Henry Dumas

The Writing and Styles of Henry Dumas' Poems

Henry Dumas was a very artistic and impacting poet who captured the hearts of many

readers with his inspiration of black heritage. Throughout his life Dumas managed to

write several very successful poems and a large number of short stories, however he

never reach his true potential because he was gunned down by a corrupt police officer. His

poems have been defined as genuine examples of how a true poet should introduce his passion of

poetry with the pride of a certain thing they believe in. Poems such as "What I See," "Thoughts,"

"Down the River," and "Peas" have been honored in Henry Dumas' Works as impressive

masterpieces of African American and Black heritage, history, and suffrage. Dumas used very

creative ways of writing, almost as if he was writing his poems a short story rather than a poem.

The use of many features such as similes and hyperboles gave his poetry a very distinguished

backbone that supported his way of writing style. Henry Dumas wrote his poems about African

heritage and history using a number of poetic similes, personifications, and hyperboles.

Henry DumasÐ''s pride of his own heritage as well as countless of other African

Americans in the 1950's influenced many of his marvelous and successful poetry. The

proof for this reason was that poems such as "Thoughts," "Down the River," and many others

clearly had references towards African or African American culture or heritage. Another theme

that was located throughout the poems was that people should be proud of who they are and what

they believe in as long as if it's in good heart, such as him being proud of his black heritage.

Nearly all his poems had either one of these features along with a alternative creative lesson

towards the readers. Each poem had an up holding structure about heritage or pride, such as in

"Down the River." In "Down the River" the poem takes place some time after the civil war with

a Jamaican family traveling down a river to escape a riot that was forming in their town. The riot

that was happening was due to the troubles that had arisen between the blacks and whites. In turn

the family had to leave even though they just arrived to the United States. The father of the

family begins to doubt the reason of life but his wife reminds him that family and being proud of

what you are what life is meant for them. ["Bob, we may not be as if they see us; and as well we

may not be as we seem. But just look at yur family, they are the same as yu from yur willingness

to yur color."](Lines 75-77) This is only one of the few poems that are described as if it was a

short story not a poem. "My Little Boy" however is formatted as any traditional poem but it still

follows Dumas' concepts of his thoughts. ["My Little boy speaks with an accent. I must

remember sometime to learn my head and whisper in his ear and ask him the name of the country

he comes from. I like his accent."](Lines 1-5) The character in this poem adopts a boy that is

from Africa and every time the man listens to him speak, he is overwhelmed with the happiness

of his ancestral background; another instance where Dumas uses his own pride. In many

instances, Dumas purposely based happenings in his life inside many of his poems but still held

his distinctive feature of poetry writing.

"Good-bye" and "Yams" are poems where Dumas imbedded his personal happenings. In

"Good-bye," Dumas faces a heartbreaking promise to never take revenge on those who beat his

friend and left him for death. Though Dumas never mentions who did it, hints are portrayed that

white cops were responsible. However the true message of the poem was that taking revenge

never will accomplish anything but standing tall and never stooping to their level is they way to

beat them. "Yams" too had a similar feature as it takes place at Dumas's childhood when he

lived in poverty and had very little to eat. ["I made a yamship for my belly with my spoon and

sweet riding jelly bread kept me til noon."](Lines 1-2) This is another reference to his main plot

line because Dumas was born in the very poor parts of Detroit where an enormous amount of

Blacks lived. In turn, not a single on of his poems strayed away from his main issues. Henry

Dumas captured both separate lessons, being proud, and his own personal thoughts of African

American heritage to fabricate some very inspiriting poems.

Dumas'