the kid. Frank Sanchez

I found Henderson's poems very moving and even relatable to today's society. For example, his poem, "the kid", touches the topic of discrimination which many African-American in the Lower East Side had to encounter. Having studied in the Lower East Side I can understand the frustration and relate to the discrimination of the authorities towards minorities.

The poem carries itself as a spoken word video. I have seen many videos on youtube that has some slow and motivational music playing in the background while someone gives a motivational speech and this poem or words would fit perfect with some motivational background music. Although this poem doesn't rhyme enough to be some sort of rap song, it does have some moments here and there when it does have lines that rhyme. For example, after being stopped by the authorities the young man walking with an open bottle of wine responds to the cops when asked if he has anyone to call, "One bottle of wine. No one call to call mine". Henderson also utilized repetition as well that made this poem very spoken words like. When the authorities started to interrogate the young man he simply responds, "I ain't got no money-- and I ain't got not job-- I ain't got no home-- and I ain't got no one to call my own"; the repetition here being the I ain't got putting much emphasis to what the young kid lacks.  

Henderson's poems always have some message behind them and this poem definitely is attacking major problems with society. One of the issues Henderson is attacking is the discrimination by authorities against African-American. This young man is simply walking down the streets, yes definitely with an open bottle of wine and is drunk, and they decide to stop and frisk him. Nonetheless, the authorities then start to contemplate if they should take him in or not like if taking people to jail is a game and they decide based on their own personal judgment. Another issue that can be raised by reading this problem is that because of the social construct of the society African-Americans are being suppressed by the authorities and not given a chance to get out of such society. We can clearly see that African-Americans do no have the abilities to get out of such society and are being suppressed when the officer are contemplating taking the young boy to jail and he simply replies that it is not a big deal if he goes to jail or not which paints a picture that it's something that normally happens in his community.

Good Joanna

                                                 Woman on fire

       The characteristics of the poem that I see reflected in Henderson's other poems are imagery, free verse and a paradox of unity vs separation.  In majority of his poems he uses the phrase "we" referring to a bigger whole,  reaching out to his ethnic community.  For most part, the language used in most poems is ordinary; nothing too fancy or hard to comprehend. Henderson fails at creating a genuine pattern that can be recognized in his poetry.  However, his poetry is infused with Jazz and other political issues.  The context dictates the form his poems take. Majority of poems are written in prose with no strict structure,  there's not much rhythmic patters in them.  Anaphora can be found in the poem "Good Joanna" as well as imagery and hyperbole.  The language used in this poem can be considered romantic. Words such as candlelight, fire,hot, and red gives the poem a tone of intimacy. Hyperbole is used for most part, "Her red hair turned to fire", "...sun had fallen from the sky into his eyes" these examples allows the reader to create an image of the passionate experience being described in the text.  I assumed this so called "good Joanna" represented his lover or a mistress, yet there's no further information to support my inferences.  There's a sense of urgency in the poem,  of being one yet being strangers to one another.  The second part of the poem consist of a much more explained account of his personal experience.  They are drunk, they are drinking liquor , they are dancing. I find certain warmth and comfort in Henderson's words.  there is something so beautiful about this poem, perhaps the way its written.  The word "blue" is mentioned several times, which can link to the type of music they were dancing to.   Perhaps Henderson's poetry might lack a certain pattern because he was improvising just like Jazz music.  Henderson states "every tree in the forest burns alone", this phrase left me intrigued.  

Reading Response 11/12

When I read Henderson's poems I read them with the some what lackadaisical attitude. Even though his poems are about the exact opposite. He tends to write about being active, whether that be about working or about going around the city and enjoying observing the views. All his poems are about an experience, and what is interesting is the fact that he constantly uses colors to add emphasis on a description. He mentions the, "..blue Capricorn rains", the, "black galaxy", the, "white bars". The color just makes you kind of double take and re read the line, which in return gives you a more vivid image.

