Billie Holiday

'Hara, leading up to his discovery of the death of singer Billie Holiday. This poem is unlike most in that it lacks figurative language throughout. O’Hara’s poem uses what seems almost like a bulletin, with every one of his actions being listed. He includes every detail of his day from the time he completed an action up to the people he interacted with along the way. On the surface, all of these things seem to be unrelated to the death of Holiday seeing as that her death itself is not mentioned…

root.” this is an excerpt from the poem “Strange Fruit”. In this poem, the main point that the authors, Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol, wrote about is the “strange fruit” which is actually a metaphor. The metaphor is comparing the fruit and slaves, and how they were hung from trees during the pre-Civil Rights times. Along with the metaphors, the literary devices that the author Billie Holiday uses in the poem “Strange Fruit” are imagery and emotional appeal. These literary devices are seen…

The song Strange Fruit was first sang by Billie Holiday, who was a new performer on stage at Cafe Society, a new and popular cabaret club. The song was written in 1937 by a man named Abel Meeropol to criticize the racial discrimination in American South. Abel Meeropol, who was a Jewish-American school teacher from New York City, wrote Strange Fruit after seeing a shocking photograph of a lynching in a magazine. This song became very popular in 1939, the year where racial tension was at its…

imagery will be acknowledged and discussed based on the lyrical rhythm this song has. Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915- July 17, 1959) was a professional jazz singer. Holiday had a huge influence on jazz music. She was mainly known and recognized for her amazing voice and ability to improvise her lyrics while on stage during performances. Holiday began…

singer Billie Holiday sang and recorded the song “Strange Fruit.” The song centered on racism towards the African-American Community, and the lynching of American-American men. Years later, Kanye West released a song in 2013 called “Blood on the Leaves”. West’s song sampled singer Nina Simone’s version of “Strange Fruit”. Even though both of these songs are decades apart, they both have similarities and differences and each has their own story. In the song “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday,…

Billie Holiday is considered one of the most influential jazz singers of all time. Holiday was born on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia and died on July 17, 1959. Billie Holiday struggled in her early life which was why she moved to New York and began her career, but she encountered problems even though she was successful. Billie Holiday did not live in a peaceful home while growing up. Born in Philadelphia, her birth name was Eleanor Fagan. She spent much of her childhood in Baltimore with her…

ways of phrasing while playing. Instead of driving it forward and playing on the beat, similar to the influential tenor saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins, Young held it back bringing a more relaxed feeling to it. American jazz vocalist and songwriter, Billie Holiday, recognized Young’s great talent and therefore nicknamed him “The Prez”, the president of the tenor saxophone. Lester Young released his first recording “Oh, Lady Be Good” with Count Basie on October 9, 1936. However, in December 1940,…

1915, Billie Holiday, the most influential jazz musicians of her time, was born. A major part of what made Billie so influential was that throughout most of her professional career, she dealt with addiction and drug abuse but still managed to create and perform hits such as “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit.” As a child, Billie was forced to live a tough life with her mother due to her father rarely being in her life. Billie also was known for…

Billie Holiday was an African American jazz singer, and she was born in 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since she dropped out from school, she started looking for a job to make money. Unfortunately, there weren’t any jobs of the type of work that she was looking for that were available. However, she auditioned as a singer in one bar, and she impressed the owners of jazz and blues, not with her ability to sing jazz and blues. Holiday's real uttered effect was Louis Pops Armstrong. She…

Strange Fruit is a poem by Abel Meeropol written in 1939 was written to inform people about racism in an obvious fashion that explains the racism at the lynching in Marion killing two boys and harming another. The two boys were Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were both African Americans who were lynched by a mob full of generally peaceful citizens who had been induced into mob mentality. Strange Fruit tells how cruel people could be when they are convinced that racism is the way to purge the land…