Count Cullen was born in New York city and was one of the most important voices of the Harlem Renaissance.

From the Dark Tower by Countee Cullen is an ominous yet hopeful poem. The first line of the poem, “We shall not always plant while others reap”, is the opposite of the infamous but well known saying, “You shall reap what you sow”. It can be assumed that the narrator is not speaking about any bad deeds or ill feelings but rather something else. Countee Cullen held African American sentiment close to his heart. Growing and prospering during the Harlem Renaissance in New York, he was exposed to and experienced the black condition in a manner many have not. With this in mind, the word “plant” could be taken literally or figuratively which would change the overall meaning of the poem. Figuratively “plant” could be in reference to African Americans embracing their culture and “giving” said culture to the American people. In other words, African American men and women of this time created art, poetry, songs, dances that paid homage to their African roots and ancestors while simultaneously teaching the World who they are and what they have been through and are going through. If we take this version of plant, then the rest of the sentence would suggest that someone or someones not of the African American culture took what they created and reaped the benefits. Literally, “plant” would reference the growing and caring for plants and food. This would be an allusion to slavery, tied in with the rest of the sentence. Slaves did not profit from the work that they did to plant crops. Their masters reaped all of the benefits while they were left with nothing.

Line four of the poem states, “That lesser men should hold their bothers cheap”. This line alone suggests someone being held captive by someone who is less powerful or less than themselves. This particular line could allude back to slavery also. African men and women were bought and sold cheaply, as if they were objects. And the white men that bought them, were in a sense, less than. Not only did they need someone else to do their work for them, but their moral and ethical obligations towards were null and void. These two facts would intern make them less than the people that they bought.

Line eight, the last line of the first stanza states, “We were not made eternally to weep”. This line in itself is one of the most powerful lines within this particular poem and it speaks volumes. As relating to slavery, slaves held onto the faith that soon they would be free. Soon the system that hurt and abused them would fall and they would suffer no more. Although that was not necessarily the case (Jim Crow, the Civil Right Movement, today), African Americans still always held hope. This poem transcends past just simply wishing for freedom from being it slave, it also delves into the fact the African American men and women are constantly abused. And its not like we, as an African American people, benefit from it. No, we suffer and we lose, constantly, over and over again. But we always keep the faith. We always have faith that one day things will change. One day we will be fully and completely free and not have to worry. We’ll again be the kings and queens that we once were.

I would consider an excerpt from, The Walls Do Not Fall, by Hilda Doolittle one of the most intriguing poems I have read by far. As the title suggests, the poem is quite literally about different walls that refuse to fall no matter what seems to happen. Very straightforward and not much to find interesting in that particular aspects. What makes this particular poem so interesting, though, are the actual walls. “Pompeii has nothing to teach us, we know crack of volcanic fissure, slow flow of the terrible lava”, this quote suggests two very important points:

1. Pompeii was destroyed by lava. Lava causes anything that it touches to burn. While most things fizzle away never to be seen again, other things are preserved. For example, human bodies are sometimes preserved along with the skeletons of structures…or the walls. These items are preserved through the lava cooling and hardening in to a rock like substance.
2. The second point ties directly into the first point. Th poem is entitled, “The Walls Do Not Fall”, in Pompeii there were and are walls that did not and will not fall.

This quote was the beginning of a narrative that seems to stress the importance of walls within the human body, structure, society, everywhere. Hilda Doolittle impressed upon the notion that walls are the backbone of everything and seem to be even more important than what’s in and on them. But the question is, why write a poem about a wall? Yes, they are important to the structural foundation of a home. And yes they can become important when speaking about psychology and how people sometimes build walls to keep certain things in and other things out. What could possibly be so important about a wall?

