imagination. As a newer country, we are not steeped in mutual traditions that we can build upon. We can't even see the beauty.

I chose Rousseau's painting because it depicts the French celebrating change, while still partaking in French traditions. Maybe this is what Williams thinks America is missing?

Millay with a sobering meditation on love. Even though she sees the delusion, she still feels captivated by it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzsS2ivIrPw

Great title for this piece. It alludes to the joint task of the speaker and neighbor fixing the wall, the neighbors desire to fix the wall, which in part will help their relationship and the speakers desire to understand how this wall is helping.

I think we are seeing the speaker attracted to something that would be considered out of character for him. A moment away from the journey to be tempted by nature, to see things in a different light. I think you could make the cases that because of his long arduous journey, he is giving in to death

A very playful idea. The speaker is entertaining himself by imagining fantastical creatures tearing down the wall. This imagination brings light to the speakers character, someone who is willing to be playful and not be so self-serious.

The last bit, "and I'd rather / He said it for himself." is the speakers desire for the humorless neighbor to lighten up and engage in play. This particular line brings this element full circle.

This poem is about Seth Compton's gift to the community of Spoon River and the auctioning of said gift, a library.

What I think Master's is saying here, is that the community of Spoon River has chosen money as "good." They have chosen to exchange great wisdom about nature, god, struggle and love for money.

Size is mentioned a lot in this poem. Our speaker's name is Petit, which means small in French. Other markers of size in this poem are the use of the words: seeds, mites, tree, little.

Masters seems to be playing around with the idea that using traditional devices, forms, tropes that are used by all poets that often result in "small poetry" can be used by the "greats" (Whitman and Homer) to create masterpieces.

Great sonic qualities here. The sound of the word is mesmerizing, especially when repeated 5 times. In the mouth it is a very concise word to pronounce, there is a lot of tension that goes into such a small word.

The repetition of this word helps break the reader out of whatever they were doing and in to the poem.

The woman in the wallpaper seems to be a projection of herself. This projection represents her and her identity as a woman. She uses the woman in the wallpaper to help process her feeling and thoughts about being stuck in a male dominated society.

To help the woman is to not only help herself, but to help all women. Again, Adams was looking for the answer of how to be (just be, without any defining qualifiers). Du Bois was looking for how to be a Black American in society. Gilman is trying to understand how a woman can be in a male dominated society.

As with Adams and Du Bois, what does this look like?

To live happily with John outside of the wallpapered room? To be free from John? To live outside of the society? For the betterment of all women? Throughout this piece it is difficult to know what would be best for the narrator.

Boy's school, the ultimate institution for masculine dissemination behind maybe the financial sector of any world city. Not only does this wallpaper look like it was taken from a male place, it looks like it was taken from a school, an institution. A place to correct and mold the minds of others to rigid "norms."

Striving is obviously big part of this piece. In this paragraph he seems to say that the painful and arduous striving is in the name of their people. In history, Blacks and Black Americans will be remembered for their struggle.

Du Bois believes that school will be beneficial to Black Americans, and further, to himself. Not only will it be beneficial to Black Americans, it will be a key component to the life Black Americans strive for. Adams, a lifelong student, is constantly learning and researching but is unable to come up with definitive solutions. I think Adam's philosphy is similar to the old Buddhist say, the path is the way. I think Du Bois explores this idea sporadically throughout the text.

In searching for his purpose and exploring his culture, he comes to the conclusion that the Black American world is the result of one culture observing another. It is the result of White American thoughts and feelings on Africans.

This paragraph about the power of the virgin reminds me a bit of Zen Buddhism or non duality. That mere existence is more powerful than the mechanics below it. The present is more powerful than the progress of the future. Pure being is unmatched by discovery.

Another example of repetition in this chapter is the use of the word "force" and "virgin." The chapter is titled, "The Dynamo and the Virgin." I am still having trouble discerning what the "Virgin" is, and to a lesser extent, the "dynamo." The dynamo seems to be the excitement and explosiveness of scientific progress and technology.

A virgin usually symbolizes something that is untouched, pure, innocent. Not altered. The virgin, in this piece, is possibly life before these discoveries or the virtues before they were perverted by the dynamo.

Reoccurring comparisons of the systems of Christian Faith to that of science. Adams seems to not only use Faith as an analogy for science, but he explores the line between the two and where it blurs, while also highlighting frictions.

Is it okay for your understanding of a poem to change on your 3rd annotation? What happens to the first 2?

This line explicitly mentions race. The speaker identifies as white. It also places the "they" as non-white, or at least I believe that to be the case. Just what are "they" feeding on? To me it seems to address a realization of privilege, of white existence benefiting from inequalities. Something of which feeds the anger, the lion.

Starting the first four lines with the words, "out of" provide the first stanza with a nice anaphora. Using "out of" provides an interesting sonic metaphor as well. There is a rising, almost exploding, quality to sound of the word. It quickly explodes and sky rockets, then hits a limit. With "of", sonically, there is this massive dissipation occurring. A downward deflation. These movements highlight an energy of these concentrated efforts (industrialization building rapidly) which rise so quickly and with such momentum, they pop (rage) and are exhausted.

They Lion grow seems to represent the resentment growing inside of the People due to poor living conditions, mainly as a result of industrialization. Not only does Levine acknowledge this growing anger, he legitimizes the anger by capitalizing "Lion."