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| Wole Soyinka, 2015 |
Friday, December 14, 2018
Adrienne Rich, American Skeptic
ADRIENNE RICH, AMERICAN SKEPTIC
Adrienne
Rich has been recognized as one of the most
influential poets in the U.S. the past several decades. She
She
came of age as a political activist during the turbulent counter-culture of the
sixties. Her activism coincided with the rise in the U.S. of second wave
feminism and the beginning of the modern gay liberation movement. The latter is
usually dated to the Stonewall riots on June 28, 1969.
Poet
and essayist, Rich is a very influential, articulate, and sophisticated
literary voice advancing two major contemporary liberation movements, feminism
and LGBT rights, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. Her beacon,
multi-awarded track record is documented, for example, in Poetry magazine:
Feminism
and LGBT rights are each loci of complexly related issues with worldwide reach.
They are international liberation movements centered in the U.S. and Western
Europe mainly. Although Rich is known and celebrated in the U.S. primarily, as
a contemporary leader of feminism and LGBT rights, her influence is global.
As
a prominent feminist, Rich’s global influence is a given. After all, the
varieties of contemporary feminism are a direct concern of a little less than
half the world population.
As
an advocate for LGBT rights, her influence is also substantial because the
LGBT population worldwide is considerable. The cat is out of the closet, so to
speak. Today, entire societies cannot but be majorly occupied with issues related to the
treatment—legal, political, social, and economic—of this salient minority
group.
One
of the largest minority groups in any country is that of the LGBT population. It
is difficult to estimate the actual count because as a rule acknowledging your
LGBT identity, whether in surveys or elsewhere, is taboo. Besides, homosexual
activity is illegal in 73 countries.
Still,
we can go by the results of scientific and professional surveys. In 2017 a
Gallup survey found that 4.5% of the total U.S. population or over 11 million Americans
self-identified as LGBT. If the proportion of the total world population that self-identifies
as LGBT is in this vicinity—a reasonable suggestion—then we can conclude that out
of a total world population of 7.5 billion in 2017, up to 337.5 million people would
probably self-identify as LGBT. The proportion may be small, but the number is considerable.
See:
—“In U.S., Estimate of LGBT Population Rises to 4.5%,” Gallup (May 22, 2018) by Frank Newport
Towards the end of her life, Rich described herself as an “American Skeptic.” The moniker is appropriate for someone, keenly intelligent, who sought to deconstruct the social structures that constrain the advancement of her two lifetime occupations, feminism and LGBT rights. Deconstruction is the province of the intellectual skeptic.
“I
began as an American optimist, albeit a critical one, formed by our racial
legacy and by the Vietnam War…I became an American Skeptic, not as to the long
search for justice and dignity, which is part of all human history, but in the
light of my nation's leading role in demoralizing and destabilizing that
search, here at home and around the world. Perhaps just such a passionate
skepticism, neither cynical nor nihilistic, is the ground for continuing.”
—Adrienne
Rich, Los Angeles Times (March 11,
2001)
The
above quote shows that Rich was critical of the reactionary exercise of global U.S.
power and influence.
“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” appeared in Adrienne Rich’s first book of poetry, A Change of World (1951), published when she was only 22 years old. The collection of 40 poems won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award.
“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” appeared in Adrienne Rich’s first book of poetry, A Change of World (1951), published when she was only 22 years old. The collection of 40 poems won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award.
AUNT
JENNIFER’S TIGERS
Aunt
Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright
topaz denizens of a world of green.
They
do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They
pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
Aunt
Jennifer’s finger fluttering through her wool
Find
even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The
massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits
heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.
When
Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still
ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The
tigers in the panel that she made
Will
go on prancing, proud and unafraid.
The
poem deals with the motif of feminism, which Rich would maintain in her poetry throughout
her life.
