Indulging in Inebriation

My, my fickle heart! This vile day 

Bleeds into the night, fickle lies!

Decadence, Oh how he lies! a lone castaway

Born from pure benevolence, he invites.

A naive soul, stifled by ecstasy and bliss

Remains, tender inebriation grips my soul,

I feel a sigh of relief escape my lips

As he is able to recount the names he stole.  

A life adorned with reluctance belongs to me;

And here I await the vivacity of the sun.

Why must he blind me with clouds of obscurity?

Clarity! Heavenly clarity! He has not yet won

This day, this night, my will! They show no grace!

Now, declarations at dawn state decadence stays.

Claude McKay was a significant figure during the Harlem Renaissance, who produced copious poems. His poem, The Tired Worker, is the epitome of personified emotion in sonnet form, and I attempted to emulate this. I searched for various themes that many individuals of a modern audience can relate to, and that is being blinded by the indulgences of life. Immorality plagues us as human beings to the point where it obscures some of the most important factors of just being alive. McKay’s poem depicts the desire for rest from the tedious routine of the day as the speaker yearns for the night to arrive. In contrast, I wanted my speaker to dread the night that she is enduring and instead find comfort in the day. The night is where she feeds into her horrid thoughts. Both themes in these poems sense inconsistency as the day switches to night. At first I wanted to create a parody that poked a few jokes here and there, but I was unable to find it fitting for this specific poem. McKay’s poem is written in iambic pentameter, which made my job easier when writing my own impression. I tried to follow the line placement as well as the punctuation to emphasize the comparison and reference between my poem and McKay’s. McKay’s speaker indulges in the night only to awake to another monotonous day of work without the benefits of it. The speaker in my impression is haunted by these indulgences and struggles to seek balance between decadence and virtue. The rhyme scheme is extremely important as it adds substance and tone to each word and line the reader experiences. The Tired Worker possesses a tone that enchants the reader with motherly intonations when the speaker says “her” or “gently.” These tones are a necessity in McKay’s poem as well as in mine. There is a discernable rhyme scheme in McKay’s poem, it consists of an ababcdcd etc. until the last couplet that has the same rhyme. It was not as hard as I thought it was gonna be to create a paralleled rhyme scheme. However, the overall structure of the original poem was a bit difficult to maintain in my imitation. I do believe that my poem’s structure is similar, just not the exact same. The basic elements that Claude McKay uses are evident in my imitation: personification, imagery, and diction. Decadence is personified as this malicious creature that controls the speaker while in McKay’s poem the night is personified as a benign blanket of comfort.

Emily Pu

Long Hours, Bad Conditions, Sweet Relief

The poem Outcast and the poem The Tired Worker by Claude McKay have a distinctive correlation between each other and when read together/side by side the reader can sense that the in the poem Outcast there is representation of speaker in The Tired Worker. During the time period in which these poems were written, 1920s, there was a vast amount of brutal discrimination against minorities in America. These two poem represent the struggles found in this time period especially for those who gas to worker tiring jobs in extremely bad conditions with bad pay and bad hours.

Both of these poems were written by McKay in Shakespearean sonnets with an iambic pentameter. the reason why I think that this structure allowed for a strong deliverance of the poems is because of the iambic pentameter. The iambic pentameter in the poems allows for certain words to be stressed and other to not be stressed. Words like “wretched day” in line 9 of The Tired Worker and lines in Outcast such as “And I must walk the way of life a ghost”(11), are stressed and unstressed due to the meter. The message of despair and wishing to be relived from the horrible work in the poems is further pushed by this rhythm as it creates a strong, almost like marching soldiers, rhythm, emphasizing on the pain of having to live/work in these conditions and the fact that the speaker knows that it will most likely be until the day that they die.

In the poem Outcast line 11 the speaker mentions that they “walk the way of life a ghost” then in The Tired Worker they tell their “weary body” to be “patient” that “too the night will wrap thee gently in her her sable sheet…” I interpret the reference to night as an allusion to death,. As if the nigh were to take all the pain and misery of working away because it’d be the end since the speaker believes that they will working during their entire life, and in the Outcast they reference to walking their life as a ghost. They connect on the lifeless feeling that comes with their current lives.

