Analysis Of Depend On The Forest By Charise Sowell

Cullen is hopeful to get to a place where people of different races will be able to look at others without prejudice and discrimination. However, the poem “Incident” is of a less positive tone. She expresses her experience in a shocked manner, saying, a boy stuck his “tongue out and, called, [her] ‘Nigger’,” (Cullen 8). She was so shocked that “From May until December; .../… of all the things that happened... /… that’s all [she could remember” in Baltimore (Cullen 10-12). At the young age that she was at, it is surprising and upsetting to her to be discriminated against for no reason.

Previously this week we discussed "The Haunted Oak" that applied to the African American people that badly tried to escape slavery. For this reflection paper, I will portray some of the personal feelings I had after I read the text and heard the song and how that had a meaningful impact on me. The people that tried to escape slavery were accused and prosecuted by being hung in a tree, which happened to many people as they felt used by the white people. The story was told by the perspective of the tree and how it felt haunted because of all the people it had killed. The white people said that the African American people had no importance in this world and should not be allowed any power what so ever. However, the prosecution did not stop with

During the time this poem was written, racism and prejudice towards African Americans was prevalent and habituated to whites. From the first stanza alone, the tone is already set as uncharitable and

Jane Hirshfield connects to nature at her home in Marin County, California this is where she gets her inspiration for her poems. Hirshfield published “Tree” in 2000 as a free verse poem, divided into 4 stanzas and 4 sentences to convey the nature world. The poem represents a “young redwood” (line 2) growing near a house, near a kitchen window. The redwood is already scraping against the window frame of the house, reminding the reader of the “foolish” (line 1) idea of letting it grow there. Humans were created to be one with nature, but as they evolved as a species, they were obligated to choose between the materialistic world or the world of nature.

Conventional wisdom has it that racism is subsiding, but in fact, racism has increased. Danez Smith writes not an elegy for Mike Brown, as a response to the murder of an African American boy, unarmed, shot by a white police officer. The poem compares black life value to white life value. Smith ties racism to militarism by referencing the Trojan War and demands the same consequences brought upon by white death for black death. Desperately and mournfully, Danez Smith exposes the difference in the value humanity places on White lives in comparison to Black lives.

Trees are important not only physically but also spiritually and for many this fact is lost. Physically trees provide humans with beauty and a healthy ecosystem. Spiritually trees provide humans a connection to nature. Their importance has been lost in our modern times as humans further separate themselves from nature. While forgotten by many, their actions still resonate. The two modern poems “The Tree Agreement” by Elise Paschen and “Living Tree” by Robert Morgan trumpet the value trees hold in comparable ways. In the poem “The Tree Agreement” the speaker argues for the benefits of the Siberian Elm against a disagreeing neighbor. By structuring the poem in this manner, the poet highlights how people are blind to the services trees provide while simultaneously highlighting said services. The tree is portrayed almost as a friend or ally to the speaker. The speaker describes not only to the significance of the tree to humans like the neighbor and the speaker but also to the other living creatures surrounding them. The poem “Living Tree” focuses on the actions performed by trees in cemeteries. This poem follows a more spiritual route when compared to Paschen’s poem. This poem describes the process those who have been buried go through and the role trees play in this process. The trees in this poem are portrayed as lightning rods for the chemicals and spirits of the dead. This relationship is portrayed positively, as the trees are a monument to the passing of life. These poems

In the poem ‘Southern Cop,’ Sterling A. Brown uses an array of rhetorical devices to reiterate the poem’s purpose. One of the rhetorical devices he uses is parallel structure, which he uses to express the the other two rhetorical devices in a more expressive way. He also uses sarcasm throughout the poem to show the underlying harm being caused by the casual approach to the problem. . Brown also uses understatement, expressing the shooting of the negro as lesser than it should be taken (if it was real.) Sterling A. Brown uses these devices to express the poems purpose.

