Abolitionist Poetry

Both John Greenleaf Whitter's poems and Frances E. W. Harper were devoted abolitionists of their time. Harper was one of the first African American writers, who was influenced by Garrison's Liberator and also participated in the underground railroad. Whitter was a quaker who was interested in slavery and devoted himself to the "antislavery crusade."

I found reading these poems, both authors used vivid imagery to create certain feelings pertaining to their purpose of their poems. In Harper's Slave Mother she describes "she is a mother, pale with fear, Her boy clings to her side," to help the reader to imagine the experience of being separated from your child, which was common being a slave. Saying her face was pale and "hands so sadly clasped" really portrays to the reader that it was an extremely difficult time for the mother, and even sickening. In Whitter's The Hunters of Men, he states "Her foot's in the stirrup, her hand in the rein." This imagery conveys that even when the wives of their masters were kind, they were so tied up with their husbands that they too became corrupted. He also uses many descriptions in his second poem. At one point he describes the slaves dwellings as "rice-swamp dank and lone" and connects it with "noisome insect stings," "fever demon strews," and "poison with the falling dews. These characterizations are all associated with a negative image. This causes the reader to view their homes as awful, lonely and painful places.

Using imagery in poems is a effective and great way to truly give what you want your audience to take away from reading your poem. In my opinion not only does imagery allow for the reader to actually picture an image in their mind, it allows the reader to understand and relate to the poem on an even higher level.