DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "News from Harlem" by Kwame Dawes Originally read: May 19, 2013 More information about the Poet: Kwame Dawes This poem plays with the definition of a man from race mentality to group mentality, and through all the definition the poem weaves in history and vernacular.  Furthermore, by the title, "News from Harlem" there's already a racial slant in which the speaker states. So I'm going to list the various types of men from the first ten referenced of the poem and discuss how the definition shifts and changes through context: 1) African man 2) Black men 3) those men 4) a man 5) knife men 6) cutlass men 7) roots men 8) Congo men 9) yellow eyed quiet man 10) white man The lines open up with the focus on lineage -- African man which brings a sense of heritage to the poem with the unbecoming description of "fat-faced."  And so there's the tension of what people and speaker sees an African Man through language and ...