Harlem

    Harlem captures the essence of dreams and progress in just a few great short lines.  This poem was written when the future state and equality of African Americans was unknown.  Its cool that the poem is called harlem because that is the only line that directly talks about African Americans.  The rest of the poem is about the African American movement, but is talking about something much bigger.  This much broader idea is that if you don't follow through on your dreams, they will disappear.

    When Hughes wrote most of his poems, African Americans were being oppressed throughout the United States.  However, as this poem shows, there was prospect and hope for a better life.  The first line, "What happens to a dream deferred?" shows that black people had dreams but were not acting on it.  The rest of the poem just describes different ways that the dream is destroyed.  This describes the political scene in terms of race at the time.

     It was an interesting choice to name the poem Harlem.  I think he named it Harlem to show that he was talking about Harlem.  This poem is about Harlem because Harlem was the cultural center for Black people in America.  At that point in history, the vast majority of Black people's dreams were drying up and not being fulfilled.  However, Hughes also shows the excitement and tension and want at that time in the Black community.  This is shown by the last line of the poem, "Or does it explode?"  This shows how full of energy and frustrated the community was in a beautiful way.

     The last word of the poem somehow seems to be automatically yelled.  It is almost as if there's a stage direction there.  I think this is because the rest of the poem and the start of the line, "Or does it..." builds up to it.  And the last word, "Explode," seems to be the loudest by far in the poem.  I think Hughes does this on purpose.  Either way, it creates a very rhythmic reading of the poem.

     All in all, Harlem is a great and simple poem.  Somehow, without actually mentioning race, it describes the issues as well as any poem of the time.  It is has great rhythm and is quite moving.   It describes the mood and frustrations of African Americans.  However, it's also relatable to everyone.  It is one of my favorite poems.

A Dream

By Joshua Waldman

A boy of three looks up at me with eyes

of brown and shining blond tresses with curls.

And what he wants is clear to me; here lies

Some gifts which bear his name upon their twirls

And then I see I look like him; the boy

Who looks at me: I see the boy is me

He waves his arms I see, perhaps to qtoy

With me.  Or he yet might just wave with glee.

And so I wave to him as he had done

And now it’s clear that I am not the one

Who stands waving to him like he has won

The game monopoly, of quite good fun.

I wake with sunshine pouring in my room

And sun rays shine without a sense of gloom.

America

What is America?

America is

Long shifts

Three jobs

Free

Hard

Equal

Bells ringing.

I hear no bells ring today.

Thirteen million

who are seeking work

must sit at home today

waiting for those bells to ring.

Waiting for their shift to start

Waiting to work three jobs 

to send their kid to college.

Today I see Southern Blacks 

loosing their right to vote through the 

state legislatures who are supposed to protect them.  

America is a land of 

the strongest.

America lies broken,

silent bells,

foreclosed houses

homeless shelters flooded with people.

Let us ring these bells today.

Let my generation break out of the sins

of Fanny May and Freddy Mack.

And let us move forward and vote out the bigots

in state legislatures and even

in Congress today.

America is standing still.

Let us ring those bells

Get back to work.

Invent.

Or perhaps,

they will ring 

forever no more.

Junkyard

I walk down and see

four hundred fords in front of me.

But these fine cars have not been used

only mused

upon and turned away.

Today not many cars sell

nor did they 

then, when 

one third of americans 

sat unemployed.

In the horizon though

I see hope

And my hope lies not in the hands of a pope.

My hope lies in the strong American hands who built those cars.

Who work every day

or 

Seek it every day.

I see hope in the horizon today too.

The trees will start to blossom after this cold cold winter.

Rise

What happens if we give up?

What happens if we stop doing applications every day.

What if we simply blame others.

Fat-cats.

The 1%.

Congress.

But we ourselves are 

just as much to blame

if we we sit and complain.

Lets rise up as a nation,

as a people

like the sun.

Migrant Mother

(http://walkerevans.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/gallery/gallery.php5?id=0)  

   

      I am deeply moved by much of Walker Evans' work and especially this photo.  I really like his Depression work.  What I love about his photos during the depression is the stories and hardships that he managed to show with a snap.  He found a way to show individuals' stories at the same time as showing what the real America was at that time.  He showed suffering in his photos, but he also showed hope.  I think he was the best photographer in American History.  He documented America during the depression and got this documentation printed and showed to the public and the leaders as much as any journalist could have.  

(Walker Evans-Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     Evans was born in St. Louis in 1903 and he died in New Haven, Connecticut in 1975.  He grew up in Kenilworth, Illinois.  He was a bad student and dropped out of Williams College. He had a few unsuccessful careers before he went into photography. Through his work, he became famous and was a very acknowledged photographer.  He became a professor at Yale University for photography and an Associate Editor at Fortune Magazine.

(http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPevansW.htm)

     

     The photo above was taken in 1935 by Evans.  It was of an auto junk yard in Pennsylvania.  The image looks like just part of the junk yard, perhaps to show the vastness of the junk yard.  There are also a few trees in the background.  This shows the rural element of the photo.  It is clearly a cloudy and possibly misty day that the photo was taken.  Much of the photo is just of open field.  

     This photo is moving to me for many reasons.  First, it is a clear and brilliant symbol of the economic hardships that my family and all of the families of the United States and much of the world went through in the 1930s.  It also connects back to today, with lots and lots of bankrupted businesses and foreclosed houses, our country is filled with more and more "junkyards" than for a long time, maybe even since the Depression.  Even though this photo has no people in it, it still tells the story and suffrage of people.  I think, however, that this photo displays hope.  The field and trees in the background show future and somewhere to go.  This is a meaningful, dark, photo, but the life in the background inspires me as well.  

     After looking through albums upon albums and reading a book of Walker Evans' work, it made me want to travel around the country like he did.  He showed the rough times in America.  However, his photos also showed patriotism, the vastness and the beauty of America.  

Sources Cited

Department of Photographs. "Walker Evans (1903–1975)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/evan/hd_evan.htm (October 2004)

"Walker Evans." 2012. Biography.com 02 Feb 2012, 09:59 http://www.biography.com/people/walker-evans-9289854

"Walker Evans : Biography." Spartacus Educational. Web. 02 Feb. 2012. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPevansW.htm>.