The
poem is understated, straightforward, and not especially difficult. Once the
reader realizes that the “tigers” are embroidered designs in a woolen field,
the overt meaning of the poem is readily apparent. The “massive weight” of Aunt
Jennifer’s “wedding band” is a giveaway indicating that Aunt Jennifer’s marriage,
and by extension the institution of marriage, is a type of social oppression. The
poem describes her hands at death as still bound, “ringed” with “ordeals” and frozen
in terror. They are the same hands that created the tigers that prance freely, “proud
and unafraid” of the “men beneath the tree.” Manifestly, the tigers symbolize freedom
from the oppression of patriarchy.
Published in 1957, “A Ball Is for Throwing” is occupied with feminist and gay liberation motifs. Key to its interpretation is getting a fix on what the ball stands for.
A BALL IS FOR THROWING
Published in 1957, “A Ball Is for Throwing” is occupied with feminist and gay liberation motifs. Key to its interpretation is getting a fix on what the ball stands for.
A BALL IS FOR THROWING
See it, the
beautiful ball
Poised in the
toyshop window,
Rounder than
sun or moon.
Is it red? is
it blue? is it violet?
It is
everything we desire,
And it does
not exist at all.
Non-existent
and beautiful? Quite.
In the
rounding leap of our hands,
In the
longing hush of air,
We know what
that ball could be,
How its blues
and reds could spin
To a headier
violet.
Beautiful in
the mind,
Like a word
we are waiting to hear,
That ball is
construed, but lives
Only in flash
of flight,
From the
instant of release
To the catch
in another’s hand.
And the toy
withheld is a token
Of all who
refrain from play—
The
shopkeepers, the collectors
Like Queen
Victoria,
In whose
adorable doll’s house
Nothing was
ever broken.
The
poem cites two toys: the ball and the doll’s house. The latter, a girl’s toy,
is for those who, like shopkeepers and Queen Victoria, “refrain from play,” and the ball is “the toy withheld” from them. In the last
stanza it is apparent that the ball is a boy’s toy, so that it is a symbol of
masculine identity, just as the doll’s house is a symbol of feminine identity.
Significantly,
the ball is spoken of in positive, liberating terms. It represents many
possibilities—it can spin its blues and reds into violet, it is “beautiful in the mind” when it is
thrown, “it is everything we desire.”
Symbolically, the poem protests the assignment of sex-typed roles to males and
females. By extension, it also critiques the male-female dichotomy qua social institution that is the basis for
sex-typing.
“What Kind of Times Are These” is a protest poem, understated and allusive. At the time of publication in 1995 Rich was in her mid-sixties.
WHAT KIND OF TIMES ARE THESE
“What Kind of Times Are These” is a protest poem, understated and allusive. At the time of publication in 1995 Rich was in her mid-sixties.
WHAT KIND OF TIMES ARE THESE
There’s
a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and
the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near
a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who
disappeared into those shadows.
I’ve
walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this
isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our
country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its
own ways of making people disappear.
I
won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting
the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden
crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I
know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And
I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything?
Because you still listen, because in times like these
to
have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to
talk about trees.
The
poem is about a place, and when we examine this place closely, it is marked by disquiet
and in some way cursed and threatened. It is “near a meeting-house abandoned by
the persecuted who disappeared,” which suggests a political context. “Our
country,” the speaker says, is moving in the direction of “truth and dread,” and
because the speaker alludes to Russia, a country where people are made to disappear,
the meaning of this statement is political. As people have been made to
disappear, the speaker continues, the place risks the same fate. The poem is
political but in an unassuming sort of way.
Why
speak about this place, “about trees”? Because “to talk about trees” primes the
audience to listen, and since the import of the poem is political, that about
which the poem acts as a preparation is therefore of political significance—“because
in times like these / to have you listen at all, it’s necessary / to talk about
trees.”
Rich
alludes to Bertolt Brecht’s “An die
Nachgeborenen” or “To Those Who Follow in Our Wake,” published in 1939. Excerpt
from the first stanza:
Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren
Zeiten!...
