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Initiation Stories

Claude McKay’s “The Harlem Dancer” is an English, or Shakespearean sonnet because of its rhyme scheme:

a Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
b And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
a Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
b Blown by black players upon a picnic day.

c She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
d The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
c To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
d Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.

e Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
f Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
e The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
f ...

Posted by: Gabrielle Gooch

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