Toomer vividly and poetically depicts African-American life in the south during the Jim Crow era. And there's lots of imagery of sugar cane in this book. Sweeeet! (Yes, the sugar part. The vestiges of slavery bits are not quite so saccharine.)
How does Toomer use the devices of repetition and parallelism in the poems and prose-poems in Cane? What effect do these devices have?
Think about the form of the book. It's divided into sections and made up of short pieces of prose and poetry. Why do you think Toomer opts for this unusual, fragmented form?