California Poem

Claude McKay was a black man born in Jamaica, he choose literature very on in life and kept with it. He moved to the United States at age twenty three to study at Tuskegee Institute and was immediately shocked by the blatant racism prevalent in Charleston, South Carolina. He moved to New York and shortly after became co-editor of The Liberator, a famous abolitionist newspaper, he wrote some of his most revered poems while working there. He was part of the Harlem Renaissance a movement that was a reawakening of artistic and cultural talents of African American people in the United States and helped to reinvigorate their pride in being black.

The lines of the poem are short, the sentences are choppy, and one idea seems to flow right into the next from line to line. This hints at a very childlike mentality, as well as a plethora of scattered thoughts in the speaker’s mind, hinting at the speaker’s confusion and distress.

Over all, the poem helps imagine a possible student siting in a desk, reading a poem, and pulling his/ her hair out. Also the poem’s sound seems to be rushed. Together with the tone, it makes the poem sound like an angry student speaking very fast as to why he/she hates poetry. The rhythm seems to be regular. It shows to have a regular beat of unstress and distress. Each line follows a beat, but the lines don’t rhyme. The poem seems to show a few figures of speech. “Has difficulty retaining such things as addition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tables” meaning has a hard time understanding the poem more than math (Collins). “May recognize a word one day and not the next” means the reader would have a hard time remembering the overall meaning od a poem and its means (Collins). Also it would mean that the reader was very annoyed that he/she forgot everything about the

The poem is written in free verse, offers no type of rhyme scheme, and in one long stanza. This contributes to

Second in the second paragraph there is use of personification. The writer use personification though out the entire poem. He says that the poem can find when it can’t. The writer also says that poem live in the bottom of shoes

The poem does not follow a rhyme scheme or meter, which means that there is rhythm in the poem and it makes the poem more like a song. The poem has four stanza’s and has five lines within each stanza.

The poem, “Po’ Boy Blues” uses rhyme in the fourth and sixth lines of each stanza.

Although often associated with two completely different eras in American history, both Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman share a great deal in common as two of America’s most famous poets. When it comes to the craft of poetry, both men grew to become extremely influencing figures both within the field and within American society. For example, as mentioned in his biography by Ed Folsom and Kenneth Price, Whitman has had such an influence on others that, “Poetic responses to Whitman sometimes fall into his cadences and in other ways mimic his style” (Folsom and Price). Additionally, Whitman has also influenced, “fiction, film, architecture, music, painting, dance, and other arts” (Folsom and Price) and is known world-wide. Likewise, Ginsberg influenced poetry, for “the Beats”, “encouraged a break from traditional values, supporting drug-use as a means of enlightenment”

This poem also has alliteration which is the occurrence of the same sound or letter. For example, “mutual mind, knew no, and danced along the dingy days”. These words repeat the letter M, D and a sound. From all these figurative languages these poems explain objects and animal which, makes poetry great to

Similar to Marx, Ginsberg is against the idea of a small fraction of the people having significant control and power. Even though the poem is harsh on America, the goal of the author is not to shun or shame the country but try to better it. He is an extremely critical patriot trying to correct America’s flaws.

Ginsberg reflects on the satire of people worshipping American culture when it is actually the cause of their trouble. Which glorifies a civilization restricting you to normality, and destroying the best minds. These parts take the reader behind Ginsberg’s belief of the “best minds” American culture changes across the fundamental desires to destroy them.

Therefore, in the very beginning, Ginsberg presents to the reader the subject and tone of the poem in the context of this question. Ginsberg’s questions make the audience realize the seriousness of the issues that this poem discusess, such as America, politics, war, humanity, and ethics.

the first few lines, there seems to be similar word patterns. Not every poem needs rhyme as

Walt Whitman is regarded as one of the most influential poets in American history while Allen Ginsberg was and still is considered a leading figure of the Beat Generation. Both of these poets have similar poetic tendencies even though they were almost a century apart from each other. Walt Whitman helped to inspire many literary descendants ranging from writers to poets alike. One of his most famous poems is in his book, “Leaves of Grass”, called “Song of Myself”. Allen Ginsberg can be considered one of Walt Whitman’s literary descendants due to the numerous similarities between “Song of Myself” and Ginsberg’s “Howl”, which is about the real experiences of Americans after World War II.

It is evident from the very beginning that Ginsberg is disillusioned with American society, and he is ready to turn his back on what he feels has been oppressing him. "America I've given you all and now I'm