Comperative Analysis - Essay Example

These 6 poems (Heritage, Night in the Coal Camps, and White Highways of James Still; Johannesburg Mines and The Negro Speaks of Rivers of Langston Hughes; and A Poem for Myself by Etheridge Knight) coming from different poets reflect the similar opinion and perception of its residents. One of the central themes that these poets raised is the state of natural environment of the Central Appalachian. Whether it was James Still’s vivid description of the natural environment he is in or Langston Hughes’ reflective elaboration of his environment, most Appalachian poets, as represented by these two writers, reflects the influence of the environment to the thinking of the poets.

However, unlike romantic writers that adulate the beauty of the place where he lives in, these poets convey the dire and dreary condition of the place. With these physical setting, various poets from these area were able to describe the effects that such environment gives them: a place of dismay and pessimism. Still’s poem, “Heritage,” for example tells us the “prisoning hills” wherein the poet lived despite the gradual degradation of the forest as described by the following lines: “And one with death rising to bloom again, I cannot go/ Being of these hills I cannot pass beyond.

” In “Night in the Coal Camps,” Still further emphasized the not only the condition of the Central Appalachian terrain but also the status of the laborers in the area. In two verses, the poet illustrated the somber mood and tone of the Central Appalachians. In masterfully written words, Still was able to establish a parallelism between the “cold, frozen, unquiet” landscape of the area and the “sleepless” laborers with “mouths hollowed in breathing.” The inclement working condition worsens the strict slavery that is found herein.

The inhumane condition of workers in the region was also the theme of Hughes’ short poem Johannesburg Mines, The Black American poet