Research Paper on African-American Grief & Poetry: Honoring Death in Times of Crisis

Introduction

African-Americans understand grief and mourn in the death crisis. Poetry is, therefore, a significant factor in African-Americans during the period of grief. It has remained considerably known to many the t this group of people associate death with racialism and violence rather than the natural cause, and to express this idea, African-American people have authored several poems to help in expressing their emotions. In most of the communities in America, honoring death is considered an essential thing. However, in this period, African-Americans are utilized this time differently as they are more concern using poetry to sustain the sections (Johnson, Claudia, 16). This group of people morn for a short period, spell the male; this is because of the environmental factors that influence have to influence their lifestyle, such as emotions and oppressions within the societies. Most of the poems that have been authored to reflect on grief and morning by the African-Americans male have greatly influenced the culture of black Americans as well as their understanding of the cause of death and how to handle the death crisis. Longstone Hughes is one of the black Americans who wrote different poems to concern morning and grief; other than poems, he wrote several materials including essays and novels depicting death crisis, stereotypical idea of morning. Hughes made a significant contribution to society's concern African-American way of the morning through various poems. This paper major on the poems authored by the male African-Americans concerning grief and morning. Focus on the poems wrote by Hughes and other black Americans, and male poets are focused on to explore some of the concepts behind poetry that influence the idea of race and mourning.

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Background

African-American male poets greatly influenced the public by using different concepts of elegy, and traditionally this literary element was used to explain different aspects of death. Contemporarily, poetry is used to convey in-depth emotions experienced on losing loved ones, best of the Hughes poems best reveals more about the concept of mourning based on the racial perspectives, the society perceived the black American differently. Despite their exposure to the new environment. Their culture and the understanding of life. through poetry, death and morning was explored to depict their cultural understanding, the pain of mistreatment and oppression which in many cases was a result of racial conflicts leading to the death of black Americans later influenced male American poets to write poems which depict African way of the morning (Sharma, Arvind Kumar, 20)

Reading poetic materials or reciting them serves as a great way of handling funeral situations; after death, people left behind through traumatic experiences, more so the emotional consequences. Poems can serve to enrich mourning or funeral ceremony; poems, therefore, are, in particular, a profound element of literature that contributes to what African-American poets addressed in their work concerning grief and mourning. It provides a meaningful and exciting post of the funeral experience.

The identity of African-Americans is one of the most significant contributions motivating male black- American poets like Hughes. African Americans poets have authored many poems ranging from the tone of sorrow with an altered satire to furry, and those that range from a sonnet to epigram and ballad pomes to love poems. Hughes and other black American poets have changed the elegy to talk about some of the issues such as urban poverty, lynching, and racial strife.

Hughes wrote a poem called the Lynching Song, which depicts a miserable life experienced by the Black-American men, they are exploited, mistreated and hated by the white people, the tone is a reflection of a person who is morning. The song is more about slavery. The black-American is grieving after being falsely accused of raping women, which in during those days, a sexual interaction that concerns a black man and a white woman was highly prohibited. Through this poem, the author covey's morning tone that reflects the nature of life and some of the brutal acts exposed to African-Americans Parkes, (Colin Murray, Pittu Laungani, and William Young. 19).

Poetry has been sued as a vital tool by the different pots to convey what they feel about racial discrimination. It is therefore significant that poetry has been used as a way of consoling and a performance during a period of grieving based on the Hughes poetry; it helps to overcome consequences that are experienced by the bereaved family.

Overcoming traumatic experiences after the death of a person is a complicated process; from a Black-Americans poet's perspective, poetry is one of the useful literary tools which, in some sense, acts as a therapeutic method of relieving pain. It assists mourners to face the challenges of losing loved ones. Lynching poems hold together the concept of the violent opposition based on color, red and black that allude from the race, and in some, a case was the blood spilled as a result of crimes. The African American poems focused on grief (Sharma, Arvind Kumar. 15)

Writing a poem as a response to another, is Hoyden's poem of the night, death Mississippi of 1966, he wrote this poem as a result of the deaths of the freedom riders Cheney, Goodman, and Schwenker, it was a way of mourning. This poem is one of the most significant materials which depicts ways in which African-American people were victimized; the whites criticized this poem as the victims involved were only the all-Americans. Hoydens is one of the Black-American poets who captured the challenged facing the people from his race and wrote the mourning poems for the loss of hundreds of African-American people.

