Poetry's Influences on the Harlem Renaissance

Cullen’s poem is based off of God’s actions while McKay’s poem has no reference to God. Religious figures have been an important component of human lives for centuries and it was very important to African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. This was the case for Cullen’s poem, “I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,” (1). Right in the beginning of his poem, he mentions some of his many feelings towards God. He continues to refer to God several times throughout his poem. The way he includes God in his poem suggests that God is the focal point of his problems. McKay’s poem, however, focuses the causes of his problems on something much different than a god or religion. In his mind, the source of his problem doesn’t come from God, but from white Americans. I think it is very interesting how opposite Cullen’s and McKay’s views on religion are. On one side, Cullen is a typical African American living in the Harlem Renaissance, using faith as an escape and reason for his troubles. McKay also shares a common characteristic of African Americans at this time which is to put the blame for his issues on white Americans. Cullen’s and McKay’s views on religion differed

Claude McKay’s poems reflect on American culture during a specific time in history, known as Harlem Renaissance. A time where racism was predominately a way of living for many, this was a beneficial time in history for African Americans. Bringing blacks together in a new movement that had not been present in America. Development in which blacks emphasized themselves by taking on their racial identity. It was a time period in which the black community helped each other to be able to express themselves as who they truly are, creating a true African American visual doing so

Second, there was an event that occurred from the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age, which was called the Harlem Renaissance. During the Harlem Renaissance, a numerous amount of African American put forth their talents and intellect. This is a prime example of a form of expression or cultural expression because a trend was set for more African Americans to start “Expanding their horizons and embracing the concept of the “new Negro” movement (P. Scott Corbett, et al). Even though discrimination was still around, this progressive movement helped African Americans contribute to literature, music, politics and more. In which helped shape and form a path for African-Americans to rediscover their black culture, for African American artists, writers, and other famous leaders to “formulated an independent black culture and encouraged racial pride, rejecting any emulation of white American culture” (P. Scott Corbett, et al).

During the 1920’s a new movement began to arise. This movement known as the Harlem Renaissance expressed the new African American culture. The new African American culture was expressed through the writing of books, poetry, essays, the playing of music, and through sculptures and paintings. Three poems and their poets express the new African American culture with ease. (Jordan 848-891) The poems also express the position of themselves and other African Americans during this time. “You and Your Whole Race”, “Yet Do I Marvel”, and “The Lynching” are the three poems whose themes are the same. The poets of these poems are, as in order, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude Mckay.

taste, hear and touch. ' Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun' this

Poetry is something that affects everyone that reads it. If you find the kind that you like then you only tend to read that type, and sometimes that is all a person needs because that certain type of poetry is so connected to them. In the Harlem Renaissance era there were a lot of poets who brought African American voices into the mainstream of American society. This is the type of poetry that really touched people and pushed them to read more poetry like it. Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton and Colleen McElroy were all poets that wrote about what being an African American in the United States was like and what they had to deal with throughout their lives. None of these were happy poems. They all pointed out the realities of what they had

As a young girl in Portland, Ore., Renée Watson immersed herself in the words of Langston Hughes, discovering that his poems about black identity mirrored experiences in her own life. Since moving to Harlem more than a decade ago, she has often walked by his old home — a three-story brownstone on East 127th Street with cast-iron railings and overgrown ivy.

Bumanglag 1 Elizen Bumanglag Ms. Pyzel Expository Writing 2 5 March, 2018 The Harlem Renaissance Do songs of hymns really give people something to hope for? During the Harlem Renaissance, it did. The poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” which later became a hymn was a song of hope and faith for the African-Americans during the Harlem Renaissance.

sounds very similar to Harlem Renaissance poetry. Likewise, in Freedom Writers, the popularity of hip-hop culture is shown as three students spontaneously start rapping when Mrs. Gruwell relates poetry to Tupac Shakur’s lyrics. This attempt to motivate the students to take interest does work to some degree. In addition to the setting, both works portray the environment that many of these teenagers live in is overrun with drugs. In a poem/letter dedicated to her mother, Porscha Johnson writes, “Dear Mom, you with the hypodermic needle in your arm, I never said good-bye […]” (161). Porscha and her mother lived in the Bronx until her mother died of an overdose, emphasizing the fact that drugs are readily available to her and virtually to all

During the introduction of the Harlem Renaissance, African American poets started to gain popularity for their works. The works of African American poets were seen to be uninfluential to the genre of poetry due to the difference of addressed issues. Poets of African American decent did not only address issues of the sex, but also race, colorism, and class. Though fighting for some of the same issues, black poets had issues on a different spectrum from white poets. The emergence of Womanist derived from the different attitudes and issues between black poets and their white counterparts.

Claude Mckay was born on September 15, 1889, in Jamaica. His older brother educated him, using his collection of English novels, poetry, and scientific textbooks. He studied poetry and philosophy alongside Walter Jekyll. Jekyll encouraged him to create original poetry in his own dialect, which was Jamaican. “If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything” (McKay). His first novel was published in 1912, Songs of Jamaica, which talked about his Negro lifestyle in his Jamaican dialect. Later that year, Constab Ballads was published and with those two novels, he earned enough money to move to the USA. In 1914, Mckay moved to Harlem, New York. With his works, he became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

Alain Locke, a Rhodes scholar with a PH.D. from Harvard, describes Harlem as “the first concentration in history of so many diverse elements of Negro life”. The Harlem Renaissance took place in Harlem, New York between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. At that time, since African- Americans were living with racism and economic injustice in society, they exercised freedom and claimed their civil rights through the arts. The Harlem Renaissance writers did not only write to blacks to inspire them; they also wrote to whites to warn them. As an example of this, “If We Must Die” was written by Claude McKay, after the 1919 “Red Summer” in Chicago, during which rioters threatened the livelihoods and lives of blacks; this poem was

Claude McKay was one of these artists who used poetry to express his viewpoints of the Harlem Renaissance. McKay was born in Jamaica in 1889, raised in a colored society where being Black was the norm. Arriving in the United States in 1912 he became aware of the vile racism, finding himself battling for their rights.

" ''Equality" by Maya Angelou, the theme is equality which is conveyed through the different techniques which are repetition and images. First the title of the poem ''Equality'' is clear enough to conclude that the message is asking for equality and freedom, maybe not between the black and white people in America but also to other of equality. The first stanza in the poem ''Equality'' begins with ''you'' which refers to the white American people. Maya Angelou says in her poem ''you declare you see me dimly \ through a glass which will not shine '' (1-2) she uses '' you''

As I thought about what social justice and the class, the main topic that came to mind was the inequalities within race. Race is a huge issues being discussed around the nation, but is it talked about enough? Poetry is an outlet of which people can express their thoughts, feelings, and concerns in a beautiful and thought out way. When collecting these pieces, I started to put myself into the positions of these people and I thought about my life as well as the things I’ve gotten just because of my skin color.