Was sind das für Zeiten, wo
Ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein
Verbrechen ist
Weil es ein Schweigen über so viele
Untaten einschließt!
This
poem was originally published in Svendborger
Gedichte (1939).
English translation:
Truly,
I live in dark times!...
What
times are these, in which
A
conversation about trees is almost a crime
For
in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!
Translation was originally published in Gesammelte Werke, Volume 4, (1967), S.H. transl.
Translation was originally published in Gesammelte Werke, Volume 4, (1967), S.H. transl.
Brecht
laments that in Nazi Germany, citizens maintain conversations about “trees” because they are constrained to keep silent about Nazi depravity. Their
silence is “almost a crime.”
Once
we recognize Rich’s allusion to Brecht, it is apparent that her poem is
political. The poem protests the unavoidably indirect manner by which difficult
issues must be presented to a resistant audience.
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| Adrienne Rich, undated photo |
Langston Hughes, Foremost Poet of the Harlem Renaissance
LANGSTON HUGHES, FOREMOST POET OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
The
poetry of protest and resistance arouses our critical attention because
it represents a major type of world literature. This type of literature is often associated
with liberation movements.
What is a “liberation movement”?
“A
liberation movement is a type of social movement that seeks territorial
independence or enhanced political or cultural autonomy (or rights of various
types) within an existing nation-state for a particular national, ethnic, or
racial group. The term has also been extended to or adopted by other types of
groups (e.g., women and gays and lesbians) that seek to free themselves from
various forms of domination and discrimination. National liberation movements
have been an especially important force in the modern world…The division of the
globe into nation-states, many of the wars among these states, and the hundreds
of historical and contemporary conflicts among states and ethnic groups—in
short, fundamental aspects of the modern world—cannot be understood without
also understanding liberation movements.”
Although pro-democracy movements or armed left-wing insurgencies usually come to mind when we think of liberation
movements, they also arise from the right wing, e.g. Islamist groups like Al Qaeda,
ISIS, or the Taliban. Palestinian nationalism is a type of liberation movement.
Notably, authoritarian regimes and those incorporating varying degrees of authoritarianism characterize the majority of political systems today. Notwithstanding, political authoritarianism, rather than extinguishing liberation movements, incites them. They cannot be just switched off because they arise when oppressed groups resist social injustice, real or imagined, and seek structural redress.
The U.S. civil rights movement has been one of the most signal liberation movements in modern world history. Undertaken and led largely by African Americans—when we say “African Americans,” we mean the U.S. black population mainly—and directed against legally sanctioned racial segregation and discrimination in U.S. society—the U.S. civil rights movement was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s strategy of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, and possibly for this reason the movement was exceptionally successful in achieving its goals, at least in the political and legal aspects.
Notably, authoritarian regimes and those incorporating varying degrees of authoritarianism characterize the majority of political systems today. Notwithstanding, political authoritarianism, rather than extinguishing liberation movements, incites them. They cannot be just switched off because they arise when oppressed groups resist social injustice, real or imagined, and seek structural redress.
The U.S. civil rights movement has been one of the most signal liberation movements in modern world history. Undertaken and led largely by African Americans—when we say “African Americans,” we mean the U.S. black population mainly—and directed against legally sanctioned racial segregation and discrimination in U.S. society—the U.S. civil rights movement was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s strategy of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, and possibly for this reason the movement was exceptionally successful in achieving its goals, at least in the political and legal aspects.
At least four
major areas of the U.S. political and legal system were reformed: U.S. Supreme Court rulings striking down Jim Crow legislation; the passage of federal civil rights laws; 1964
ratification of the 24th amendment; and the formation of federal
agencies tasked with civil rights agendas.
