ENG4U

    Ellie Bodkin          When we speak of great poets, Langston Hughes will forever be one of the first to come to mind for so many people. One of the great contributors of culture to New York City, and the world. In today's post I'd like to focus on I Look at the World. Originally written in 1930, I Look at the World wasn't actually published until 2009 after being discovered written in pencil in one of his books all those years later. Now a relatively well known work of his. The tone of the poem is one that begins very somber, the author depicting a person of colour, likely a black person realizing they have been completely separated from freedoms that many others share and speaking of the reality they are enduring.   "I look at the world From awakening eyes in a black face— And this is what I see: This fenced-off narrow space Assigned to me. "        The choice to begin the poem with this imagery, someone awakening to see ...