These poems all seems to have this musical feel to them, almost as if anyone who reads them will kind of want to sing them in a way.  Like in music, each poem tells a story and we see that in, "Lee Morgan". I think that this poem is about a night in the city. It seems like someone went to a club and on their way home they encountered some musicians who just encapsulated them. Each stanza has a unique sound to it just like any musical piece. At the end of the poem the author describes these street musicians and he picks up on their passion for music. We know this because he says, "slick trumpeteers, jericho jammin, ass-kicking, good timing, hard bopping, good lovin, slick be bop blues and ghetto dues". I think this is what is most important to Henderson. The idea of capturing the love and style that the musicians show. The word "slick" in this context gives off this feeling of "free flowing", of smooth style. The music comes out so naturally but it also sounds good. What I mean by this is that it's not like someone just walking up to a set of drums and slamming on them with all their might, it's someone walking up to a set of drums and slamming on them are the right moments. Timing is everything in music, and these street performers have their timing down! He literally says it 3 lines down, "good timing".

It's pretty clear that Henderson appreciated music; non the less good music. I think the whole point of this poem was to capture the love of music. The deeper meaning may have been that anyone, regardless of their color can associate with music. The other poems that talk about music seem to all give off this good vibe, and I think that's the message he's trying to send to the world, good vibes.

Reading Response 11/12

The poems by David Henderson in The Low East side seem to be reflective of the time period and setting he was in. Most of them have a mention of alcohol and a sense of loneliness.  But despite this and the fact that some of it may sound depressing, the use of imagery and the idea of blues doesn't present it that way. In other words, through song, many people can gain a sense of hope through the day. You can see this in the first poem, the kid. It features an African America man that is drunk on a Sunday morning. He is happy, keeps to himself and singing a tune while walking. Soon he is interrupted and harassed by two officers. During this conversation he reveals his living situation, explaining that he has no job or money. He does all of this with a jaunty tune or at least that is what I imagined. Even with that horrible experience he still goes on with his day. He then gets the first smile of the day(The text is cut off, so I am assuming he gets the smile of the new day, not this one).

Some of the text seems like a prelude to the things that come next. It sort of gives a story of things before the poem happens, like in Good Johanna. A lot of the poems later on in the text sound much more like Jazz. A lot of the words are improvised or a lot of them are not grammatically correct, probably for the sake of being on a rhythm or tune. There is a lot of storytelling throughout the poems even if some go about it differently. Some of them are actually songs, while some seem like songs written as sentences.

Music is a tool humans can use to celebrate their greatest moments with friends or even simply to brighten up your day. For some reason while reading this I couldn't help but feel if I was could rearrange the texts and change a few words, I could create a song with them. 

Reading Response

David Henderson was a black poet, who infused Jazz in his writings. Most of his poems take place in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He discusses many of the issues that blacks would go through during his time. For example he mentions in one poem that one of his characters got stopped and searched him for no reason. The man had no one and nowhere to go. Its funny how these poems were written a long time ago but the same issue of being racially profiled by the police is still very much present. Most of his characters were also black.

            In his poems he is very specific with his descriptions and the descriptions of his surroundings. The second poem along with some of the others seems to tell a story. To me it seemed that the attitudes of the characters were portrayed in the way he was writing them. They seemed a bit blah boring, and he showed this in his writing by using short and concise sentences. He also seemed to use colors to describe different things. For example I got the feel that he connects the color red to something strong or fierce. He uses this color to describe one of his characters hair color.

            Sometimes he uses opposites such as “we talk of war// then make love.” He also uses play on words and has a different structure of writing. He randomly puts extra spaces between words, or italicizes things or doesn’t capitalize.

           

His poems were mostly about different situations that his different characters go through. I also noticed that most of his poems had a sad tone to them, sort of sad and depressing.

            One line that stood out to me was "Jass they play// you hear at it// it be a part of you// alive." He personifies the idea of music and jazz. I also found it interesting that he misspelled the word jazz. Music is a consistent theme in most of his poems and is often brought up even in small ways. Such as someone dancing or simply knowing who’s music was playing from just listening to the beginning.

