Love
Like a comforter
holding hands
They stuck together like a pair
Got long memories
through the swamps
up the hills
Talked about their lives
Nothing had changed
He still loved her
put his hand on her knee
Finally said. "I love her."
He remembered kissing her
Then a dance
skimming across the surface
young and happy
He could not stop thinking about her
eyes were gray
100 pounds
tweed skirt
eyes very bright
Filled him with love
Martha

A Black Man Talks of Reaping

     I decided to analyze the poem "A Black Man Talks of Reaping".  This poem portrays many significant images.  "I planted deep, within my heart the fear that wind or fowl would take the grain away."  One could imagine a person working out in the fields planting deep holes which would in-hold seeds.  Another way of looking at this line is by imagining a person praying and hoping that all of the hard work they put into their field would pay off without a big storm engulfing and destroying all of the full grown plants.  Another significant image in this poem is when Arna Bontemps writes, "I scattered see enough to plant the land in rows from Canada to Mexico...".  This part of the second stanza helps to portray the image of a person working year after year replanting the same land for miles and miles.  I am sure everyone at some point in their life have walked through the rows of a cotton, corn or bean farm and realized that the rows of crops stretch so far that the end cannot be seen.  When thinking of a person working in the hot sun that long it probably brings the picture of calloused hands or hot sweaty faces.  These two images were the most apparent to me in this poem.
     In this poem I also found a few figures of speech including a metaphor.  This metaphor occurred in the first stanza, "I planted, deep within my heart...".  This is a metaphor because it is physically impossible to plant something in your heart.  In order to plant something you need to dig a hole.  If a human were to dig a hole in their own heart they would die.  This metaphor was used to help stress the importance of the relationship between humans and their work.  In this case the relationship is one between the field and the man.  In the second stanza Bontemps wrote, "I scattered seed enough to plant the land in rows from Canada to Mexico...".  This is an example of an hyperbole because it is an extreme exaggeration.  The land from Canada to Mexico is not all fertile enough to plant crops.  This exaggeration helps to emphasis the fact that blacks (during the Harlem Renaissance) were working extremely long and hard hours day after day in the fields.
     When analyzing this poem a few sound devices were found.  In the first line of the second stanza there is an alliteration, "scattered seed".  This is a significant part of the poem because it helps the flow of the poem.  Internal rhyme was found very subtly in the second line of the second stanza.  "in rows from Canada to Mexico...".  This rhyme is important because it helps to make the poem more memorable.  Internal rhyme also helps the flow and overall importance of the poem.