won’t you celebrate with me
Lucille Clifton, 1936-2010, U.S. won’t you celebrate with mewhat i have shaped intoa kind of life? i had no model.born in babylonboth nonwhite and womanwhat …
Hurricane
By Yona Harvey, U.S. Four tickets left, I let her go—Firstborn into a hurricane. I thought she escapedThe floodwaters. No—but her Head is empty of …
Let America Be America Again
By Langston Hughes, 1902-1967, U.S. Let America be America again.Let it be the dream it used to be.Let it be the pioneer on the plainSeeking …
Who Said It Was Simple
By Audre Lorde, 1934-1992, U.S. There are so many roots to the tree of anger that sometimes the branches shatter before they bear.Sitting in Nedicksthe …
Barter
By Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933, U.S. Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things,Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that …
We Wear The Mask
By Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906, U.S. We wear the mask that grins and lies,It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—This debt we pay to …
Incident
By Countee Cullen, 1903-1946, U.S. Once riding in old Baltimore,Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,I saw a BaltimoreanKeep looking straight at me.Now I was eight and very …
The Virus
By Jericho Brown, 2018, U.S. Dubbed undetectable, I can’t killThe people you touch, and I can’tBlur your viewOf the pansies you’ve plantedOutside the window, meaningI …
Little Prayer
By Danez Smith, 2017, U.S. let ruin end here let him find honeywhere there was once a slaughter let him enter the lion’s cage& find …
A Litany For Survival
By Audre Lorde, 1934-1992, U.S. For those of us who live at the shorelinestanding upon the constant edges of decisioncrucial and alonefor those of us …