Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Strange Fruit:


Read the following poem.  What is your interpretation of this work?
Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
Abel Meeropol,(1932)

26 comments:

  1. I think that the story is about the African American slaves.
    "Sudden smell of burning flesh"( Abel Meeropol) mean that the white people are burning the slaves.

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  2. It's talking about how blacks where killed, " bulging eyes and the twisted mouth" that means someone is being hanged. " black body swinging in the southern breeze". They comparing a piece of fruit swinging on the tree.

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  3. Black body swinging in the southern breeze.s showing how the African American where hanged.

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  4. This poem shows you how black people dies in the 1932 "black body's swinging on the tree" mean that there are black people dead on the trees and there swinging

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  5. The poem is show how they killed black people and leaves them there for everybody to see them "swinging from the tree" mean that they leave the body's there.

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  6. It shows how the treated black people back in the day

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  7. "Blood on the leaves and blood at the root" explains how rasict it was back then and how they would hang them and leave blood on the trees.

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  8. The poem tells about someone hanging a black men.
    (Blood on the leaves blood at the root, Black body swinging in the southern breeze)

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  9. This poem is showing that a black person is being hanged. This person is feeling nothing for the dead body on the rope.

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  10. This show racism toward black people back then and what they would do to them and someone witness that.
    "Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
    Black body swinging in the Southern breeze"

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  11. It's about how many people were racist and how the killed not just blacks but anyone they though was in the wrong

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  12. The poetry peace is about someone that got hanged
    Blood on the leaves and blood at the blood at the root
    It his passage is talking about someone who got murdered because fruit does not bleed.

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  13. This poem is about African Americans being hung on an everyday basis.

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  14. This is about a guy who was hung from a tree like "black body swinging in the southern breeze" (meelpol)

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  15. This talk about how the south at one time killed blacks for no reason. So people just watched and they didn't care what happens to them.

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  16. Saying that basicly there comparing the hung bodies of the blacks with the fruits that had grown on the trees.

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  17. I think the poem is about a murder hanged in the woods "blood everywhere and bulging eyes and twisted mouth".

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  18. This poem is about killing people it said (black people body swinging in the southern breeze)

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  19. It's about people hanging black people and how it will be a bloody event

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  20. I think it's comparing the black people to fruit hanging on trees it says "Here is a fruit for crows to peck" which refers to crows and vultures to be scavengers .

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  21. This poetry is about people getting murdered. A human bean hung by a tree bloody with their eyes popping out. "Blood on the leaves and blood on the root" explains to me that this is not a fruit.

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  22. Black body swinging in the southern breezes showing how the African American where hanged.

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  23. " Blood on leaves and blood at the root"
    I think that the story is about people getting hanged on trees and blood coming out.

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