Guadalupe Lemus

The Pains of the Trapped

I feel a little on the fence about the connection between the two poems The Tired Worker and Outcast by Claude McKay. Both poems show a sense of alienation and affliction to pain between the two speakers: The speaker in The Tired Worker states “Weary my veins, my brain, my life! Have Pity!\ No! Once again the harsh, ugly city” (Lines 13-14), denoting the tired body and mind of the overworked working class man. In Outcast, the pain and alienation of the speaker is also reflected toward the end of the poem in the lines “And I must walk the way of life a ghost\ Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;” (Lines 11-12).

However, the speaker in outcast refers to the pain being due to the isolation created racially, with him being an immigrant and unwanted in the white man’s world that is the west: “For I was born, far from my native clime,\ Under the white man’s menace, out of time.” (Lines 13-14). This is where the disconnect between the two speakers is the most prominent and why I remain unsure about the connection between the two. It is clear that both of the speakers tackle inequity in the west, with the speaker in The Tired Worker finding rest only in sleep as they work all day just to survive for next to nothing while the speaker in Outcast instead reflects on the struggle of surviving in the white man’s world in the west, saying that he must comply to outside forces in the line “While to its alien gods I bend my knee” (Line 8).

There is most certainly overlap between the two speakers, and there most certainly existed people that fit the description of both speakers, with people worked to death to survive while that struggle is only amplified by racial discrimination. However, there are some places where the messaging between the two speakers is focused too heavily on particular ideas, such as working in the city in The Tired Worker or the loss of cultural identity through conformity in Outcast. Both of these poems were certainly written in reflection to McKay’s life and experiences, so there is a clear connection between the two speakers. However, the two speakers reflect on systemic issues that attack different sections of living that are separate but instead collide within individuals. The choice to meet these two systems of inequality into the lens of one individual is largely dependent on the reader’s interpretation of the systems that McKay is critiquing, so I am unsure to fully support that connection or not.

Sky Miller

All Too Harsh

While I do admit that I have changed my mind a few times during the writing process of this blog, I do have to agree that “Outcast” represents the hopelessness and despair of the working-class speaker that we observe in “The Tired Worker.” Given that this blog post is viewable by more than just my fellow classmates, it is important to recognize our poet who wrote both “Outcast” and “The Tired Worker”, which are from a collection by Claude McKay in his work titled Harlem Shadows (pgs. 44, 45). There are so many things I can say about McKay’s life, everything from how he was born in Jamaica and moved to the U.S. in 1912. From this time onward, McKay attends school, moves to New York, gets married, gets divorced, and starts publishing his poetry. By the time that McKay has published his collection, Harlem Shadows, America has seen a violent reaction against communism, called The Red Scare (I’ve attached a link to a brief history of The Red Scare). From everything within McKay’s life, and the life of Americans experiencing events in history like the Red Scare, it is no wonder that his work consists of very common parallels with the real world. 

Getting back to the pieces of McKay’s work that we will be looking at, “Outcast” and “The Tired Worker”, we see a correlation behind the type of person that McKay is trying to reach as an audience, the working-class. “Outcast” takes a reminiscing tone, one that looks back to the days where “My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs” and where there was peace. This 14 lined sonnet carries a hopeless theme, which is shown when McKay ends the two last lines. McKay says, 

“For I was born, far from my native clime,

Under the white man’s menace, out of time.”

This character and voice that we as the audience hear them say shows how they feel they are out of time. What this likely means is that because they are away from the place they were born, there is no time to go back now that they have built a new life here in America. This idea carries us back over to “The Tired Worker” who’s character very much experiences the hardship of the working-class. Similarity I want to observe the last two lines of this 14 lined sonnet,

“Weary my veins, my brian, my life! Have pity!

No! Once again the harsh, harsh city.” 

Both of the last two lines of “Outcast” and “The Tired Worker” resemble existence, from birth and the pasting of time, to veins, life and a city that makes the life that they live all too harsh. In all, Outcast represents the hopelessness and despair of the character who has come to this country to have a better life but missing home, as they are now a working-class person living in a harsh city in “The Tired Worker.”

