Black Mountain poets

“Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.” The often-crowned laureate of Harlem, Langston Hughes through his literary works faithfully recorded the authenticity and nuances of the African American experience. The opening line draws attention to Hughes internal struggle that had followed throughout his artistic career, as he was attempting to seek out whether art could be free of any involvement of political propaganda and to be left as pure poetry,…

evolutionary inferiority of Africans and justified growing imperialist aims in the “dark continent.” But most importantly these freak shows inspired the vested interests of those in the United States who worked actively to deny freedom and human rights to black…

Hughes is one if the main reasons black culture is celebrated today. Langston Hughes, or James Mercer, was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin Missouri. He died May 22, 1967 in New York City (Webster 209). Born with a racial background of African, French, Native American, and English ancestry, Hughes used his background throughout his life as an inspiration for his art. Hughes attended elementary school in Lincoln, Illinois. In his class, he was elected as class poet, which may have started his…

Conrad’s niggers are, in their feeble and shadowy existential realities, alluded to in The Hollow Men. In a sense, black activities and intellectuals from the Harlem ghetto resemble them. They are human beings full of hunger, disease and fear which situate their condition not in ancient Africa or Europe but America as limbo itself. Having experienced acculturation or alienation, the black ex-slaves become neither African nor European in outlook. Their sad king or leader named Doris (“I” in this…

Ever wondered where your ancestors came from? What were they like? What did they become? Well for Cathy Song, her heritage was the success of her life. As a young girl, Song grew up as Chinese-Korean American and knew that she wanted to write about her family’s history. Song has taken her written career serious and tries to educate her readers with the terrible lives of arranged marriage women, through the art of poetry. Not only does she write about her family’s ancestry, but she loves to…

The Tale of the Magic Drumstick Once there was a Chippewa Elder named Francis and he loved music. Music was everything to him. He even made traditional Native American musical instruments. The sound of a drumstick hitting against a hand drum would remind him of his own heart beating. Not to mention how music brings people together. So one night while Francis was sleeping. The creator sent Francis a dream of choke cherry bushes swaying in the wind and elks running through the forest. In the…

storyline, the image of the “black-box” is mentioned approximately 20 times. This box plays quite a large role in the plot of the story in that the pieces of paper inside of it ultimately determines the fate of one the villager’s lives. Whichever individual draws the sheet of paper from the black box with the black dot on is plagued with the fate of the lottery. This villager is sentenced to death by means of stoning by the hands of the remaining townspeople. The “black-box” is representative of…

progress and art" (18) which indicates Hurston explored and inspired by the artistic milieu of Harlem and her own perception of art which motivated her to write her novels. Between the 1920 through 1925, Hurston defined herself as a fiction writer than a poet that explored her writing into the African American heritage. In the novel, Hurston gained popularity among some of the novels she wrote such as Mules and Men, Their Eyes Were Watching God and etc. However, Hurston did not gain enough…

Black students complain about stereotypical comments made about them in the classroom, generalizations of opinions made by individual Black students to reflect all Black students, and the failure of White faculty to acknowledge and incorporate Black perspectives in the curriculum (Guiffrida & Douthiti, 2010). This kind of behavior makes it difficult for Black students to approach White faculty for assistance (Schwitzer, Griffen, Ancis, & Thomas, 1999). Fries-Britt and Turner (2001) note that…

views and beliefs by family members. They are taught to be this way or that to fit in with the norm of their culture, their deemed to be Black, White, Asian, Indian, or Hispanic. However, I believe in the color gray meaning that I do not see color or stereotype. The color gray is said to be an unemotional color, gray is the color of compromise being neither black nor white, but it’s also solid and stable creating a sense of calm in this all chaotic world. In our society we place people in a…