Poems are not high in list of interest but these poems weren’t so bad. They are very descriptive and almost straightforward, which makes them easier to understand. His poems seem more like song lyrics than anything else. They flow together and transition well. By the way that they are written you can add a a rhythm and melody to them.

Reading response 11/12

David Henderson's "Lee Morgan" seems to be illustrating a scene at club Baron which is located in Manhattan. This club was a significant spot where musicians such as Lee Morgan and Thelonious Monk preformed. Morgan was hard bop trumpeter and Monk was a jazz pianist and composer. The first few lines of the poem states, "fly by night, black galaxy, friendly galaxy"(1-3). This indicates the time is at night or during the evening which is the time many people go to clubs. Henderson is starting off by getting us in the correct hour so we can understand the scene better. He also goes to describe Morgan and Monk's performance; "lee morgan trilling on the ceiling, sphere monk dancing round the horseshoe bar"(14-15). Henderson does great job helping us visualize the scene at the club. The descriptiveness allows me to see that these musicians were very much into their music. Morgan and Monk were 21 years apart but they were still able to combine their musical styles of jazz. The last stanza was really interesting because it had a musical beat while I was reading it. Henderson might have listened to how people spoke during this time and played it back in his poem. He states, "slick trumpeteers, jericho jammin, ass-kicking, good timing, hard bopping" (17-21). It seems like he was imitating some of Morgan's fierce and sweet energy.

"Slugs in Far East" was another poem that I thought was similar to "Lee Morgan" because both of these Poems seem to take place at night. The theme seems to be a memory of someone's past. Based on the vocabulary used in both poems, the scenes seem to be on the same time period. Both poems have a calm and reminiscing sound. Henderson uses the form of poetic stanzas in both poems. "Slugs in the Far East" seems to be one huge stanza where "Lee Morgan" has multiple stanzas, long and short. The overall similarity between these two poems is the topic of jazz music and clubs. I think the topic of jazz and club scenes were important to Henderson because he was born a few years after Lee Morgan and resided in Harlem as well. Jazz music was very popular during his time. Smoking, jazz music, and dancing was a way for people to come together and enjoy themselves. Music was a tool that united musicians and people who enjoyed the performances.

Reading Response 11/12

 “Lee Morgan”  a poem by David Henderson describes what happens at night at Club Baron. Henderson mentions in his poem these two jazz musicians. Lee Morgan was an American  bop trumpeter and Thelonious Sphere Monk was a jazz pianist and composer. Henderson  describes what happens in this club by using imagery and word choice. Club Baron is a historical jazz club in Harlem where people went to hear jazz musicians such as Lee Morgan and see Thelonious Sphere Monk play.  For instance, in the second stanza, he says, “fly deep into night towards the light/good smoke/sings the horn/metal glass under Capricorn sky” (lines 9-12). His reference to light creates an image for Jazz. Since, jazz music was sang or played at the night club, it brought light to the night. The light which was jazz shone on the people. Henderson creates a musical sound in this poem and his repetition of "fly by night in the first stanza of the poem emphasizes the importance of jazz musicians at Club Baron. Jazz music was central to the night. Another different poem Sun Goddess written by David Henderson describes a black woman who is still powerful despite the obstacles she faced. Henderson describes the black woman using adjectives like rawboned, black and tall(58). However, the author's description of her tall and wide shoulders was based on the fact that she worked on a cotton farm as a child. This poem is different from Lee Morgan and the other poems in the way it is structured. It does not follow the regular poem pattern of stanzas. It is written in a prose form like a story with paragraphs. According to the author, this black woman remembers her late husband and wished to lay beside him every night. She is a woman with  two children and no husband but she still stood tall and strong despite the struggle she faced as a single mother with two kids. To be a Sun Goddess is to be very highly respected by everyone. She had so much  power and strength. Perhaps, the Black woman was indeed a powerful black woman.