Despite the fact that racism still characterizes U.S. society today—it is an open scientific question
whether social discrimination based on racial or ethnic group differences can
be wholly eliminated—African Americans surely have come a long way from being regarded
as chattel to electing one of their own to the presidency of a superpower.
Ideologically, the U.S. civil rights movement has directly influenced liberation movements worldwide, notably, nonviolent pro-democracy movements in the Philippines, Eastern Europe, China, Myanmar, “Arab Spring” countries, Ukraine, and Hong Kong (special administrative region of China), and feminist, gay rights, or indigenous people movements, which cut across individual nations. Not all pro-democracy movements have been successful.
At least 42 million blacks or about 14 percent of the U.S. population today are direct beneficiaries of the U.S. civil rights movement. This positive influence extends not only to the U.S. black population but also to other peoples of color in U.S. society.
Although
it is difficult to quantify the global impact of the U.S. civil rights movement in
terms of the total population affected, we can confidently say that its influence encompasses
a broad swath of past and ongoing liberation movements, so that the total number readily adds
up to the hundreds of millions.
The most important leader of the U.S. civil rights movement was Martin Luther King Jr. In this role he had a major influence on liberation movements arising since the sixties until the present time.
Between
King and Langston Hughes, the former was my first choice for inclusion in my
second list of ten greatest poets.
King?—a poet?
Look
at major portions of his famous 1963 speech, “I Have a Dream,” and tell me it
isn’t poetry:
Let
us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And
so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a
dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I
have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal.”
I
have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former
slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at
the table of brotherhood.
I
have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering
with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I
have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character.
I
have a dream today!
Eventually,
I eliminated King from my list of candidates for ten greatest poets, numbers 11
to 20, because he was a civil rights activist first, a poet second. In
contrast, Langston Hughes was a poet first, a political activist second.
Similarly,
I eliminated Maya Angelou from my list of candidates because I see her as a
political activist first, a poet second. Although I readily acknowledge Angelou’s
popularity and influence, especially in the U.S., I do not find her poetry qua
poetry, especially distinguished.
One
reviewer, for example, has described her poetry as “Hallmark.” See “The Awfully
Good Activism and Terribly Bad Poetry of Maya Angelou”:
—“The Awfully Good Activism and Terribly Bad Poetry of Maya Angelou,” Daily Review (August 15, 2016) by Helen Razer
—“The Awfully Good Activism and Terribly Bad Poetry of Maya Angelou,” Daily Review (August 15, 2016) by Helen Razer
Poetry magazine is far
kinder, saying she would perform her poetry before spellbound crowds. The article celebrates her connection to “African-American oral traditions
like slave and work songs, especially in her use of personal narrative and
emphasis on individual responses to hardship, oppression, and loss,” adding that
besides individual experience, she would “often respond to matters like race
and sex on a larger social and psychological scale.”
Langston Hughes is in my second list of ten greatest poets because he was the foremost poet of the Harlem Renaissance, a direct precursor of the U.S. civil rights movement, which has been and continues to be enormously influential worldwide, especially among liberation movements that espouse nonviolence.
Why is Langston Hughes the foremost poet of the Harlem Renaissance? We suggest that he wrote some of the most poignant, memorable, and finely crafted poems of the movement, and as a result stood out from the rest. At one point he was described as the “poet laureate of black America.”
I have selected several of Hughes’ most famous poems for analysis and commentary. They are vibrant examples of his work.
HARLEM
What
happens to a dream deferred?
Does
it dry up
like
a raisin in the sun?
Or
fester like a sore—
And
then run?
Does
it stink like rotten meat?
Or
crust and sugar over—
like
a syrupy sweet?
Maybe
it just sags
like
a heavy load.
Or does it
explode?
This poem was originally published in Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951).
Hughes
wrote multiple poems about dreams—“Dreams,” “I Dream a World,” “As I Grew Older,”
or “Let America Be America,” for example. Hughes’
“dream poems” allude to the “American Dream,” defined as follows:
“The
ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available
to every American” and “A life of personal happiness and material comfort as
traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.”