Anne K. Anderson

An Acceptance of Fate

In Claude McKay’s “The Tired Worker,” the speaker describes someone going to bed after a long hard day at work, only to be re-awoken for another long, hard day. “Outcast,” on the other hand, describes the speaker’s hopelessness of being owned by “the great western world” and having no escape due to having been born “under the white man’s menace.” I believe “Outcast” does represent the hopelessness and despair of the working class speaker in “The Tired Worker.”

Both poems are 14 line sonnets. However, “The Tired Worker” has its turn, or volta, in line 11 with “But what steals…?” while “Outcast” follow the traditional Shakespearean route of having the volta in line 13 with “For I was born”. In the “The Tired Worker,” the speaker still maintains a somewhat defiant tone in saying things like “The wretched day was theirs, the night is mine” and “Peace, O my rebel heart.” This is also reflected in McKay’s decision to place the volta in an unorthodox place. However, the tone shifts after the volta to one of despair over an inescapable fate, in this case having to return to work, with the final lines. On the other hand, the speaker in “Outcast” has resigned him/herself to his/her fate in saying “But the great western world holds me in fee, / And I may never hope for full release.” This poem delves into that despair that appears at the end of “The Tired Worker” and can be interpreted as telling how that same speaker feels during the day. The speaker in “Outcast” then concludes that “[they] must walk the way of life a ghost / Among the sons of earth, a thing apart,” indicating that they believe they will never been equal to the higher classes of people and that “the wretched day” in “The Tired Worker” will never be theirs. Mckay thus hammers these points home by following the rules and placing the volta in “Outcast” in line 13 where it is generally expected in the Shakespearean form. Thus, in a sense, “Outcast” can be read as a continuation of “The Tired Worker” after the speaker wakes up in the morning.

Evan He

Despair of Justice

The world we live in suffers from injustice. Poets tried expressing this issue through the use of poetry. For instance, McKay is one of the poets that suffered from injustice while working. This can be seen through the two poems “Outcast,” and “The Tired Workers.” The idea of injustice and the use of workers to benefit the employer even though it’s costing the worker’s their health, is seen through line 8 in the poem “The Tired Workers.” The use of vocabulary such as “tired and aching” suggests that the poet is extremely tired from the use of workers. In addition, the use of the red color suggests for the blood that is being shed by the workers to satisfy the employers. Both poems satisfy the traditional characteristics of a sonnet, but both poems experience a wave of rage which can be seen through the excess use of exclamation points. I personally agree with McKay as workers are still being abused on a daily basis by employers.

Grading Things

Upon initial glimpse of these blog posts, I had a genuine fondness for how each one provided different viewpoints; however, for the sake of time, I will focus on the blog post I feel gives the most in-depth and creative description; in this case, it is Tropic Shadows.

The reason why Tropic Shadows stuck out to me was that it established there were various “branches” of interpretation in Harlem Shadows, and then proceeded to go over as many as possible in clear detail. I had a strong appreciation for the imagery the author used for describing how each part of Shadowsfactored into it. They also took the time to highlight specific juxtapositions between a breeze he’s familiar with and a breeze in an industrialized urban area, which I feel further amplifies the emotions that McKay puts into his work. As a result, I am giving Tropic Shadowsa solid B+.

With regards for the other two blog posts, I will assign The Great Divideand WHITE AMERICAAAAAAAA a B- and a C respectively. While the two are quite clear with their information, I don’t feel they have as much of an impact as Tropic Shadows does.

~Daniel Amaro

Shadows and Scores

A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self, 1980, Kerry James Marshall

All three of the blog posts utilized different approaches to analyze McKay’s poems with varying degrees of success. They are all alike in one aspect, however: these blog posts shared a common underutilization of the creative freedoms permitted by the medium. That is not to suggest that the content of these posts were lacking, but quite the opposite! Though “Tropic Shadows” does not supplement its argument with media, the development of its concepts and well-composed structure leaves little to be desired. The other two posts present original and novel ideas about the poems they analyze, but could benefit from a bit more time in the drawing room.

