Poetry Review

In this post, I am analyzing two poems that I read for my Humanities class. To view the poems that I am talking about click on the titles:

My first choice is Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

I found this poem very easy to understand. The example given were well thought out and described. To me this poem is reflective.  I think Mr. Hughes is trying to justify why America does not live up to the ideal.  The problem with that is that reality never does live up to the ideal. The founding fathers had a vision when they created this country and wrote the Constitution and The Bill of Rights, but if truth be told America has never lived up to their vision of what it should be.  I don’t think it ever will because humans are human and also because we keep changing the Constitution and messing with their vision. Admittedly, some changes are for the better but on the other hand some are not. I was surprised that this poem was written in 1994, because the things that he talks happened many years before that.  He talks about the slavery’s scars, although I realize that even though we no longer have slavery that the black ‘s still bear the scars.  In some parts of the poem when he talks about things that happened in the past, he uses terms from that time which no longer apply.  For example, he uses Negro in one part when that is no longer the correct term and I believe it wasn’t even in 1994.

Do you agree with my interpretation that Langston Hughes is trying to justify an ideal America?

My second choice is The Lanyard by Billy Collins

I found Billy Collin’s poem easy to understand also.  This poem was more of a narrative as it told a story. It was written in poem form, but it could have just as easily been written as a short story. I love his descriptions and feel that they are an important part of the poem.  Aside from that the idea behind the poem is that we can never repay our Mom’s for all they have done for us.  The only time we can come close is if we end up taking care of them in their later years. Even then those few years still would not make up for them having giving birth to us.   Accordingly, to the biographical data he wrote this poem as early as 1995, but this poem is timeless . The data also says that “the central theme of poetry is death”  (Collins, B.  2005).  Personally, I don’t see that as a theme in this poem. Do you?

Reference:

Lyden, J. (2005). Billy Collins 'The Trouble With Poetry'. Npr books. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4990320