World War II began in the year 1939 and ended in 1945. Hilda wrote this poem in the beginning of the 1940s, during the time when World War II was just getting started. From September 1940 through May 1941, Germany performed bombing raids, called Blitz, on London during the night. Hilda Doolittle lived in London during this time so she saw the devastation that the bombs did to London first hand which is what this poem is about. This poem is about the death and devastation that London experienced during this time. People that went to bed thinking that they would wake up the next day didn’t, “the bone frame (flesh) was made for no such shock knit within terror, yet the skeleton stood up to it”. For the people that parishes during the raids, all that was left was their bones.

Going back to the earlier quote, armed with historical background, a new analysis can be made. The quote, “Pompeii has nothing to teach us, we know the crack of volcanic fissure, slow flow of terrible lava”, means quite literally, the history and destruction of Pompeii cannot help with the destruction that was happening at this particular time. Scientists began to understand how volcanoes worked and could predict when they would erupt so a catastrophe like Pompeii would hopefully not happen again. But how do you predict when a country will randomly bomb you at night? If caught early enough, one can escape lava, but how do you escape a bomb?

But, although all of this went on, Hilda still held a sense of hope, “yet the frame held; as we passed the flame: we wonder what saved us? what for?”. This speaks about the perseverance of man but the inevitable pain and suffering that will come from it. No one came out of this situation unaffected, unbothered, or unscathed. Although there was hope, there were some wounds that would take a lifetime to heal. In this particular part of the quote, “we wonder what saved us? what for?”, it is almost as if she is saying that it it better off to be dead.

Rita Dove supplied a plethora of interesting information in her introduction to The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry. Rita Dove not only supplied a history lesson that set the scene for the authors and poems the book would illuminate, but also supplied a very detailed explanation concerning the process she undertook to choose the poems that she did.

The most important point that a reader needs to note and remember, is the time period in which she is covering and the events that occurred during that time. During the early 1900s until the early 20000s, an abundance of social and economic reforms took place. Women were fighting for equality alongside African Americans, World War One and Two, and the Cold War, were just a few events that the American public faced during this time. Alongside all of the bloodshed, pain, and tears came the Harlem Renaissance which sparked many creative movements. One of creative movements was the evolution of the poetic voice. At first, many poets did not possess a “proper education”, meaning many of them did not reach higher education and were not taught how to properly write. This caused many different forms of poetry to be created along with poetry workshops. Rita Dove, quote, “Poets were being raised like broods of chicks”. This sentence alone seemed anti poetry workshop but in further reading, Rita Dove, quote, “…and a believer in-workshops.” This two sentences alone are vital and loosely hint at an explanation for Rita Dove’s choices.

Poetry became a business. No more was it just for fun or something to do. No more was just anyone able to be or become a poet, a poet that made money and was known throughout the country. No more was poetry simply and escape from reality. Poetry in all of its forms became a business. A very successful business. Authors began to copyright their work so not just anyone would be able to use it for just anything. And this is the problem that Rita Dove ran into. Many people are money hungry, they always seem to want something for little to nothing, hence the reason a lot of authors did not make it into the book. They were just too expensive and Rita Dove had a budget that she had to stick to. The importance of her including this explanation was profound. People love to argue and downplay someone’s work if it does not go with the mainstream of what they see fit. People like to “cancel” or turn against someone who does, as stated, go along with what’s popular which in reality, she did not do. She left out a few major poets that would have fit her criteria simply because she was unable to afford them and they were asking too much for so little. Rita Dove stopped the argument, the berating, before it could even be started. Which is tremendous because even I sat back and wondered why some authors did not make it into the book.

Rita Dove also hit on a major important point that does not further why she picked the authors and poems that she did but slightly explains the implications of the book. Rita Dove, quote, “…viewed not with a scholar’s dissecting eye but from the perspective of a contemporary poet who, although not exactly born into her country’s mainstream, nevertheless took possession of mainstream society’s intellectual shapes and artistic aesthetics to make them her own.” This the sentence that ended the introduction. This simple yet straightforward sentence that informed the reader on how the book is to be read and thought about. It seems as if she is impressing, as she did through her entire introduction, the importance of not only understanding the importance of the book being modern, but the events that took place during this modern time.