While Cullen's work was striking and unique, he also appeared in the context of a larger literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. This was a group of Black artists based in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. Their work sought to find new, often experimental, forms to capture the Black experience. While they sometimes were influenced, like Cullen, by white writers, they expressed an interest in establishing an artistic legacy that was definitively their own, outside of the predominantly white voices of American literature. Much like "From the Dark Tower," many of the poems by these writers were concerned with the meaning of work to Black Americans, particularly as it related to the respect and payment they received for it.
A good example of this examination is Langston Hughes' "Brass Spittoons":
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a day.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a day
Buy shoes for the baby.
House rent to pay.
Gin on Saturday,
Church on Sunday.
Hughes uses short lines and repeated lines of speech to show the repetitive monotony of the protagonist's work. The textural detail of the "slime in hotel spittoons" as well as the insulting tone of the phrase "Hey, boy!" show the demeaning nature of his employment. However, Hughes also notes that he has a great deal he needs to pay for, including rent, baby shoes, gin, and church donations. This clipped poem effectively shows how its speaker is trapped in this frustrating work by the weight of obligation.
While the work described by Hughes occurs in a city environment, other poets focused their attention on rural areas. In his poem "Harvest Song," Jean Toomer describes a long day spent harvesting an oat field:
I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown. All my oats are cradled.
But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them. And I hunger.I crack a grain between my teeth. I do not taste it.
I have been in the fields all day. My throat is dry. I hunger.
Toomer captures a different sort of exhaustion than that of "Brass Spittoons." The speaker highlights how reaping the field has left him completely exhausted. He repeats the line "I hunger" after enumerating the painful aches in his body, showing that each day this work leaves him entirely depleted. The portrait of work here is not an elevating one; the speaker does not appear satisfied with his efforts. Instead, he seems broken down, hinting that he does this out of necessity and not choice. Like Toomer and Hughes, Cullen sought to show that the work of Black people deserved equal dignity and recognition to that of their white counterparts. At the same time, they also revealed the thankless nature of much of this work.