“The Great Divide” provides a wealth of insights into the structural mechanics of the poems it analyzes. By focusing on rhyme scheme, alliteration, rhythmic patterns, and voltas, this blog post attempts to connect the sonnet form with the general ideas of separation anxiety present in the work. The writer, to my disappointment, does not fully explain what these textual features might signify in relation to the poems’ subject matters. The writer raises some excellent points about how deviation from a given form’s conventions impresses readers with careful intention, but this raises more questions than it answers. Providing an ambitious and risky interpretation of what the poems’ forms symbolizes would elevate this blog post to the next level. This reflects my own concerns when generating blog posts: what more can I offer my readers when constructing an argument? Was there anything important that I glossed over? Being holistic in my analysis is imperative.

“Tropic Shadows” and “WHITE AMERICAAAAAAAA” have their attentions set on the content of the poem, but the sophistication of the concepts presented in the former make it the best blog post of the group. The writer weaves in textual evidence and citations into their analysis with arachnid-like finesse, making their post a comfortable web of information readers don’t have to struggle through. Couple the cohesion and fluency of their composition with the proposition that McKay’s Harlem Shadows explores thematic ruminations on stasis, and the writer of “Tropic Shadows” nets themselves a win.

The same cannot be said for the latter post. Though “WHITE AMERICAAAAAAAA” provides a sweeping analysis of race relations during the Harlem Renaissance, there is not much textual evidence outside of suppositions on the intent of McKay. This idea is not developed much farther outside of its historicist lens, but the endeavor reveals far more about the argument than its guiding philosophy: the lack of textual evidence and concept development indicates this blog post would have benefitted from more interaction with the source material.

And now, for the grades! Drum roll, please—

“Tropic Shadows”: A+

“The Great Divide”: B+

“WHITE AMERICAAAAAAAA”: B-

What Works Best?

Here are the grades as I see fit for the three given blog posts:

             “Tropics Shadows”: A

            “White Americaaaaaaaa”: B/B+

“The Great Divide”: C+/B-

As you can see from the grade I have given, the best one in my opinion is “Tropics Shadows”. I feel that each of them did a good job of identifying poetic devices and good links between the poem that they were comparing. However, when it comes to “White Americaaaaaaaa” I feel that the devices were identified and not fully fleshed out; and when it comes to “The Great Divide” I feel that the devices identified have been explained well but the importance of the devices to the content of the poems isn’t addressed very well. Only the post “Tropics Shadows” was able to do all three of these things well together.

•  Andrew Hardy

Having hope in the hopelessness

Emanuel Jimenez

Does McKay’s “Outcast” represents the hopelessness and despair of the working-class speaker in “The Tired Worker.”?

I believe that Mckay’s “Outcast” truly does represents the hopelessness and despair of the working class speaker in “The Tired Worker”. First and for most there is a relation in the titles of these poems. A tired worker will most likely be an outcast. Not necessarily an outcast that has been exiled by society, or any harsh degree of any kind. But rather an Outcast in social events with friends or family. An Outcast to himself, because the speaker is so tired after working all day. During the Summer I worked full time as a cashier in Home Depot. I would be so tired that I would give away items for free but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. I would be so tired from working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, that I wouldn’t do anything other than work and sleep. I was becoming an outcast from my own life because I would no longer hang out with my friends nor visit my family because I was so tired. All I would do everyday was literally work and sleep.

Other than the obvious relation between the two titles, there is a lot of textual evidence that over laps the same general idea. For example the final two lines on both poems both overlap the same idea. In other words, they talk about two different things that coincide with each other.

“The Tired Worker” last two lines read,

Weary my veins, my brain, my life, – have pity! No! Once again the hard, the ugly city

The last two lines in “Outcast” read,

For I was born, far from my native clime,
Under the white man’s menace, out of time.

The lines from “The Tired Worker” talk about a pitiful life in a dreadful city. The lines from “Outcast” talk about a man being born away from his culture. Under the shadow of the white man, out of his time. Using historical context we know that Claude McKay is an African American himself. Which adds even more correlation between these finals lines. He was born in a city where the majority of people are were white. He was distant from his native culture. The poem “Outcast” definitely represents the hopelessness and the despair of the worker-class speaker in “The Tired Worker”