When I saw the Why's Wise Y's video, I found the saxophone in the background more appealing than anything else. It added a more artistic touch to this otherwise speechlike poem. I thought the style of this poem was very different, and was something that one would have to really think about and analyze to understand what it was Amiri Baraka was trying to bring out to his audience. In the end, the message I got was that Amiri Baraka really appreciates his African American heritage and acknowledges the struggles they went through to get to where they are today, but also shows resentment to Africa as a nation for being so vulnerable to European rule and letting them abduct Africans, which is where he says "watch out, Africa. The ghosts gon' get you."
I really enjoyed the poem "Summer Ends too Soon" by Lorna Cervantes. It was the perfect essence of beauty being a sin. The way Lorna pronounces Maria's name with a Spanish accent makes her sound all the more exotic, all built up to discover that she is being abused/raped by her father. Maria probably reached a point where she decided she didn't want to live this way anymore and decided to take her life, or she was killed. This poem really made me think a lot.
In that same poem, Bakara laments the business of slavery too and doesn't let off the tribe leaders who sold and profited their own tribe to the Europeans. Cervantes always mixes Spanish into her poems, but not as much as Victor Hernandez Cruz does. I think you would like him too, Chaitanya!
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