The Harlem Renaissance

                Sterling Brown was a highly educated African American poet that wrote many of his poems about the life of those who shared his ethnicity. His 65 line “Odyssey of Big Boy” is just that; a very short odyssey. First by summarizing the poem, we come to understand that we have a man who has worked many jobs since he was only a boy. He works for a little while, and moves onto another job, all involving physical labor. Along his life, he has relationships with quite a few women, and in the end gets caught with a white man’s wife. Sterling Brown was obviously educated enough to write standard poetry, but in the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, he writes the whole poem in a strong dialect. He utilizes a pattern of repetition  of the last two lines of almost every quintain, giving his poetry a strong metrical sense. The structure of the stanzas are strong enough to be a poem, and the consistency of rhythm and voice could have easily made this poem into a song. It’s doubtful that a less literal meaning can be taken from this poem, but it still is an important step of developing new conventions toward poetry and strongly represents the Harlem Renaissance.