Reading Response 11/12

Slugs in the Far East, by David Henderson is a poetic stanza that has a theme like most of the other piece referring to the expression of minorities at that time. This poem along with Lee Morgan is particularly related because Slugs in the Far East refers to Slug’s Saloon in which Lee Morgan was killed. Henderson dedicated this poem to “after j” I think he was referring to Jerry Schultz, the owner of the popular Jazz nightclub in the 1960’s. The poem starts off with someone walking into the two drink minimum joint,  “as the genius walks down the bass”’ this says a lot about how Henderson viewed the untaught musicians of this era and their ability to master some of the most difficult musical techniques. Like the Blues People by Amiri Baraka, he tries to provide a visual of the Slug, David Henderson talks about the “fashionable gentlemen of the lean years”, referencing to the ability of these men managing to be fashionable during the years of need and lack! The Slug was a local club were everybody got a chance; this is seen when he speaks of the young boy dressed like he had been working on the docks but still possessed the skill and talent to play with some of Jazz greatest like “miles” (Davis) and “bird” (Charlie “Bird” Parker). Both Lee Morgan and Slugs in the Far East make references to the nightlife of drinking and smoking. Henderson like many of the other authors throughout this course addresses the future meeting the past in this caesura; Henderson says “in the new age ancient melodies haunt vacant night   spots” meaning after Slug’s Saloon, Club Baron and all the other great Jazz establishments were shutdown the spirits of legends like sphere monk (Thelonious “Sphere” Monk”), Hank Mobley and Art Blakey will forever live on through their music. I believe the theme of Jazz was important to Henderson because as a founder of the Black Art Movement along with Amiri Baraka; he wanted to empower and encourage African Americans to not only explore literature but the creativity of Jazz music which until this time was not considered an art form.

The Kid

David Henderson’s poem, “The Kid” really resonated with me, perhaps because of the setting. Being that I am from the Lower East Side, I’ve been to the places where Henderson takes us in his poem; St. Marks Place, The Hudson River, Avenue D and C, and 8th street. The poem speaks of a kid strolling along the Lower East Side on a Sunday, singing and drinking a bottle of wine. When suddenly he gets stopped by two police men who see his bottle. When they ask him where he lives or if he works, he replies by singing “ I ain’t got no money— and I ain’t got no job— I ain’t got a home— and I ain’t got one one to call my own” (15).  Perhaps it is because he is drunk that he replies like this, but it could also be because he simply doesn’t care that he has been stopped by the police. The lyrics to this song could mean something beyond just words. Since the kid wanders around , I think that “ I ain’t got no home” could mean that he is lost in this world, or that no one really has a permanent place in the world, because we are all just here temporarily. In addition, “ I ain’t got no one to call my own” could mean just that, that no one really belongs to some one else.

Similar to this poem, Henderson also mentions the use of liquor in other poems, like in “Good Joanne” Some of the locations are used in more than one poem as well.

Reading this poem out loud, I noticed that in certain stanzas, the words just sounded like a listing of things, but at the same time, song like. An article on Henderson by Terry Joseph, called the Dictionary of Literary Biography, states that he is “ The literary heir of Langston  Hughes”. It must be because his poems seem to be infused wit Jazz. The article says that Henderson sort of improvises in his poems. This is the same idea discussed in Blues People by Amiri Baraka, they way that negro captives would sing their songs—by improvisation. Improvisation offers more emotion because it’s saying whatever comes to mind. 

Poem for Painters

In one of David Henderson’s poem, Poem for Painters, the link between urban places along with a number of iconic places and how they interact with nature were shown.  In the first two stanzas the tree was presented as a character:

that's my tree/ says joe

we take care of each other

 it grows with me

the tree (29)

It made it seem as if the tree and Joe had a mutual symbiotic relationship, making the tree part of the community. On the second stanza, it was acknowledged that the tree with its leaves could show more color than a television. The leaves can be used to tell what’s to come as it changes with the season, in this case the leaves “shimmers” showing that it’s summer.

            In the 3rd stanza the U.S. capital was the chosen location, the people there were described as wild animals, when they scrambled when it started to rain in a blink of an eye. Then the trees now reappeared in this stanza from the news

outside

the leaves of the tree

ripples ancient signs/ psyches painters

of the tree (29)

The leaves of the trees were again telling the news that it’s raining. As the rain drops from the sky the leaves dances and it “psyches painters” who in this case are people with connection with jazz artists such as Bob Thompson, Ellsworth Ausby, Jack Whitten and many more who are mentioned.

