As I read through the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar this week, I found his poems both intriguing with his use of dialect and his use of puzzling metaphors. First used in "We wear the Mask", Dunbar uses the object of a mask to stress the idea of how a person hides his emotion through just putting on an everyday fake smile. I guess you could say this poem really spoke to me because everyone has those days where we struggle to keep on fighting. We do our absolute best to show our strength in the time of weakness and put on a front of having everything under control. But in reality, sometimes we can be broken inside and it's all we can do just to put on a that famous fake smile of ours and go about day to day life. This poem wasn't exactly the most puzzling thing in the world to figure out but him using this symbolism is pretty spot on.
"When Malindy Sings" was another poem that stood out with its unique dialogue. It is really amazing to me how he can use this type of accent in his writing and still know exactly what is going on. You could almost tell that Dunbar knew exactly how to use the accent in the appropriate way. The culture must've been prevalent in his past for him to imitate it that well.
As I was searching for current poems, the options were not very limitless as I expected but I came across a poet from Winnipeg named Jon Paul Fiorentino. His poem "In Perfect Winnipeg" shows his cultural attachment to his country as he lists the different activities performed in each providence. Not a lot of similarities between these poets at all, but as far as cultural, they both are true to their roots.
 http://lemonhound.com/2013/09/27/jon-paul-fiorentino-two-poems/