Isabela's Insights on Poetry

A genre I think would be valuable to research and learn more about is poetry from African-American poets. For African American Literature, we had to get the oxford anthology of African American poetry, and it is phenomenal. The poems are split into topics such as, "What is Africa to me?" and "I Dream a World". I truly believe that so much about the black experience in America from the last centuries can be learned about through poetry. One of my favorite things about this book is it shows how varied and differing the black experience is for people. First, we will talk about one of my favorite poems by Claude McKay , a famous Jamaican poet from the Harlem Renaissance. His whole life, through poetry, he fought against racial injustice and for black rights. " If We Must Die " is a poem that speaks to both of these themes. He speaks triumphantly of dying for the cause of civil rights. "Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack; Pressed to the wall...

When I was thinking of different kinds of forms of poetry to look at, the Sonnet stuck out to me. I have heard of them before but was confused as to what it actually meant. After some research, I realized that there are actually two kinds of Sonnets. I started looking into the "Italian" Sonnet vs the "English/Shakespearian" one. Both kinds of Sonnet's have 14 lines, but that is where the similarities stop. The "Italian" Sonnet, or the Petrarchan Sonnet, divides the 14 lines into 2 sections. The rhyming schemes for the Petrarchan Sonnet's first section is ABBAABBA, and the second section is CDCDCD or CDECDE. For example, I looked at "Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent" by John Milton, a poem in the Petrarchan Sonnet form. Here, we have a great example of the rhyming schemes in this poem, as highlighted with different colors. Yellow is A, Purple is B, Green is C, Blue is D and the darker blue is E.  Typically So...

"1, 2, 3- Mos Def and Talib Kweli. We here to rock it on to the tip top, best alliance in hip hop wyaohh."  Born in Brooklyn, New York, Mos Def and Talib Kweli were raised in the 1970s and 80s, during the creation of Rap. In the 90s, they partnered together to become: Black Star. They created their critically acclaimed album, "Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star" soon after, where they intelligently examined black culture. This album also has many songs, and lines referring to the black empowerment- such as the song  "Brown-Skin Lady", where the pair rap about rejecting the European standards of beauty. Even the album name refers to the pan-Africanist shipping company created by Marcus Garvey. I could go on and on about Mos Def and Talib Kweli as people, but now we are going to shift our focus to their incredible rhyme scheme, and why this song deserves to be taught as poetry. I recommend you listen to the song, because one of the amazing things tha...