Imitation 1 (20's):Langston Hughes, Bowery Blues

Samantha Weiss

Langston Hughes' "the Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" is about the challenges and obstacles blacks faced in 1926. You can tell how uncomfortable blacks were in just the first line, "I want to be a poet- not a Negro poet". Why can't a Negro be a poet? Because in 1926, it was only socially acceptable for whites. This Hughes piece is a confessional and a critique. Hughes tells us in detail the situation in his area at the time but also critiques society, especially other blacks, for not supporting their own art. Hughes used literary elements like literal meaning, lyrical poetry, tone and narrative poetry. This was a time before Brown vs the board of education, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil rights movement. They were surrounded by discrimination and taught to think that anything white was better. White was "beauty, mortality, and money". Black culture was one not to be embraced but Hughes discusses how the best negro artists are the ones that are not afraid to be themselves. Race is such an overwhelming part of black culture during the Harlem renaissance that they were totally taken over by white thoughts. Langston Hughes hoped for a change in the way people saw negro art, not s a sideshow attraction to laugh at, but one to embrace and share around the world. During this time period black art started to increase and they got the attention they deserved. The role of race is a constant struggle for the artist, it is their limitation. Their creation will be judged by the public on how race is portrayed in their society. The listener s affected by the race issues because they are being told what to, and what not to embrace as apart of their culture. The artist struggles because their own people don't support their culture. 

I am hurt
I am scared
I want to live
I want to die
I don't know
Where to turn
In the Void
And when

- Kerouac

This segment of Jack Kerouac's poem Bowery Blues, he is talking about how he is lost and does not know where to turn. This was written in the beat generation after world war two, popular in the fifties. The beat generation he is apart of refers to the change in culture interested in drug use, changes in expressing sexuality, moving away from materialism and embracing lively and animated lifestyles. Referring to New York City, he discusses in the poem how no church, guru, or advice helps him in figuring himself out. This poem is an example of a confessional; he makes it clear he is lost in the concrete and buildings of the city. Life is asking where he has been and what took him so long. He is going through troubled times. The rhyme scheme is A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. There is no rhyming in this section. Jack Kerouac uses alliteration, "I..." at the beginning of his lines. He also uses end rhyme; with short blunt verbs finishing his lines. Internal rhyme is used by the format he creates for the section, direct short statements. Literal meaning, rhythm, and stanza are also used. You can feel the tone in his lack of insight and hopelessness. He is lost with no direction.