The
term “American Dream” was coined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams (1878-1949) in “Epic
of America”:
“…[as]
that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for
everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is
a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and
too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a
dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which
each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which
they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are,
regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”
“Harlem”
invokes a series of metaphors that unmistakably convey in negative terms the
denial to African Americans of the American Dream. Their disenfranchisement is a
“festering sore,” “rotten meat,” or “heavy load.”
Also
popularly known as “Dream Deferred,” “Harlem” has been described as prophetic. “Dream
deferred,” Hughes says in the poem, will at some point “explode,” which is
exactly what happened several years after the poem was published, when during
the U.S. civil rights movement African Americans successfully fought against Jim
Crow.
Critics connect the content of Martin Luther King’s writings directly to Langston
Hughes, especially “I Have a Dream,” King’s August 28, 1963 speech at the
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., and his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” published
on April 16 the same year.
See, for example:
—“How Langston Hughes’s Dreams Inspired MLK’s,” Smithsonian.com (February 1, 2017) by Kat Eschner
—“Langston Hughes’ hidden influence on MLK,” The Conversation (March 30, 2018) by Jason Miller
See, for example:
—“How Langston Hughes’s Dreams Inspired MLK’s,” Smithsonian.com (February 1, 2017) by Kat Eschner
—“Langston Hughes’ hidden influence on MLK,” The Conversation (March 30, 2018) by Jason Miller
King
did not acknowledge this literary debt because he was careful to distance
himself from Hughes who had in the past flirted with communism. Well aware that
opponents of the U.S. civil rights movement would seek to undermine it—and they
did so with some success—with blown-up charges of communist sympathy and affiliation,
King made a decision that was based on intelligent politics.
Was
Hughes a Communist? Depends on how you want to answer this question.
Two possible answers: “No” and “Nearly so.”
“No”—Hughes was never a member of the Communist party, he did not explicitly profess Communist ideology, and he never identified himself as a Communist.
“Nearly so”—Hughes was sympathetic toward Communism in the thirties, a period of major ideological flux and political upheaval in the U.S. and Europe. His political leanings should not surprise us because Communist ideology champions the struggle of the economically oppressed, which includes the racially oppressed blacks. Hughes’ poems were frequently published in the newspaper of the Communist Party of the U.S., and in 1938 he signed a statement supporting Stalin's purges. He supported causes pushed by Communist organizations, such as the drive to free the Scottsboro Boys and the side of the Spanish Republic, and he showed sympathy for Communist-led organizations like the John Reed Clubs and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. In the fifties, however, he began to distance himself from his left-leaning past. His Selected Poems published in 1959, for example, omitted his radical poetry.
“I, Too,” like “Harlem,” protests the social oppression of blacks in the U.S. However, it does not make the same point so directly.
I, TOO
“No”—Hughes was never a member of the Communist party, he did not explicitly profess Communist ideology, and he never identified himself as a Communist.
“Nearly so”—Hughes was sympathetic toward Communism in the thirties, a period of major ideological flux and political upheaval in the U.S. and Europe. His political leanings should not surprise us because Communist ideology champions the struggle of the economically oppressed, which includes the racially oppressed blacks. Hughes’ poems were frequently published in the newspaper of the Communist Party of the U.S., and in 1938 he signed a statement supporting Stalin's purges. He supported causes pushed by Communist organizations, such as the drive to free the Scottsboro Boys and the side of the Spanish Republic, and he showed sympathy for Communist-led organizations like the John Reed Clubs and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. In the fifties, however, he began to distance himself from his left-leaning past. His Selected Poems published in 1959, for example, omitted his radical poetry.
“I, Too,” like “Harlem,” protests the social oppression of blacks in the U.S. However, it does not make the same point so directly.
I, TOO
I,
too, sing America.
I
am the darker brother.