            In part two the trees were mentioned yet again.

 the leaves of the breeze

/ripple in the trees

/upon the off-white walls

A man who is assumed to be joe is in the embrace of the tree "grows electric leaves." I assume that It is Christmas the lights are put around the tree from reading "grows electric leaves" which means it’s Christmas and it is a new season and the leaves change.

In part 3's first stanza, joe's tree made another appearance. "a look out the window thru the trees of joe's loft" then the description, condition, and history of the surrounded place. I feel like this poem is similar to Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” As the tree is there, but much like the ferry, people before and people after the present will witness the tree and will change with the tree. The poem had no constant beat per line, and there were not much rhyme. It was more of a narrative poem rather than a descriptive poem, much like Whitman’s poem.

            

David Henderson: Sun Goddess

Sun Goddess written by David Henderson is a poem describing an African-American women, who happens to be staring out her kitchen. Henderson describes the women as a tall strong women. While reading the poem, it seems like she has been through a lot.As a child, she picked cotton.( Henderson 58) She recalls of her husband who has passed away, "how nice it was just to lay beside his warmth every night"(59). The lady Henderson is describing is also a mother of two kids and they live in what is called a flat. A flat is typically a single home, while an apartment is apart of a building that has plenty more apartment. Staring out of her flat room, she sees a tenement building. In history, we are told that tenement building have apartments with more than 1 family living in each apartment.

While reading the poem,  I have notice that it does not look like other poems which are written in stanzas, or follow normal poem structure. This is a poem that follows a story structure. This type of poem is known as a prose poem. A prose is like an everyday writing. It has paragraphs, sentences, and normal grammatical structure. We can conclude that this is a story of Henderson's own mother and the struggle she faced as a single mother with two kids. Hence. the meaning of the title "Sun Goddess" is that the mother of Henderson is worshiped, having the characteristics of power and strength. As a little boy to him, in his own very two eyes, his mother was indeed a power black women.

Reading Response: "Slugs in the far East"

          In “Slugs in the Far East”, David Henderson, a writer and poet of the book Low East, uses certain poetic techniques that are similar to his other poems in the handout. Some of these are included: sound, theme, structure and vocabulary words. All of these poems have a similar main theme that involves musicians, instruments, and more specifically “Jazz”. All of the poems are linked to Jazz in various perspectives by certain words such as the words drunk or drinking, black face, Forty acres and a mule, south, black music, miles, birds, bass, and many more. Even though the poem “Slungs in the Far East” did not have a lot of sound compared to other poems, it did have rhythms, beats, and emotions like the others. As for the structure, the poems “Lee Morgan” and “Poem for Painters” have the same poetic structure with “Slungs in the Far East” which is uses stanzas. For vocabulary words, Henderson tends to uses words that illustrate imagery and emotions. Some of his words are simple with deep meaning while other words require translations in order to understand its meaning. In my opinion, “Slugs in the Far East”, has a few sounds that can be observed. This poem has rhythm because every line has a beat in them. This poem also has the words that rhyme with each other such as place from line 2 and bass from line 4. For overall musicality, the tone and emotions of this poem is portrayed as reminiscing about the past, cheerful, and yet depressing. Henderson structures his poem with stanzas. The effect of using stanzas as a structure is that it makes the poem easier to read and understand. Stanza also illustrates the completion of the poem that shared the same topic. Henderson also uses simile in his poem as he states, “showed up looking like a stevedore” (9).

