In "Cane," the first story blends poetry and prose: "Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon/ O cant [sic] you see it, O cant [sic] you see it/ Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon/...When the sun goes down." The black skin in question belongs to Karintha, who carries "beauty, perfect as dusk when the sun goes down." A new definition of black beauty emerges, associated with the beauties of night, and a matchless night-black female character strides into American literature. Toomer, realizing that people tend to be blinded by both darkness and beauty, pleaded at the outset with "O cant [sic] you see it" for readers to beware.
In McKay's most well-known sonnets, he employs animal imagery for violent and vicious effect. "America" begins: "Although she feeds me bread of bitterness/And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth/Stealing my breath of life...." McKay's adopted country connotes death with inedible bread and attacking tigers. McKay's most famous poem, "If We Must Die," starts, "If we must die, let it not be like hogs/Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot/ While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs/Making their mock at our accursed lot." Published after the race riots during the summer of 1919, McKay challenges black people to fight like soldiers and not succumb like pigs penned for slaughter. The "dogs" refer to two-legged humans who attack African-Americans.
Countee Cullen's ambition to rank among the great English Romantic poets prompted him to question the celebration of African culture central to the Harlem Renaissance. What, precisely, did African-Americans in Harlem know about Africa 300 years after departing its shores? In "Heritage" Cullen ponders: "What is Africa to me:/ Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track/Strong bronzed men, or regal black/Women.../Spicy grove, cinnamon tree/What is Africa to me?" For 128 lines, lush metaphors for Africa pile on top of each other, to make readers pause and question what they know about Africa and how they came to know it.
Often considered the central voice of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes seldom failed to provide fresh metaphors for black people's condition. "Mother to Son" begins: "Well, son, I'll tell you:/Life for me ain't been no crystal stair/It's had tacks in it/And splinters/And boards torn up/And places with no carpet on the floor--/Bare." The mother presents to the son her life as an ascent up a decrepit staircase. In "Dream Variations," Hughes, in typical fashion, celebrates his blackness, linking it to the beauties of night: "To fling my arms wide/In the face of the sun/Dance! Whirl! Whirl!/Till the quick day is done./Rest at pale evening.../A tall, slim tree.../Night coming tenderly/Black like me." Throughout the short poem, white images stand in opposition to black ones until the speaker embraces the night because it moves "Black like me".