They
send me to eat in the kitchen
When
company comes,
But
I laugh,
And
eat well,
And
grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll
be at the table
When
company comes.
Nobody’ll
dare
Say
to me,
“Eat
in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll
see how beautiful I am
And
be ashamed—
I,
too, am America.
This poem was originally published in The Weary Blues (1926).
This poem was originally published in The Weary Blues (1926).
The vignette cuts to the chase—consigned to eat in the kitchen, the
speaker laughs, eats well, and grows strong. No bitterness here, we sense, but
rather self-assurance. He knows the indignity is temporary.
Seeing
the future, he foretells that it is his oppressors who will be shamed, not him.
He, the darker brother—they will see how beautiful he is.
Chiding,
the protest is powerfully understated.
The
opening and closing lines, symmetrical, allude to Walt Whitman’s “I Hear
America Singing,” sealing the poem, unifying it.
This last poem, “Po’ Boy Blues” is written in a variety of the slave dialect that over generations has changed and varied.
PO’ BOY BLUES
This last poem, “Po’ Boy Blues” is written in a variety of the slave dialect that over generations has changed and varied.
PO’ BOY BLUES
When
I was home de
Sunshine
seemed like gold.
When
I was home de
Sunshine
seemed like gold.
Since
I come up North de
Whole
damn world’s turned cold.
I
was a good boy,
Never
done no wrong.
Yes,
I was a good boy,
Never
done no wrong,
But
this world is weary
An’
de road is hard an’ long.
I
fell in love with
A
gal I thought was kind.
Fell
in love with
A
gal I thought was kind.
She
made me lose ma money
An’
almost lose ma mind.
Weary,
weary,
Weary
early in de morn.
Weary,
weary,
Early,
early in de morn.
I’s
so weary
I
wish I’d never been born.
This poem was originally published in The Weary Blues (1926).
This poem was originally published in The Weary Blues (1926).
Some in the Harlem Renaissance opposed this type of literature because, they said, it depicts African Americans in a demeaning light—poor, uneducated, repellent, in some instances involved in immorality or crime. Critical of Hughes’ poetry collection, Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927), Estace Gay, for example, argued “our aim ought to be [to] present to the general public, already misinformed both by well meaning and malicious writers, our higher aims and aspirations, and our better selves.”
Not
all critics were so urbane. The Chicago Whip,
for instance, according to Hughes, characterized him as “the poet low-rate of
Harlem.”
See:
—“Langston Hughes: The People’s Poet,” National Museum of African American History & Culture (February 1, 2018) by Angelica Aboulhosn
—“Langston Hughes: The People’s Poet,” National Museum of African American History & Culture (February 1, 2018) by Angelica Aboulhosn
Hughes
responded graciously to his detractors.
“I
sympathized deeply with those critics and those intellectuals, and I saw
clearly the need for some of the kinds of books they wanted. But I did not see
how they could expect every Negro author to write such books. Certainly, I
personally knew very few people anywhere who were wholly beautiful and wholly
good. Besides I felt that the masses of our people had as much in their lives
to put into books as did those more fortunate ones who had been born with some
means and the ability to work up to a master's degree at a Northern college.
Anyway, I didn't know the upper class Negroes well enough to write much about them.
I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren't people whose shoes
were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach. But they
seemed to me good people, too.”
Today,
Hughes’ poems flourish because, precisely, they were written in dialect, or at
least, a dialect form adapted to Standard English. His social realism meaningfully engages contemporary readers. History has proven his approach correct.
“Po’
Boy Blues” is compelling not only for the realism of the dialect but also
because it portrays the hard luck circumstances of the speaker, which
authentically recapitulate the condition at the time of the migrant black
underclass.
The
poem draws the reader into the touching perspective of the black migrant from
the South, enters into his predicament steeped in pathos, and concludes with his lament, deeply evocative.
 |
| Langston Hughes, 1942 |
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