           “Slugs in the Far East” is a poem that portrays the situation in a Jazz club. The setting is implied from the title itself. Slug in the Far East is referred to a popular jazz club, Slug’s Saloon. This club attracted regular jazz performances in the lower east side of Manhattan during the 1960s-1970s. The beginning of the poem gives an image of an enthusiastic person walking down the club like a jazz bass prodigy. In the club, one can see that people were dressed up for the events as the poet described as “fashionable gentlemen of the lean years” (7). Henderson uses allusion when the line states, “a young boy played with miles and bird” (8). The young boy, who dresses like a stevedore, was playing music with two famous American jazz musicians such as Charles Parker or bird, who was a jazz saxophonist, and Miles Davis or miles, a jazz musician specialist in trumpeter. They were playing music beautifully as the melody line was ‘intertwining’ together. Sometime in the club, they will always have illegal things such as drugs and smoke. The poem states: “many rpms above smoke (or coke) / in a new age” (11-12). The readers can imagine a scene where the music was playing while people were using tobacco and cocaine. Even though everyone was having a good time with music and other activities, one can feel the tone of reminiscing about the past as the poem states: “ancient melodies haunt vacant/ night spots” (13-14). These ancient melodies can referred to the development of melodies in the Afro-American music that mentioned in Amiri Baraka’s book Blues people.

           I think jazz is an important topic to Henderson because his works mostly involved with jazz music and musicians. He also performs on jazz recording. Since David Henderson is an American with African descended, jazz can be used as a symbol since it is a popular music genre that has been developed from the African and European music. This poem also portrays the social and philosophical implication in the Jazz world. The poem illustrates that there was no segregation happening in the Jazz club in terms of age and appearance. There was no segregation between two famous jazz musicians and the young boy because they were shown playing music together. Even though most people were dressing up for jazz events, there was this young boy who showed up with stevedore look which did not match with the event. However, they were still having fun together. These examples illustrated the union in the Jazz world. The idea in this poem is about remember our roots. I feel like Henderson wants to teach us that it doesn’t matter where you go. You have to remember where you came from and feel proud of your roots. When I read this poem, the last two lines reminded me of Baraka’s book that portrayed the origins of jazz which came from the development of Afro-American music. These music included work songs, religion song and the Blues. I believe that the sound, structure, and topic are important as it is work together to keep readers in the right position on the topic and help them to understand more about the texts and its ideas.

Reading Response: "Lee Morgan"

            David Henderson’s poem “Lee Morgan” seems to describe what a night at Club Baron was like. Club Baron is a historical jazz club in Harlem where people once went to hear jazz musicians such as Lee Morgan and Thelonious Sphere Monk play. Henderson mentions in his poem these two recognized hard-bop jazz musicians. Lee Morgan was an American hard bop trumpeter and Theolonious Sphere Monk was a jazz pianist and composer. Henderson eloquently describes what occurred in this club by using symbolism and vivid language. For example, in the second stanza, he says, “fly deep into night towards the light/good smoke/sings the horn/metal glass under Capricorn sky” (lines 9-12). In these lines, Henderson seems to be using light to symbolize jazz. In addition, I noticed that Henderson makes a lot of references to outer space. He mentions the Capricornus constellation, galaxy, black space, light beams and red lights, which paint an image of outer space to the reader. In the first stanza of the poem, “fly by night/black galaxy/friendly galaxy/fly by night/black space/light beams/fly by night,” I realized that Henderson uses repetition and personifies night and galaxy. His repetition of “fly by night,” I believe shows how every night when jazz musicians played at Club Baron, Club Baron became another place. In fact, Henderson sees these nights of jazz as a portal to another galaxy.

            Henderson also seems to create a musical sound in his poem by the way he listed descriptions of Club Baron in the third stanza. He says, “ ghetto jazzbeaus/slick trumpeteers/jericho jammin/ass-kicking/good timing/ hard bopping/ good lovin/ slick be bop blues and ghetto dues/so tough and tight/ and beau” (lines 16-25). His way of structuring this stanza creates a rhythm because the words seem to flow together as one reads line by line. Also, Henderson’s use of rhyme supports this musical tone in his poem because it makes his words sound more congruent. Furthermore, Henderson mentions the dancing taking place at Club Baron, which causes the poem to give a content emotion to his readers. Since the poem discusses about people and jazz musicians having a great time at this club, I thought the overall tone of the poem was joyful. The poem I thought had most similarities with “Lee Morgan” is “Slugs in the Far East” because they both focus on the topic of jazz clubs and musicians. “Slugs in the Far East,” as well goes back to a historical jazz spot that involved  people smoking, drinking, and listening to jazz. Also, they both reflect on Amiri Baraka’s conclusion that jazz was derived from slaves and work songs because Henderson in “Slugs in the Far East,” ends his poem saying, “ancient melodies haunt vacant/ night spots,” meaning that the songs slaves and first-generation African Americans did still live through jazz.