In conclusion, the poem was used as a key to unlock some of the thoughts the negro had concerning Africa. The negro in this poem was a representative of all negroes during this time; their thoughts and the their feelings toward Africa. Cullen’s usage of the literary devices allow for an effective expression of the meaning of this poem. Poems are intensified language of experience, so the devices assured the connection of the reader to the poem and the experience. This applies to many issues in society today because as beautiful as our country is there are still dark clouds that cover the very essence of what the states once stood

Whether it is sunshine or rain, the plant tries to stay in place and develop. However, sometimes a storm comes by and moves the plant out of place, but it comes back to how it was at last. Sometimes life’s ups and downs do a similar thing to humans. They try to stand strong and still, but a wave of change or in this case a wave of discrimination comes by which causes them to lose their innocence at an early age. In Scout’s case, she is introduced to a different language people use to describe certain races or to categorize people. Atticus, Scout’s father, said, “Nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody,” (Page 107). Scout, at first did not understand why people would do such a thing; however, her father tries to make her understand how racism works. He tells her that he is arguing for African American to have equal rights and others to love them instead of thinking they are given special rights. Scout learns the power of language; how it can shame others for who they are and what they do, and how it ignites a debate between individuals. Scout, also learns that if someone is convicted of a crime, it becomes extremely hard for their family members

Audre Lorde’s poem shows the reader the prevalence of racism and inequality during the early twentieth century. The poet describes the brutal murder of Emmett Till, an African American boy, for whistling at a white woman. This directly reflects how many white people felt toward African Americans during Audre Lorde’s early life. Audre Lorde mentions the location of her poem is Jackson, Mississippi (Lorde 47). For modern readers, this is another direct way that the poet references racial inequality and the attitudes of people because it is common knowledge

Poet Marilyn Nelson uses the third person perspective to tell the story of the lynching of Emmett Till and his mother’s pain. She uses plants and trees and their symbolic meaning to counsel and console Emmett’s mother and the reader. She introduces the poem with a passage from Shakespeare’s Macbeth where she compares Ophelia’s pain at the murder of her father to the pain experienced by Emmett’s mother. She ends the poem by graphically describing Emmett’s murder and her own personal sorrow.

Author James H. Cone uses the phrase “the shadow of the lynching tree” to describe what many African Americans are still living under in the decades following the terror that reigned across the South. Lynching was not only a violent event, but a way to keep fear in the forefront of communities and a form of terrorism used to enforce, enact and trigger trauma. The collective identity of African Americans has meant that trauma from lynching can be felt on a personal level, whether the violence was experienced directly or indirectly. The long lasting trauma that remains in many African American communities has resulted in the disappearance of family histories and a silence surrounding the violence of lynchings. Stories may remain untold, however they are still

Hughes’s descriptive writing prompts the reader to visualize strong images of oppression in America. The speaker provides an image of an extremely suppressed group of people in the statement: “I am the red man driven from the land” (Hughes 21). This simple phrase creates a picture of the Native Americans being driven from their lands and forced to live on undesirable land, and, as a result, this invites the reader to acknowledge their severe oppression. Similarly, the speaker mentions the people who were “torn from Black Africa’s strand” (Hughes 50). This generates an image of boats packed with a depressing amount of broken people, waiting to be sold into slavery. These visual examples portray the severity of the situation that many Americans found themselves in. These

Imagine racism taking over the world, with overwhelming thoughts about how you might be the next victim. Quarrels about whether the best skin is black or white, but always resulting that white is right. Hope would evaporate from an evanescent cloud and Faith became instinct as it was replaced by agony. Everywhere you turned around for help, all you saw were the bodies of those neglected and lynched. Abel Meeropol published the poem Strange Fruit in 1937, after seeing a drastic picture of lynching that traumatized him ever since then. As a result, the poem became a memory to all those who died and is momentous to our history.

Racism has plagued society for centuries. Bob Dylan addressed this obstacle in his ballad that reflected the death of Emmett Till. Emmett was a fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago who was brutally killed for flirting with a white woman. Dylan recounts