Browse Items (33 total)

This essay by then-editor-in-chief Louise Dinwiddie, analyzes the 1929 poem "The Chinese Nightingale" by white American writer Vachel Lindsay. The poem mentions many facets of Chinese culture and, as Dinwiddie recognizes, asserts that culture is…

The author of this poem claims that she is "an Asian who wants to be white" and begins the poem with the choice, "I want to be more American." When asked what's stopping her, though, she responds, "That's not who I am." The root of her desire to be…

This "Old Piedmont Negro dialect" poem was written by a white male student masquerading as a black storyteller. Its title refers to the fictional central character, Nias, an enslaved black man who is characterized as an unintelligent, unhygenic, yet…

This sketch (a brief, abstract descriptive poem) begins with the "fear of a black" that is then related to the prevention of typhoid, which "results in the American Army." The three words of "Negro / Mister / Coffee" follow the words "They mystify."…

This article defines the "literary quality" mentioned in student handbooks given to freshman (called "Rats" by the author). Gibson claims that literary realism is sometimes "vulgar" and "obscene" just to be shocking, which makes it "pornographic…

The narrator of this poem expresses his identity as part of a "colossal being" of black people, preferring the collective 'we' to the singular 'I.' He explores slavery as "the torture that was endured for years and still / Silently exists today"…

A short poem written by Alice Richardson that describes the decoration adorning a Chinese vase, specifically the serpent dragon. Richardson notes that serpents play a positive role in Chinese culture history that is betrayed on the Chinese vase, as…

This poem reinforces ideas of hopelessness and permanence, repeating many lines and ultimately lamenting, "but you are trapped, hung in one spot / dangling over water, lost / to one world, lost in the other[.]" "Bugger" is a homophobic slang term.…

These five poems are titled "Adaptations From the Chinese." It's unclear if these poems have any significant meanings behind them, but the tone of each of these poems appears to be negative. In "The Flowerless Garden" there is only a shadow and no…

The poem "John Brown's Body" was written by Stephen Vincent Benet in 1928 and is described in a book review by a Richmond College student. John Brown was an abolitionist who eventually was hanged for his assistance in freeing slaves and especially…