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-Homemaker(s)
-Marriage/Wifehood***
-Factory work that was available

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Title "Poem" contrasts poetry being a high art with the actions and depictions of a Black boy

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uses reference to Lafayette to display her influences

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The business of the first part signifying the roles Black people were delegated to. Themes of blue collar work and how that contrasts mobility

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Ironically calling out the 'minstrel' image that the poem creates towards the boy, but challenging that kind of control by also acknowledging that she can see beyond that image.

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bottle of sand = cultural representation of something else "taken" from African

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Specifically within the lines, "The grins, the nods, the bowin'- It sure wasn't no picnic":

We can see how Helene Johnson expresses her hyperawareness towards the confined opportunities in society for Black women.

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"And the way your hair shines in the spotlight / Like it was the real stuff"

Potential allusion to the conk hairstyle Black men used to wear. If so, it gives sense that Johnson is wishing for a more authentic self and that Black men didn't have to conform.

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"I know the crowd thought he was coo-coo"

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the emblems or insignia of royalty, especially the crown, scepter, and other ornaments used at a coronation.

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Challenging the controlling image of little Black boys

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Johnson using vernacular language

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Double/Triple Consciousness
Signifying/Worrying the Line
Vernacular Language
Backlash to the "Politics of Respectability"
Misogynoir
Black Social Uplift

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Shows this in the way the Black man dances--being aware of his perception, but not caring anyway