Wednesday's Discussion

I got the opportunity to talk about Dunbar's dialectic poetry and it was quite enlightening to hear what others felt or had questions pertaining to the poetry. My favorite dialectic poem was "An Antebellum Sermon." There is something about the way it flows and has rhythm that makes it extremely powerful. From my perspective the poem talks about the will of God, but also contradicts him at the same time. In his use of slavery, it seems as though Dunbar is contradicting himself, but then reader finds that this was intentional. At the end, Dunbar stands true to Moses coming to "comes an' sets us chillun free,". Ultimately, Dunbar restores that faith in God and tells others to pray for emancipation and the ability to be a citizen. The other day we agreed that his dialectic poems have more meaning because they have a deeper thoughts and ideal than what one may notice on the surface...I also think it takes a lot of talent to make every stanza flow and to adhere to a rhyming scheme in a dialectic poem....On Wednesday, the group also asked questions as to what inspired this poem or how do we make sense of the context that it's in? Overall, I think I enjoyed his dialectic poems much more than his more proper poems because they cause one to think more critically and enjoy the rhythm and flow...