Sinnea+Douglas

//"Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe."//
 * - Adrienne Rich**

The City Big Crowded Noisy Shining light on what nature cannot Fire escapes, Brownstones and tiny overpriced studio apartments lay among you Taxi’s and buses fill your narrow streets Never stopping to feel your greatness
 * Ode to the City**

You smell of cheese-steaks burning tar and gas fumes

Dirty air and grey people drown out your voice Giving you no choice to be heard

But you heart beats to the sound of horns and high heels clicking on the streets

Streetlights whisper-coded languages letting us know when it’s safe to cross The boundaries of the city.

City life The good life The fast life The only life

The air there could have put me to sleep Hot and thick But clean
 * Praise Poem**

The south Paradise to a city kid Home to the broken Grandma’s place to me

And anything that had to do with grandma had to be good Like the shortbread cookies we’d eat between sips of sugary lemonade And Lilac we’d plant in the already too crowed garden

Solid Accents, foreign to a city kid But a heavenly melody to me cause grandma spoke the same way

Hours spent catching dinner in muddy waters I miss the taste of fried catfish Jelly cakes And jambalaya

Afternoon naps in pop pop’s hammock Southern sun staining me with a beautiful mahogany tan to show off back home

But to me you were home Home away from the crowds, lights, and buildings That shade the stars that would shine my eyes to sleep


 * Riff Poem**

//(Contains lines from 13 Of Nazareth: A-Tone-Meant 2 Heal)//

Lately I’ve been digging through my writings with hopes on finding mind body and soul healing poetry.

Poetry that’s just made for you to hear. With no fear that you won’t understand it. Cause poetry shouldn’t be hard But easy. Easy as ABC or simple as Do re mi. It’s whatever you want it to be.

So tonight I’d like to invite your minds on a flight to poetry’s furthest shores And orally penetrate your ears with soothing words Without any relevance to the subject of sex But believe me you wont leave here without a metaphor making love to your lonely ears. Or a simile that won’t taste so good it’ll stay on your tongue longer than it should

Cause that’s what poetry does.

It embeds itself into your soul and begs you to love it. Cause all it wants to do is inspire you.

//Contains ideas from Apology to My Unborn by Bassey Ikpi//

I fear you will never know How many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop Although I'm sure many attempts will be made But you'll be so fixed on reaching the center your Tongue won't taste the sweetness of it all along the way Like we sometimes do with life

I feel my poetry is very straightforward. I tend to say what I mean and get straight to the point so a lot of the time my writing is the same way. But with this Poetry portfolio I wanted to try something different. I wanted to explore metaphors and similes and use different types of language. But in the end some things came out very concrete. This wasn’t intentional. It happened a lot in my Praise Poem. In the third stanza my language is very specific. I say, “Like the shortbread cookies we’d eat between sips of sugary lemonade, And Lilac we’d plant in the already too crowed garden” These lines are very concrete and you can picture what I’m saying. But the last two lines of the poem say, “Home away from the crowds, lights, and buildings, That shade the stars that would shine my eyes to sleep.” The language I use here is not as specific. When first reading it you may not know what “. . . and buildings That shade the stars that would shine my eyes to sleep,” means, it’s a little more creative. But overall I like the work I produced.
 * Statement about my Poetry:**


 * Claude McKay Poetry Analysis**

//If We Must Die//

//If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Claude McKay//

This time period of this poem was during the Harlem Renaissance era. It is a response to race riots in Harlem. Claude McKay is saying that if his people are going to die they shouldn’t die without a fight. The last two lines, “Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! “ shows us this. The murderous cowardly pack are the racist people. The lines “So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!” tells us that they should also be honored when they die. They should put up the best fight they can so that even their oppressors and enemies will have to honor them.
 * Analysis:**

//America

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate. Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

Claude McKay//

This poem is about how Claude McKay(or whoever he’s writing about) still loves America even though America hates him. The first four lines say Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! He wrote this at a time where racism was very common in America. Blacks and whites were separated and there were still lynching’s and race riots. I think he still loves the country that hates him because America is “land of the free” Even though he had a rough time being accepted there it was still home, and there was still hope for a better tomorrow.
 * Analysis**:

Claude McKay was a Harlem Renaissance writer. He wrote a lot about race. His most famous poem If We Must Die was written during the "Red Summer". It was a period where race riots occurred in the summer and fall of 1919.
 * Analysis on Poet Claude McKay**