By writing poems that focused on mourning and grief, African-American poets, brought about reformation to the current generation, the concurrent use of some of the poems during morning uses the same consent and that of Hughes and another poet. Poetry has helped the current generations. Other African-American poets emerged to address the same issues by making mourning poetry a common thing in the society where African-American people intensively utilized to criticize the racial impacts and unjustified practices exposed by the white people. Hughes and his co-writers left behind a society of poetic language wherein the current generation, this type of poetry is being explored through inheritance and increasing more understanding (Sharma, Arvind Kumar, 17).

Hughes created a diverse elegiac platform. He changed himself from being a fearful observer and listen to the voice of death by writing poems and exploring the essence of mourning. Hughes provides a structure and understanding of the different cultures through death poems. In one of his poems.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers is another poem that speaks of the grief of African-American people. The poem depicts the experiences of Black Americans, including racial discrimination. It one of the insightful poems authored by Hughes; it articulates a bright tone of the speaker and allows the poet to provide a definitive aspect between the poet's race and the whites.

Popularly, the poem speaks of the most famous rivers, and it is set to depict an old soul, a person who tries to create an interactive link with the present and the past. The poms use the rivers as a symbolism to depict African experience essential speak some of them experience along the river Euphrates and the Nile; this provides a clue of philosophical understanding of the racial experiences and grief of African-Americans.

Dear Lovely Death is another poem written by Hughes, and this poem acts as an excellent tool for the funeral, it ideally approaches society with extraordinary insights to address grief and mourning. The poem has a powerful piece of information concerning the concept of death in African-American perspectives. The element of death is significantly illuminated in this pom as it strikes a considerate balance of funeral setting. Dear lovely death is a poem that has allowed people to see every situation caused by death more comfortably without denying the reality of grief after the death of loved ones. It is, therefore, one of the essential poems that help to comfort mourners and give them hope since death is real, and there are consequences that the believed family and friends must face.

Danez Smith, a poet who wrote summer, somewhere, is also one of the African-Americans who addressed the issue of racialism and poetry (Hall,18). His poem has been intensively used to depict mourning based on African-American culture and to reflect on how the perspectives that the white people had and still have for this group of people.

Smith wrote the poem in response to the murder of young African-American young men who were brutally killed by the police officers, which caused a massive riot. Reading this poem sounds like the writer aimed at loudly addressing the horrific tragedy in history; it is one of the poems used to reflect on the grieving moments of African-American people exposed to a series of injustices.

The style used to incorporate the poem is choppy, with many punctuations in each line. This style gives the poem a different tone that mimics a childlike performance. The short lines and many punctuations throughout the poem reflect on the youths and the loss of young lives to the authority. Young men were shot by the police and murdered (Bertman, Sandra, 22). Therefore, the poet uses this opportunity to address racial concerns; the poem is contemporarily used as depict mourning and grief based on African-American perspectives. It focuses on the young lives which were lost that day; the grief that resulted from this act has remained a point of concern making this poem one of the most useful historical materials of grief and racial injustices.

Do not Call Us Death is another poem by Smith that depicts grief and morning. The poem begins heartrending series that reflects an afterlife for the African-American men who were killed by the police. The is material is used to a place of violence, suspicion, grief, and mourning. This is one of the poems that confronts and rebukes America where funeral has become a common thing every day, and it is, however, suppressing that most of the black-Americans become the victims. This poem brings in to expose some of the actions taken by the government to suppress the Black-Americans, the poem saves as an extended dream-like vision, sequence of funerals where young black Americans are caught up in gun battle. The poem grief for the death of the Black-Americans, but more importantly, it states that their lives matter in America and racial discrimination must be put to an end (Steen, John 18).

The Art of Losing, a poem by Kelvin Young, is one of the poems that is used to depict grief and mourning. Many tend to turn to this poem at the theme of mourning as it consoles those who have lost loved ones, the poem is used to embrace and as helps people to understand than death is reasonable and there are consequences associated with it. It is, therefore, a useful material that can be used in of need, especially for those experiencing the time of loss.

The poet wrote this poem after suddenly losing his father; it one of the poems which he wrote to express the sense of grief. The poem is still relevant today as it can express emotional feelings for the bereaved family of friends. In life, grief comes in different ways, and so do literary materials such poems should. The poem is divided into different sections, which the poet perceives as the hallmark of the grieving and morning process. The sections include redemption. Remembrance, recovery, ritual, regret and reckoning all that are connected to the time of loss.

Jericho Brown also wrote a poem of grief, including Love of...