Nineteen-twenty-nine

A short note on a poem by William Waring Cuney

Some folks hollered hard times
in nineteen-twenty-nine.
In nineteen-twenty-eight
say I was way behind.

Some folks hollered hard times
because hard times were new.
Hard times is all I ever had,
why should I lie to you?

Some folks hollered hard times.
What is it all about?
Things were bad for me when
those hard times started out.

Analysis

People resent the fact that 1929 could have been such a great year for them if it weren’t for the Great Depression. Cuney on the other hand feels as if he was behind these people even in 1928, and that times were always hard for him. The transitioning from 1928 to 29 is trivial to him. In a way, he questions whether one should even account for the passing of time and its relevance with hardships. Does it suddenly come to happen that with the beginning of a certain year one personally marks a declination in the state of his lifestyle or does it possess more fluidity?

It’s also a take on generalizations made through macroscopic economic factors of a plummeting economy. That although these might be representative of the general public but do they ideally factor down to the individual.

The year 1929 is a metaphor for the Great Depression. There’s a snarky hit of irony when people that called the poet financially behind in 1928 fell into financial issues themselves. The repetition of the word ‘hollered’ symbolizes the irritation of the poet when people got too whiny about 1929.