By Any Other Nerd

Estimated Reading Time: 3.5 minutes Title : I, Too Author :  Langston Hughes Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America. Reflection One of Hughes' most famous poems both because of how it so elegantly and succinctly captures the pride and determination of Black culture in the 20th century and also for its reply to Walt Whitman's I Hear America Singing https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46480/i-hear-america-singing.  Without reading Whitman's work, the poem stands perfectly well on its ow...

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes Title : Jazzonia Author :  Langston Hughes Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem Oh, silver tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul! In a Harlem cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold Lifts high a dress of silken gold. Oh, singing tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul! Were Eve's eyes In the first garden Just a bit too bold? Was Cleopatra gorgeous In a gown of gold? Oh, shining tree! Oh, silver rivers of the soul! In a whirling cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. Reflection Like poems, I had to sit with and reread this a few times.  I had to think about the title and the lines and the mind and space that created it.  It's the fun and challenge of this project to see what I can understand and speculate about poetry.   Written b...

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes Title :  The Negro Speaks of Rivers Author :  Langston Hughes Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. Reflection Hughes poem induces me to ask what is a river and what does it mean to know a river?  And is it really about singular riv...

Estimated Reading Time:  4 minutes Title :  Georgia Dusk Author :  Jean Toomer Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue    The setting sun, too indolent to hold    A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,    Passively darkens for night’s barbecue, A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,       An orgy for some genius of the South    With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,    Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds. The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop,    And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill,    Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill    Their early promise of a bumper crop. Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile   ...

Estimated Reading Time:  2.5 minutes Title :  Enslaved Author :  Claude McKay Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem Oh when I think of my long-suffering race, For weary centuries despised, oppressed, Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place In the great life line of the Christian West; And in the Black Land disinherited, Robbed in the ancient country of its birth,  My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead, For this my race that has no home on earth. Then from the dark depths of my soul I cry To the avenging angel to consume The white man's world of wonders utterly: Let it be swallowed up in earth's vast womb, Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke To liberate my people from its yoke! Reflection The pain of loss emanates through the lines of this short poem and yet, I appreciate how like many...

The Smartphone Society: Technology, Power, and Resistance in the New Gilded Age by Nicole Aschoff My rating: 5 of 5 stars Aschoff's book is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the complexity of digital technology in the first two decades fo the 20th century. What's important about her book is that it is not necessarily anything too new for those who are paying close attention to the possibilities, problems, and controversies of digital technology.  Rather, her work is a miraculous and accessible exploration of all those things, drawing together nearly all the people, research, and ideas into one book.  The book's power is in how coherent she pulls these things together into a compelling conversation that naturally evolves from one subject to the next with clear language that is never condescending but still instructive. Coupled with this discussion of current technology, Aschoff makes sure to draw useful and meaningful comparisons with previ...

Estimated Reading Time:    minutes Title :  If We Must Die Author :  Claude McKay Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem 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! Reflection This is a stirring poem of resistance and grace in the face of the ugly...

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes Title :  Letter to My Sister Author :  Anne Spencer Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem It is dangerous for a woman to defy the gods; To taunt them with the tongue's thin tip, Or strut in the weakness of mere humanity, Or draw a line daring them to cross; The gods own the searing lightning, The drowning waters, tormenting fears And anger of red sins. Oh, but worse still if you mince timidly-- Dodge this way or that, or kneel or pray, Be kind, or sweat agony drops Or lay your quick body over your feeble young; If you have beauty or none, if celibate Or vowed--the gods are Juggernaut, Passing over . . . over . . . This you may do: Lock your heart, then, quietly, And lest they peer within, Light no lamp when dark comes down Raise no shade for sun; Breathless must your ...

Estimated Reading Time:  3.5 minutes Title :  White Things Author :  Anne Spencer Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem Most things are colorful things—the sky, earth, and sea.                  Black men are most men; but the white are free! White things are rare things; so rare, so rare They stole from out a silvered world—somewhere. Finding earth-plains fair plains, save greenly grassed, They strewed white feathers of cowardice, as they passed;                  The golden stars with lances fine                  The hills all red and darkened pine, They blanched with their wand of power; And turned the blood in a ruby rose To a poor white poppy-flower. They pyred a ra...

Estimated Reading Time:  3 minutes Title :  The Poet Author :  Paul Laurence Dunbar Source :   African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927 . Dover Thrift Editions. Ed. Joan R. Sherman. 1997. ISBN:  978-0-486-29604-3. Link : You can find  this poem on this website . Poem He sang of life, serenely sweet, With, now and then, a deeper note. From some high peak, nigh yet remote, He voiced the world’s absorbing beat. He sang of love when earth was young, And Love, itself, was in his lays. But ah, the world, it turned to praise A jingle in a broken tongue. Reflection Short poems, I often have to remember can be just as complex and beguiling as long ones and this one by Dunbar is no different in that regard. We have the two stanzas at tension with one another.  The first proclaiming a singer hitting high notes that align with the world around the singer.  The second indicates that this was not how the singer was appreciated but rather, people wa...