Poetry: Perseverance
Again Later
America
Apollo
Approach of Winter
A Psalm Of Life
Ariel
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
A Wicker Basket
Break of Day
Casey at the Bat
Columbus
dear white america
Death Be Not Proud
Declaration
Digging
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dreams
Dreams
Drum Dream Girl
"Faith" is a fine invention
For A Poet
For You O Democracy
Frederick Douglass
Freedom Summer
From Blossoms
From The Dark Tower
God’s Grandeur
Good Bones
Good Man
Having It Out with Melancholy
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Hurt Locker
I Am the People, the Mob
I Ask My Mother to Sing
Identity
If—
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
If I should die
If We Must Die
I look at the world
Immigrants in Our Own Land
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
In Memoriam
In This Place (An American Lyric)
Introduction to Poetry
Invictus
I Sit and Sew
I Will Put Chaos Into Fourteen Lines
Jabberwocky
Kindness
Learning to Read
Let Evening Come
Lift Every Voice and Sing
Light Shining Out of Darkness
Love After Love
[love is more thicker than forget]
Me and the Mule
Mutability
my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell
My Father's Song
Planetarium
Postcolonial Love Poem
Prometheus
Race
Song of Myself
Sonnet
Sonnet 76
Spring and All
Still I Rise
Sympathy
The Art of Disappearing
The Battle of Maldon
The Coming on of Night
The Congo
The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to Be Bilingual
The Explosion
The Flea
The Flock
The Paper Nautilus
The Rose that Grew from Concrete
The Undefeated
The White House
The Writer
Things We Carry on the Sea
To Be in Love
To Be Of Use
Today
To make a prairie
To The Diaspora
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
To Waken An Old Lady
Valentine
Wade in the Water
We Grow Accustomed to the Dark
We Real Cool
What the Living Do
When I Consider How My Light is Spent
Wingfoot Lake
wishes for sons
You Are Jeff
This thematic Collection highlights poems centered on the experiences of perseverance and determination. These titles examine the human drive to overcome personal and social obstacles, such as racism. Representing hundreds of years of literary history, the Collection includes works by authors such as John Donne, Maya Angelou, Walt Whitman, and Kwame Alexander.
“Do not go gentle into that good night” is an iconic poem by 20th-century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who occupied a special place in the public imagination for his magnetic readings and the revival of Romantic themes in his poetry. This poem, which appeared in his 1952 collection In Country Sleep, remains a favorite in anthologies and popular culture for its universal content and unforgettable dual refrain. “Do not go gentle into that good night” is... Read Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Summary
... Read If— Summary
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam AHH explores the cosmic implications of the death of a college friend (his sister’s fiancé), poet Arthur Henry Hallam, who died quite unexpectedly in 1833 at the age of 22 most likely from a cerebral hemorrhage. The poem is among the most ambitiously conceived philosophical poems in the English language and a monument to the dynamics of how Christians themselves grapple with the thorny question of mortality. The work stands... Read In Memoriam Summary
“Light Shining Out of Darkness,” written by William Cowper, was first published in 1774 by John Newton, a Calvinist pastor, in Twenty-Six Letters on Religious Subjects; to Which Are Added Hymns. Later, the hymn was again collected in Olney Hymns in 1779, a text featuring hymns by both Cowper and Newton (“Light Shining Out of Darkness.” Representative Poetry Online, 1998.). In addition to being a hymn, the text could be labeled as a lyric poem... Read Light Shining Out of Darkness Summary
Simon J. Ortiz originally published “My Father’s Song” in his poetry/story collection entitled A Good Journey (1977). Ortiz is a major writer in the Native American Renaissance, a movement which began in the 1960s and marked a significant increase in the production of literary works by Native Americans in the United States. The poem was written at a time when Ortiz was collecting and recounting stories from Indigenous tribes across the United States, and his... Read My Father's Song Summary
“Song of Myself” is a free verse poem by the American writer, journalist, and poet Walt Whitman. The poem is often classified as a work of transcendentalist literature. Originally self-published by Whitman himself in 1855, it was considerably revised and expanded over subsequent decades. In 1889, “Song of Myself” was released in its final form as part of the last edition of the collection Leaves of Grass. This final version—the version referenced in this guide—is... Read Song of Myself Summary
Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist whose career spanned over 50 years. She published seven autobiographies, several books of poetry, and three essay collections and wrote plays, movies, and television shows. Her widely acclaimed work has received numerous awards, and Angelou has received over 50 honorary degrees. Her best known work is her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing, which focuses on her childhood up to the... Read Still I Rise Summary
“The Battle of Maldon” is a heroic poem, also classified as an epic, dating from the 10th century. Originally written in Old English, the text details a violent battle between the Anglo-Saxon warriors and the raiding Vikings. The Anglo-Saxons are led by Earl Byrhtnoth, who held land in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Essex and fought for his ruler, King Æthelred the Unready. The poem depicts some of the central tenets of Anglo-Saxon culture, praising loyalty... Read The Battle of Maldon Summary
“The Undefeated” (2019) is a free verse children’s poem by poet and novelist Kwame Alexander. The poem, published as a picture book, celebrates Black Americans, highlighting the struggles the Black community has endured and overcome throughout America’s history, with particular attention on great figures from history, including artists, athletes, and civil rights activists. While the poem’s target audience is children, Alexander and the book’s illustrator, Kadir Nelson, address serious topics like slavery and police brutality... Read The Undefeated Summary
Gwendolyn Brooks stands among the foremost American poets of the 20th century. A master of poetic form and portraiture, she explored black life in Chicago, where she lived for the majority of her life. The poem “We Real Cool,” Brooks’s most famous work, appeared in her 1960 collection The Bean Eaters.As a fledgling writer, Brooks combined early influences from the literary era of modernism, defined by poets like Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, and... Read We Real Cool Summary