Flowers and Scents within “Harlem Shadows”

Hey guys, its Alex Fortis, Daniel Kim’s cohort. Further expanding on Daniel Kim’s post, the recurrence of the flower as the title of a few of the poems written by Claude McKay seems to possess various meanings, all of which seem to follow themes of love and beauty.

In “The Easter Flower,” we find the Easter lily serving as a symbol of the Easter Holiday. The narrator tells us that he or she does not believe in religion, yet still finds beauty in the scent of the flower.

“And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,

Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.”

Why does the author choose to use the scent of the flower as its charm, rather than color?

In “A Red Flower,” the narrator compares a pair of red lips to a red southern lily using a metaphor. He brings up bees multiple times within the poem, telling us what he would do if he were a bee and her lips were red lilies.

“O were I hovering, a bee, to probe…

Amorous of sweets, for but one perfect hour!”

By using the metaphor of the bee, does the narrator imply that he or she wishes to kiss these lips for one, sweet hour?

In “Flower of Love,” we find in the first line that the author uses the word perfume again, touching on the recurring theme of scent linked with beauty. Also, similarly to “The Easter Flower,” we find the narrator worshipping the beauty of the flower as if it is a religion. Why does the author compare the beauty of a flower to religion?

In “Jasmines,” the word scent is used again in the first line. The poem takes a darker turn as a figure within leaves indefinitely. But even after this figure has left, its scent has not left the room. 

Why do you think the author, with the exception of “A Red Flower,” uses scent as the most important sense in these poems, regardless of what the flower is serving to represent?

Blog for Weeks 1 & 2

Hey guys, this week’s blog will be involving the poems in Harlem Shadows. Alex Cortis and I, Daniel Kim, are the cohorts. As mentioned in class, scansion and structural analysis will be among the main priorities in exploring and expanding on the many meanings of poetry. What I want to discuss are the other methods and angles you can consider when you unpack more meaning. Some examples that were given to us were slant rhymes and elisions. A few that I want to bring into this discussion are: themes, recurring symbols and words, and approaches to writing the essay.

For the first half of Harlem Shadows, some of the themes were: Struggle, Death, Bravery, Nostalgia, Exile, etc. yet there seems to be a distinct shift in themes in the second half of the collection. Personally, I began to see a shift starting from the poems “Poetry” and “To a Poet.” Some themes I found were: Love, Romance, Seduction, and Conscience. What I found interesting is that despite the very recognizable split between contrasting themes, a few themes are uniformly represented throughout the entire collection, namely themes of: Hope, Nostalgia, Escape, and Sanctuary. My questions to you guys are A) do you think themes are a worth considering when analyzing a poem (why or why not?) and B) in what ways could you incorporate theme into analysis (example: tie it with background information of the poet/poem)?

Another small but potentially important detail I found was that Claude McKay has a particular liking with certain words and symbols and sprinkles them throughout his collection. One of the words I found frequently was the word or associations of “Flower” (The Easter Flower pg 152, A Red Flower pg 184, Flower of Love pg 187, Jasmines pg 192. These are just poem titles; there are many more lines that incorporate the symbol). Using this idea, what are some recurring symbols or ideas that you’ve found within the poems and in what ways can you utilize them for analysis of a poem?

Lastly, I want to discuss different approaches to the essay. The conventional structure of an essay is that the intro paragraph would contain the thesis statement, the body paragraphs would be evidence paragraphs that support the thesis and the conclusion would be a wrap-up plus some food for thought. What I am considering is a structure that makes the intro more of an open door into the poem, use the body paragraphs to explore and analyze the poem, and use the thesis statement in the conclusion paragraph. What are your thoughts about these essay structures? If you also have a different approach to writing the essay what is the structure of it?