Robert Hayden
Robert Hayden, the twentieth century poet, wrote poems that many times used history and form that allowed him to craft narratives that had different voices. He used historic themes in many of his poems to show the shared heritage of the African Americans. He also used form to get his message across, invoking a sense of speed, ideas, or to use different voices to focus the poem through. His poems Night, Death, Mississippi, and Runagate, Runagate, both showcase his use of history and the ways he used form in his poetry. In his poem Night, Death, Mississippi Hayden writes about the lynching a black man late at night somewhere in Mississippi. This is a historic poem, written in a grisly but effective manner. It is historically accurate in telling the story of a lynching in the details. The white men coming at night, the white robes, and the details of the lynching are all historic, and true things. The lynching in the poem is unspecific, as it could be any one of hundreds that have occurred in the south since the Civil War. The poems main theme or idea, is to show how completely inhuman blacks were thought to be. In the first part of the poem, an old white man sits on the porch in the darkness, listening to the cry of the lynched bl
The second section of the poem focuses on heroes of the aboloitionist movement, Harriet Tubman, most of all. "Runagate / Runagate / Runagate" as it is in the poem descending towards the bottom, gives a sense of fleeing from something. Giving the impression of the salvation that the north holds for run away slaves. " The last full stanza lets the reader know that lynching is almost a family affair that brings the poem to a sinister ending as the children wash the blood off their father's hands. So with in one poem are the voices of three different people giving the poem a very distinct feel to it. It alternates between talking about her, and then letting a slave who is traveling with her speak about her. The poem uses the first stanza to explain the initial running of the slave, with people chasing him close behind. It is not till the second stanza that reader learns the narrator of this part of the poem is white. He also remembers fondly the time he had cut of the genitals of a black man and listened to him scream in pain. The old man sees it as though he is missing out on a party, and wishes he were there. The opening stanza of the poem Runagate Runagate flows with no periods or commas. Hayden chooses to have an old white man be the narrator to show how the lynching was not considered wrong in any way to many people. Each line runs into the next with no stopping.
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Acceptance Essays
