Black Women's Voices in Poetry: Creative Expression & Activism

Introduction

From this course, my overall take way is that poetry encompasses illuminations, lots of creativity, activism, and passion. In this course, we leaned the voices of women have always been suppressed all through, but no voice has been placed in such a manner the black women's voice has been. According to the Audre Lorde, he identifies that poetry has been an outlet to many of the black women to their own expression following and during slavery. Through the act of poetry, black women could express their oppressions from the exploitation in the sexual sense, struggles, and also translate the traumatic experiences into hopes.

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In the black feminist poetry, some of the poems which resonated most with me include; Gwendolyn Brooks "A Song in the Front Yard," Rita Dove: "The Great Palaces of Versailles" and Sonia Sanchez: "Depression." The three poems have their themes that clearly reflect modern society. For instance, in the poem "A Song in the Front Yard" is about a girl who craves for life that she could not even afford. She was always wealthy and vibrant and had been living a life full of glamour and wonders. This brings in a lesson to many people in society that money and wealth will never give you everything that you need. For the poem Rita Dove: "The Great Palaces of Versailles," in the start of it when I first read, I thought it was all about racism particularly in relation to the first line "Nothing nastier than a white person, "however, to my amazement, despite that the whole of it deals with racism, there are other important themes which are reoccurring for instance the existing contrast between the poor and the rich. Which reveals the difference between reality as well as performance. The poem is also very easy to understand and also get the message which the poet was trying to pass. These are some of the examples of the poems which resonated most with me, among other poems.

Some of the class sessions and lectures which resonated the most with me include the classes in Week 1, week 3, and Week 12 M 3/25. This is because these are some of the sessions where we did a lot of in-depth analysis of the poems, which created a very interesting time in class. In the sessions, there was no much work to do, and the few poems that we learned and studied them were easy to understand, for instance, Rita Dove: "The Great Palaces of Versailles" which we studied in week 12 was very interesting and easy to understand. Also, the poems done during the sessions were so essential since the knowledge attained out of the study reflects on the current society.

Several ways enhanced my abilities to close read and also do research during the semester. For instance, there had been a series of asking a myriad of questions from the sessions had; hence we focused on most of our experience around in trying to connect with remembering text. It was also best since there could be a time where I could ask for questions that I didn't understand, and I would get to internalizing them better. Also, through the close reading of the black women feminist poems, we learn a lot about the aspect of effective brainstorming where we as a class would brainstorm some of the answers to some of the key questions. We were also able to develop some of the important skills to needs to determine the purpose and also notice the language as well as the main features employed the various poets and also how to analyze why the features were used. The poems were thoroughly analyzed to get the whole understanding of the context during the lecture sessions. During the sessions, we also made sure that all the poems were read and understood before analyzing them. The created a foundation in getting every poem's message and also acknowledging the reasons for the poet's use of certain styles and types of languages. After the discussion, we noticed that it was essential to do more research and understanding in relation to the poems discussed during the lectures.

I completed all the assignments by doing thorough research on them and also asking some of the questions from people who have good basic knowledge of poetry. This made my assignment completion easy. In some cases, some of the assignments would be denser and also difficult, but it was better when we would brainstorm together with some of my colleagues who made the work more manageable, and also it was easy to have a strong foundation in the poetic knowledge after the completion of the assignments.

In the classes that we did, we learned a lot concerning the black feminisms. In this case, we learned, for instance, in relation to Lorde and Coleman's poets in their work, their messages about feminism reinforce every woman about the notion that inside of them, they all have the tools for change. In the poems, they speak to sexual objectification in which black women transpose and endure their feelings into language. In the black feminist's poetry, the readers get what it feels and look like to be a black woman, especially in a patriarchal white society. From this aspect, the black women are regarded as enemies and whores to both kinds of men regardless of the differences in the basis of color and also despite the fact that the black men are also part and parcel of their community.

During the study of poetry, there were some of the common obstacles. For instance, the study of any poem is not easy until you understand every message that the poet needs to pass. In many cases, the interpretation of the poetry is difficult since it consists of serious compression of information in few words. Besides, other challenges include inadequate literary materials that can be used for reference when doing the poetry.

The issue of COVID-19 immense has been so enormous this semester. The activities have not been done as it has always been. This is because it has cut off physical appearance among students as well as their tutors to handle poetry-related problems. However, we have tried all the best to cope with the situation through the online learning system where most of the learning system is done online, and also the interaction of the colleagues, as well as our tutors, is still online. This keeps everything going despite the situation caused.

From such a case, therefore, I have learned a lot of things. One of which means it is always good to be ready to learn either physically or even through some of the platforms such as social media, among other channels. This creates an element of flexibility in learning and hence enhances my all-round growth in terms of research. Through this class also, it has influenced my future career decision in a way. For instance, through the study of the black feminists' poems, I have learned not to incorporate any kind of racial discrimination alongside my career. This will bring an element of equality. Therefore, this class has been essential to me concerning my future career.

Given a chance, if I am to do the class over, I would ensure that the learning process is always on regardless of any situation. I would also ensure that I research all the necessary materials to will help me in the study and keep them for referencing rather than waiting to research them when working on a given problem or assignment. To add on ensuring that I have read and understood all the poems since most of the themes and messages passed out by the poets are so essential to the normal life.