Charles Evans Hughes

The poem Harlem by Langston Hughes is a lyric poem, and the author focuses the theme on society “deferring” the dreams of African Americans due to racism. Langston Hughes uses descriptive similes throughout the poem to get his theme of racism across to his audience. In the 2nd line of the poem, Langston Hughes informs the reader that deferring a dream is similar to a raisin. This is because as grapes age, they lose their juice and begin to dry out, turning into a raisin. This is what happens to…

“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,…

Daurys Gomez, a future entrepreneur with a thriving clothing brand. Born in Orange, New Jersey Gomez is coming from a Dominican background. The way you go grow up may affect how you carry yourself through your life. Gomez states, “ Life was pretty easy compared to now to be honest. Growing up it was more like, in a kids perspective, it was really fun because I was around friends and although the area wasn't the best when it comes to safety, we made the best of it.” Safety was a problem growing…

Each person has his or her individual path to follow, no two paths are exactly the same; but, every now and then, paths interweave and people construct bonds with each other. In the case of Sonny and his brother, the narrator, in James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, their paths were parallel with one another until they grew up. Sonny left the slums of Harlem, aspiring to become a musician, while his brother settled in Harlem and became a teacher. Although the narrator and his brother…

Black Modernism and Situating Revelations The articles “Black Modernism” and “Situating Revelations” were written by Thomas DeFrantz. DeFrantz is currently a Professor of African and African American Studies, a Professor of Dance, and a Professor of Theater Studies at Duke University. He has done extensive research on dance studies and performance technology. In addition, DeFrantz was previously the president of the Society of Dance History Scholars, and he has been a part of Black Performance…

Tennessee Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi on March 26, 1911 (Biography.com). He won a Pulitzer Prize for his works, including A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Tin Roof. A Streetcar Named Desire, written in 1947, is the play that gave Williams his first Pulitzer Prize (Biography.com). The main characters in that play are Blanche Dubois, her younger sister Stella, and Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski. Blanche Dubois has unexpectedly come to live with her sister because she…

drienne Rich (1929-2012) was by many regarded as the voice of her generation. Her work was often political, and her poetry explored themes such as change, feminism and sex. In the earlier years, having a family, she often wrote her poems in between chores. Perhaps it was her traditional lifestyle gave her work a “neat and orderly” (Rich, as cited in Mays 912) tint. “Aunt Jennifer's tigers” was published at the mere age of 21. As times changed, so did her poetry, growing more social and political…

The Harlem Renaissance was the first pro-black movement that was not criticized or shamed upon by whites. It was the upcoming of African Americans' heritage after slavery. It also outlined the bravery of blacks, the conquering of oppression, and the presence of individuality during the 1920s. It transformed black culture as a whole and is worthy of recognition throughout history. This was the turning point in African American heritage in America , celebrating black culture. Coming from slavery ,…

Her career began with her first book of Poems in 1953 when she was in her twenties three years before the appearance of Robert Conquest’s anthology of modern poetry, New Lines. In the Introduction to the anthology, Conquest discussed intellectual clarity and directness of expression as the distinguishing qualities of the new poetry, as opposed to what he described as the “vague romanticism” of poets like Dylan Thomas, George Barker, Edith Sitwell and others. In this collection she reveals a…

There are many black writers who have been interested in the cause of the cultural emancipation of the African Americans. They also had a stand against the slavery system and the unjust American society. Resultantly, that Harlem became the sacred place of the Negro and the center of the black community in America. The Harlem community becames the center and the Godfather for African American people. Many stories of protest and struggle were written by writers and black critics, some of them…