Comparing the Black Arts Movement and the Harlem Renaissance
When reading poems from the Black Arts Movement and the Harlem Renaissance, two in particular struck me as similar. “You Know” by Jayne Cortez and “The Cat and the Saxophone” by Langston Hughes were both striking in their uniqueness, but seem to fit together. These two poems in particular were written within the same stencil, just in different periods. Although these two poems are from different time periods, they are very similar. Both use multiple voices that interrupt the conversation of the poem. They both emulate a casual conversation in a friendly environment and bring the reader into a space familiar to the author. However, the poems are undeniably different. In general, though, poems from the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement are very different. The black Arts Movement had much more experimental poems. The form and language were often a rejection of European styles. Using free verse, experimental structure, writing phonetically, and even writing poems that are...