Once again I'm finding it hard to understand poetry. I'm really not good at trying to find meaning behind what authors try to write when it comes to poetry. Yet when we go over them in class it makes sense and I can't figure out why I didn't get that. I found this set of poems to be difficult to understand and I felt like I struggled a little bit with these. I think it's because Cullen writes traditional poetry and also I just haven't had a lot of experience reading poetry. The class discussions help me to make sense of these poems a lot.
A Brown Girl Dead was one of my favorite poems. It's such a sad poem, but at the same time it's in a way happy because for once this girl gets to look beautiful and be dressed up in a way she has never been before. I also thought this poem was pretty straight forward and easy to understand. The girl is young and has passed away. Her mother doesn't have money to give her a nice funeral so she pawned her wedding ring. That shows you what a mother would do in order to give her daughter something she wouldn't have, even if she isn't able to enjoy it. I liked the idea in class that we discussed that maybe the white is a symbol for purity. Maybe it is because thi girl will never be able to get married. Cullen uses a lot of irony in the poems. It's ironic that the poem says "she'd be so proud she'd dance and sing, to see herself tonight" and of course we know this girl is dead and wouldn't see herself.
I thought the discussion in class about the homosexual themes was interesting. I really didn't pick up on this at all while I was reading. But after talking about this in class and then talking about the poem Tableau, I could see the theme. It makes me wonder more about Cullen's life growing up and life as an adult.
Other then the poem I talked about above I thought the other ones were ok, but nothing that I was crazy about. In the Cullen poems we see a lot of common themes that we've seen in a lot of other works we've read. Such as heritage, and religion.
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I agree the discussion in class really helps to decipher what Cullen is trying to say. I often struggle with why writers make it so hard to figure out what their point is. As a reader I don’t want to have to take each word apart to figure out the literal meaning. With Cullen though I think it is intentional. He seems that he has many struggles with religion, race, and sexuality and really by making his poems so ambiguous the reader can take away many ideas of what he is saying and all the meaning could be correct. I liked A Brown Girl Dead also; this poem is sad but makes you feel happy that even though it took death to “be so proud she’d dance and sing” at least her mom was proud to be able to bury her daughter feeling this way.
Once again, I'm just like you in the area of poetry!!! I've been reading them over and over though and when I break them up stanza by stanza, that tends to help...a little! I found some of them a struggle as well but somehow I was able to get some ideas on my own for others which was cool to actually get it! Cullen uses alot of large words that alot of us didnt even know during class...break out those dictionaries!
I liked the Brown Girl Dead poem too. it was very sad but it was nice that she was able to dress her child up in a way that both of them would have liked. Unfortunately she was burrying that child but she was also put at peace seeing her in white and peaceful.
I didn't pick up on the homosexuality theme really either.
Yes, Cullen's poems are pretty hard to understand. From what I read and what weve talked about in class i guess that is what he wanted. I think the poems are really nothing special like you. The simple ones that are easier to understand/give meaning to are better to like i guess, because it doesnt take as much thought''ex: Brown Girl Dead. His vocabulary was one thing i really enjoyed... gave me some new words to look up and hopefully utilize in future papers etc.
I also did not see the homosexual themes while reading Cullen's poems. Our class discussion was a huge eye opener.
I also liked A Brown Girl Dead. I liked how the white dress had so much symbolisism. It stood for never getting married. The innocence of a child. Also I agree with Michelle. White also stands for peaceful.
I agree with you. There is a lot of meaning behind Cullen's words. One thing that I love (and hate) about poetry is that it can be interpreted to mean something different by everyone. Cullen's poems definately can be interepreted in many diffrent ways.
I never really picked up on the homoesexual undertones, either. Actually, I feel like I rarely do that, but I think that's because I try to read everything in a very unbiased frame of mind. However, when I re-look at some of Cullen's poems, I can see how they can be read under a homosexual lens -- especially the poem where the black man and white man are walking arm-in-arm down the street.
I agree with you and the others in here. I also did not see the homosexuality aspect of it. I liked the poem brown girl dead it was very straighforward and shows the length at which a mother would go to in order that her child have a beautiful funeral and is taken care of even though they are no longer living.
Hughes and Cullen really are very different writers. I also picked up on that bitterness toward Cullen that you mentioned. After reading other authors such as Toomer and Cullen I tend to overanalyze Hughes work. He writes straight to the point and its somewhat refreshing.
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