Sun Goddess

    David Henderson's Son Goddess describes a thin, tall, strong, African-American woman from the South. She seems to have been through a lot. She was raised picking cotton in the fields. She speaks of a husband who may have passed away. She is reminiscing on how it use to be laying next to him, and how she misses his touch, and friendly pats on the behind. She is a single mother of two living in a flat. You rarely hear the term flat meaning apartment. But as I looked into it a flat is a single level family home that can be rented out or owned, whereas an apartment you have to go into a building that has several floors, and many apartments on each floor.
    As she looks out her kitchen window  she can see a tenement building, which is a building that occupies three or more families, usually in a poor section of a large city. She may have once lived in a tenement building as she says "It seems where you were raised follows you. She had to chuckle at the conscious thought of her little backyard in a city full of tenements." (58) So although she still lives in a large city, and poor neighborhood a lot has changed for her as far as her living environment.
    This poem seems to tell more of a story and has a plot to it, similar to the poem "Good Joanna", although it has a mixture of telling a story and having a free verse poem all in one, while the others are more free verse. This style of poetry is a prose, it has no metrical structure. It applies a natural flow of speech, and ordinary grammatical structure rather than rhythmic structure. Henderson is telling a story, it could be his own personal story about his mother and the hard life she had as a single mother of two. The title "Sun Goddess" means she is worshiped  and has power and strength, and in his eyes as a little boy that's what his mother was to him, a powerful black woman. 

Alvin/Keep On Dancing

The poem I’m choosing is Alvin/Keep On Dancing. The similarities between Alvin/Keep On Dancin is the poem Hanging Out in the Music. The similarities between the two is theme. The theme having to deal with music. It seems like the music in general has to deal with both poems. In Alvin/Keep On Dancing the theme is dancing, with dancing there’s music. In Hanging Out in the Music the theme was music. In both characters in the poem need music and dancing in there life. It me without music theres no dancing and with dancing theirs no music. For the rest if the poems all of the poems are surrounding with New York. Some of the poems mention some aspects of the city and places. In the poems also, their is only one character in the poem.

Some of the poems sounds gray to me being lonely. Some the poems are about self improvement. The sounds of the poems are cursing and trying to get to a point. The characters  all sound like they going thru something in their life. The words blue, night, wind, sun gets mention and the words all have a spiritual meaning behind it. Each poem has their own sound each have a assonance sound or some poem relating to each other.

The different forms in the poems is starting off with several paragraphs then starting the poem behind it. Other start right away with the poems. The stanzas have some paragraphing and the other have several lines with a few words making the poem seem longer. Also in some of the poems are short having only one stanza. In almost all the  poems Henderson uses numbering as a way of organizing the poem its self. Other poems have no numbering just stanzas. I only see repetition on some poems not all poems. I notice that he also uses the stanzas in different angles or sides on the paper.

The Henderson a kids drinking wine getting caught by police. He talks about a women who is also drinking who seems alone. Talks about the winds and the air and life in the city. He talks about night time in the city. A persons feeling with music and having other people glow. He mentions dancing and getting throughout the day. All poems have different meaning and purposes.

In my own opinion, I really enjoyed some of the poems. For some reason while reading  I had images in my head to imagine whats going on in the poem. I really enjoyed the poem Alvin/Keep On Dancing. To me it was about self motivation. The topics mention in this poem were engaging and every understanding. The first poem was interesting because it seemed realistic. Other poems I didn't understanding the meaning behind. I can tell the Henderson is from the Low East of New York because it writes about and knows so much. I think in some of the poems are about himself, people he say know and experiences in the Low East.