"High Windows" by Philip Larkin

The poignancy in this poem stuck me the most. The speaker proclaims, "That'll be, life; No God any more, or sweating in the dark in the dark about hell and that, or having to hide what you think of the priest. He and his lot will all go down the long slide like bloody birds." Many things are playing into this statement, pain, ire, and some relief perhaps. The speakers dreams of a his or her ideal paradise full of pleasure and nature; a world free of sorrow and worries. The speaker leaves us with this rather edenic description, "Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, and beyond it, the deep blue, that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless."

"I, Too" by Langston Hughes

The persona of this poem refers to himself as "the darker brother," singing to America about who he is. It sheds some light on the struggle for equality that people endured back in the 60's. To begin, the poet speaks on his oppressed state saying, "They said me to the kitchen when company comes.." He is being ignored and treated as if he doesn't exist, but knows that freedom is eminent. He concludes by declaring, "Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed- I, too, am America." There is an obvious level of poignancy in this piece; there is no boundaries in beauty because beauty is equality.

"Frederick Douglass" by Robert Haven

Haven is personifying the idea of freedom through the life of Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and a writer. We see how one's private life, Douglass's, is made public in order to provide testimony for this idea of freedom. Haven says, "When is it finally ours. this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all..." The idea of life and death is seen throughout this poem as well. Frederick Douglass lived through and escaped from slavery fighting for his freedom and it is for that very thing, his continuous fight for liberation, that he will be remembered. He is alive through his death; "This man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world where none is lonely, none hunted, alien, this man shall be remembered." I found myself in this poem because it is as a result of the actions from the likes of Douglass that I and everyone else in America can enjoy freedom and democracy.

"The Man with Night Sweats" by Thom Gunn

The persona here is dealing with some internal issue. Something that is happening is resulting in night sweats for this person. Night sweats are the reaction to the situation, therefore, a certain level of wisdom can be found in this. The wisdom and poignancy go hand in hand because the sharpest part of the piece is not given explicitly, but it is the fact that he or she is living with this thing. "A world of wonders in each challenge to the skin. i cannot but be sorry the given shield was cracked, my mind reduced to hurry, my flesh reduced and wrecked." The reaction, night sweats, tears, tantrums, and even silence is where the poignancy and wisdom are found. It is also where I and all people should find themselves; the time of solitude in which you are the only one surrounding yourself.

"America" by Allen Ginsberg

This piece is an interesting one. The persona created is exercising free speech to speak wisdom into the ears and eyes of his or her listeners. The topic of America is potent and the apparent point of view of the speaker is shared by many. He or she is questioning America'a success and it is due to a cascade effect of multiple wrong-doings. "America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don't feel good don't bother me. I won't write my poem till I'm in the right mind."

"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

The most poignant part of this poem is the title. We mask ourselves off from the world by changing our masks according do our day to day agenda. We masks ourselves for privacy because our own sense of self-hood relies on this mask. The speaker captures a "universal persona" through her "imaginative power." "We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes- this debt we pay to human guile..."

"Incident" by Countee Cullen

Controversy is Lyric Life. This particular piece speaks of just that. The persona of the speaker of the poem is one of disbelief and scorn. "Now I was eight and very small, and he was no whit bigger, and so I smiled, but he poked out his tongue, and called me, "Nigger." The level of elatededness of the speaker went from positive to negative in an instant. One word provides the whole message of the poem; the wisdom of the poem lies within the experience of the individual, the speaker. The creation of that very word was as a result of an incident.