discussion 4

The poem I chose to write about is Little Brown Baby by Paul Laurence Dunbar.  I chose this poem because I love the sincerity it and resilience it exemplifies. This poem was filled with emotion and Dunbar’s use of slang definitely made the poem more worth the read. This poem was about a father speaking to his child and pouring out affection, he sits the child on his lap and start anazlyzing the childs face . It’s almost like he’s taking in his childs features and admiring its growth . He cracks a joke about the boogeyman coming to get the child, he did this with purpose. He was consuming the moment and wanted affection back from the child. ” Dah,  now, I t’ought dat you’d hug me up close. Go back, ol’buggah, you sha’n’t have dis boy.”  His writing technique almost made me feel like I was in the same room with this father as he spoke to his child. I was feeling the love and was more just taken aback when I really sat and thought to myself, no matter the hardships African American men are facing during this time in the world, their heart never changed towards their little ones. This actually moved me in a way where I became sad because Dunbar was a child of a former enslaved man, his father. Writing this poem he probably spoke from experience and wanted to reflect on his childhood. Empathy lacked in this time period, and with a poem like this, it makes you question why people were treated different when at the end of the day, we all are made of the same blood and all have a heart.