What kind of poem is harlem shadows

If We Must Die. The Harlem Dancer. The Tropics in New York. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account?

Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Question about this poem? Ask us. I see the shapes of girls who pass 4 To bend and barter at desire's call. Cite This Page. Harlem Shadows Full Text. Born into relative prosperity in Sunny Ville, Jamaica, he lived in Kingston as a young man, where he met the English folklorist Walter Jekyll, who encouraged him to write in dialect.

He went on to travel widely in Europe, but never returned to Jamaica. Whether expressing outrage against racism and injustice or the intense ache of nostalgia for his homeland, he favoured traditional European forms.

The sonnet was a particular favourite, and the new content he insists on reshapes and reinvigorates that antique container. The flowing iambic pentameter, and a stanza structure whose final couplet is almost a refrain, enable the poem to keep pace with the street-walkers who are its subject, and reflecting their own relentlessly driven movement,. Harlem Shadows places itself deliberately in a part of the district where high art and smart fashion give way to poverty and struggle.

No individual is judged: only their movements speak. It avoids being merely sentimental, because it expresses the political truth. These women, whatever their ages, however strong their courage, experience childlike vulnerability and disempowerment.