American Poetry Supermarket

Tyler Price
11-1

“The Debt “

The Debt

This is the debt I pay,
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end-
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release-
Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best-
God! but the interest!


The poem I chose to interpret was “The Debt “by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Dunbar was the first African American poet to “garner national critical acclaim.” He was born on June 27, 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. Dunbar mostly addressed the difficulties of members of his race and trying to solve the equality problem in America. Dunbar wrote mainly during the 19th and 20th century. He gained much fame by writing the 1896 “Lyrics of a Slowly Life.” He was then quoted to be one of the best African-Americans of all time. To me this poem is very unique in many ways. Dunbar believes that’s he has seen his cultural get torn apart and they try to fight back but nothing can stop these evil men. He uses this poem to show that even though he gave so much back to his owner or master, he still will never be free. He states that the only way he will be free is if he meets the grave. “Pay it I will to the end-Until the grave, my friend, Gives me a true release- Gives me the clasp of peace,” this stanza stuck out to me because it shows how hard he must of worked and he can never be free until he is gone.
There are many rhetorical devices that I noticed in this poem, but to me the one that stuck out the most was hoe Dunbar stresses the tone. In the first stanza, Dunbar stresses how he feels and how he thinks that he don’t even know him-self anymore. Dunbar feels that what was done was wrong and he wants to stress this to the world so that they make sure something that evil could never happen again. I believe he compares slavery to “debt” because it is something you can never fully recover from. For some reason I can refer this poem to a gambler, and how he would loose his money and eventually have nothing left to survive on.
The second poem I chose to analysis is called “A Golden Day.”
I found you and I lost you,
All on a gleaming day.
The day was filled with sunshine,
And the land was full of May

A golden bird was singing
Its melody divine,
And I found you and I loved you,
And all the world was mine.

I found you and I lost you,
All on a golden day,
But when I dream of you, dear,
It is always brimming May

This second poem I chose by Dunbar was very unique. In my opinion I liked how Dunbar compared this day to a beautiful day in the month of May. He uses many examples to show how nice the day was nice, such as he says “A golden bird was singing.” Dunbar is very good with details, it’s almost like he wants you to be there with him. Although I could have chosen to read other poems, I believe Dunbar’s poems were very well done.
In my opinion, I believe Dunbar is an “American” poet. Dunbar wrote short stories, novels, librettos, plays, songs and essays. All of these writing became well known. The writings were most popular with the blacks and whites of that time. Much of Dunbar’s work is still used today. Many say Dunbar was gifted in poetry, almost compared to Mark Twain. What I think makes Dunbar an “American” poet is that he writes about specific events that’s happened to our country at that time. He shows how people struggled and how they benefited from these acts. All in all, this is why I think Dunbar can be classified as an “American” poet.