Hughes is a voice that has a lyrical style without any music but creates a melody in your head. When I read that poems I am creating my own art through his poems through song. I feel like I am hearing the music and lyrics without them being there or painting a picture of a scene in my mind based on his words.
There is an argument I have found in this class and another class that I am taking on Hughes being a jazz poet or a blues poet.
The poem that I am going to take at look at is Bad Man. This poem has the elements of jazz with the almost chorus like lines that really drive home his points like "I'm a bad, bad man/Cause everybody tells me so./E'm a bad, bad man./Everybody tells me so." Hughes really has that riff that in jazz as opposed to blues has a structure. In this particular poem he is a Bad Man cause people tell him so. When he is writing this in 1927 there is most likely a race issue involved. He is speaking on stereotypes of the age. The idea that the black man is evil and will beat his wife and is not a good person. Hughes is a poet and I'm assuming would never hurt a fly. He takes issue with the fact that people are telling him and the rest of society how people are without really giving them a chance. He "Don't even want to be good." says something about the "everybody" that is telling him he is bad. This is unfair and now in our society stereotypes are still an issue. To be a "Bad Man" is to be stereotyped and pinned as something you aren't and "to keep from feelin blue," you have know in your heart that you can rise above it.
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2 comments:
Good start. Now share the specifics of that picture in your mind.
Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Fragmentadora de Papel, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://fragmentadora-de-papel.blogspot.com. A hug.
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