Comparison Of Harlem Renaissance And Post-Modernism Poems

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The Harlem Renaissance and Post- modernism poems have a lot of similarities, but they also have a lot of differences. For example, they both use figurative language and poetic devices such as rhyming. The poems from the Harlem Renaissance are If We Must Die by Claude Mckay and Acquainted with the Night Robert Frost. The poems from Post- modernism are Watermelons by Charles Simic and the Storm Ending by Jean Toomer. In the Storm Ending by Jean Toomer, there is not any rhyming, but he uses figurative language throughout the whole thing. An example of this would be personification. Jean Toomer said “Bitten by the sun,” (Toomer, 6) in the sixth stanza. Jean Toomer is using this to show how hot the sun is. In the poem Watermelons, the author Charles Simic, also uses figurative language to grab the attention of his readers. Such as “We eat the smile, / And spit out the teeth,” (Simic, 3-4) meaning we eat the good juicy part of a watermelon, but we do not eat the hard seeds inside of it. …show more content…

“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.” (Mckay, 1-4) Claude Mckay uses an ABAB rhyme pattern in this poem. In Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost, also uses an ABAB rhyme pattern. For example “I have been one acquainted with the night. / I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. / I have outwalked the furthest city light.” (Frost,