Here is an extraordinary anthology by contemporary working class poets.
There seems to be a growing audience for poetry that speaks to the anxieties of our era. Traffic to the academy’s online poetry archive has surged in recent months. Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise,” has been viewed nearly 470,000 times since Nov. 8, compared to about 280,000 times in that period the previous year, while Langston Hughes’s poem, “Let America Be America Again,” has been viewed some 280,000 times, up from about 88,000 times.
Director Larraín has stated that the way Latin Americans think is shaped by poetry, by metaphor, and that his film is partly concerned with the power of poetry to move and influence. We are shown Neruda’s huge influence, as a communist poet, over his natural constituency: the ordinary working man... But what we do not see in the film is the immensely moving capacity of poetry to break down barriers between people of diametrically opposed political beliefs.
Derek Walcott, one of the finest poets of our times, died March 17 in St. Lucia, where he was born. He was 87 years old. His poetry helped illuminate the interconnections between the natural and the social worlds. Gabrielle Bellot, a staff writer for Literary Hub who grew up in the Commonwealth of Dominica, offers this appreciation.
Michelle Obama Calls Out Donald Trump. A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall (Live at Town Hall 1963). The Trump Electoral Drag. The Universe: Now With 10 Times More Galaxies. will.i.am as Donald Trump.
Already at 22, Dylan rasps out images in A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall that are elliptical, prophetic, apocalyptic and uncompromising. If this isn't poetry, what is?
This young Toronto-based poet won a place on the best-seller lists with her epigrammatic, haiku-like poetry that sometimes addresses emotionally difficult subjects. This is an unusual accomplishment for poetry in today's culture. Here is this remarkable writer's story.
Bernie Sanders National Live Stream Address. 13-Year-Old Stand-Up Owns Donald Trump. Double Domestication for Dogs? A Survivor's Poem: The Guilt of Being Alive. Gun Control and the Second Amendment.
Patience Carter survived the Orlando shooting. She's now coping with what she calls “the guilt of feeling grateful to be alive.”
Michael S. Harper, who died on Saturday in Rhinebeck, N.Y. at the age of 78, was a major American and African American poet. He was a writer of complex poems that combined history and memory with a deep network of African American cultural, folkloric, and musical allusions and symbols. This brief biography of Harper is from the Poetry Foundation's website. A generous selection of Harper's work can be found on the Foundation's website.
Spread the word