Political poems

Thinkings and poems 1 Minute

3000456.jpghttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/144562/political-poems

 

COLLECTION

Political Poems

Poets lend voices to current events and elections as they critique and defend the social and political issues of their day.

Political cartoon by James Akin (1773-1846), depicting President Andrew Jackson and the press, published 1824.

Plato wanted to banish poets from his Republic because they can make lies seem like truth. Shelley thought poets were “the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” and Auden insisted that “poetry makes nothing happen.” This collection of poems point to the many different kinds of political poems, and the reasons for writing them.

USHERING IN: U.S. INAUGURAL POEMS

JFK requested Frost, Clinton invited Angelou and Miller, and Obama asked Alexander: read the four poems that have been read at presidential inaugurations.

  • ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

    I know there’s something better down the road.
    We need to find a place where we are safe.
    We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

  • MAYA ANGELOU

    But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
    Come, you may stand upon my
    Back and face your distant destiny,

  • ROBERT FROST

    Something we were withholding made us weak
    Until we found out that it was ourselves

  • MILLER WILLIAMS

    But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
    except in the minds of those who will call it Now?

 

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Published by Katherine

Poetry writer and author

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