Harlem Renaissance Poem

If We Must Die 
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! 
-Claude McKay

This poem's focus, unlike most others, is actually very straight-forward considering the time period within which it was written. The Harlem Renaissance was an artistic period in America that saw the rise of African-American authors and painters into the common view of American culture. With this newfound attention, the question of civil rights became an even more prominent issue in the country. This poem is a product of the rise in popularity of this issue. The poem calls for African Americans to rise up against the anti-black sentiment in America and stand for the civil liberties they are entitled to in the country as members of the human race. The poem also states how ,when they die, they would rather have died fighting for their cause of liberty rather than in contempt of their current situation as a shunned minority, and that even when the odds are insurmountably against them they will continue to fight for their noble rights to basic human rights. However, it is interesting how Claude McKay depicts African Americans in America as hogs because of the parallels between a hog and slave's life. Both lived in constant filth, were bought and sold by landowners, and were sometimes even slaughtered or mutilated to prevent others from attempting to escape. With slaves all being free by the time of this poem, McKay is basically calling for other African Americans to use their newfound abilities as free men who are not beaten, mutilated, and treated like filth to end what remains of segregation and their undesirablility.     

New Yorker Poem

War and Peace

Chana Bloch

I made a big wish on the evening star,
Venus, or was it Mars,
but it was a low-flying plane
headed east.

I saw the little foxes on the hillside
with their pointy red ears;
up close, a fallen branch of autumn.

When the guide clapped his hands,
the brilliant apples on the tree got frightened
and flew away.

The marriage I called Gibraltar
went down like a ship
scraping the rocky strait.

I thought the war would bring peace.
The road signs all said
This Way to the Future, so we ran out
with flag and shovel, elated, planting—

This poem is very attention-grabbing. This is not just because the title is equivalent to that of an exasperatingly long novel. The reason this poem grabs attention is because it is an exact representation of how some things are not always as they seem and how this can lead to unforeseen consequences. This is first revealed when the author makes a few simple first-sight mistakes such as thinking a plane was a star and a branch with red and orange leaves was actually a group of foxes. Then we reach a section where a guide claps his hands and the apples the author sees on the tree near them fly away. This is clearly another sight error, as apples can't fly, but there's something that separates this event from the other two. Birds are sometimes used as symbols of peace in nature (doves, for instance) and with a title like War and Peace, it only seems fitting that this event resembles a foreshadowing of events to follow involving the human race as a whole. The poem then goes on to describe how a marriage, called Gibraltar, had ended. While not being related to sight, this passage still continues to follow the same pattern as the other lines in that the marriage would be supposedly called Gibraltar for the region's beauty. However, the name ends up being applied after the marriage ends prematurely due to the notoriously rocky strait (which was clearly not the original intention of the name). The poem then ends on a cliffhanger who's conclusion can be accurately inferred based on this pattern of the unwanted being unexpected and occurring and with the previous phrase 'I thought the war would bring peace'. The inferred ending is that, while everyone thought claiming land would allow the human race to grow into the future, it only ended up causing halts to beneficial technological progress because of the wars over specific areas of land. This wraps up the poem quite nicely and brings the whole point of the poem into the big picture of the entire human race.   

Romantic Period Poem

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 

When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host, of golden daffodils; 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

Continuous as the stars that shine 

And twinkle on the milky way, 

They stretched in never-ending line 

Along the margin of a bay: 

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced; but they 

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: 

A poet could not but be gay, 

In such a jocund company: 

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought: 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood, 

They flash upon that inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude; 

And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And dances with the daffodils.

    This poem is a very exquisite piece of writing in that it is able to romanticize what is seemingly unromanticizable: loneliness, the seeming exact opposite of romance. When one begins reading, they are immediately introduced to a whole new perspective on the subject of solitude and loneliness in life. The author describes how while he is alone he is not truly alone. He goes on to explain how this is possible by describe how he sees a crowd fluttering and dancing near him ,however the organisms in the crowd are not humans like most would suspect, but are instead daffodils in the breeze. After describing the daffodils more clearly and vividly the author further describes his surroundings on the bay and how, as a poet, he is in such jocund company with the daffodils and waves and even the stars in the sky. By the end, the author shows the reader that the place was, in fact, not real (or at least not the current surroundings of the author) but instead in the author's imagination, his 'happy place' if you will. The author, throughout the poem, continues to romanticize the solitude he feels by revealing to the reader that, while he is alone and without a companion, he is happy and longs to be in that state ,no matter whether literally or mentally.