POEMS 

“Harlem” by Langston Hughes

“On Liberty and Slavery” by George Moses Horton

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson

“Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander

“I, Too” by Langston Hughes

“Frederick Douglass” by Robert Hayden

“Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou

“For My People” by Margaret Walker

“Riot” by Gwendolyn Brooks

“The Birth of John Henry” by Melvin B. Tolson

“Narrative: Ali” by Elizabeth Alexander

“Canary” by Rita Dove

“Booker T. and W.E.B.” by Dudley Randall 

“Georgia Dusk” by Jean Toomer

“Lonely Eagles” by Marilyn Nelson

“In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.” by June Jordan 

“Malcolm X, February 1965” by E. Ethelbert Miller

“American History” by Michael S. Harper

“The African Burial Ground” by Yusef Komunyakaa

“A Negro Love Song” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

“Middle Passage” by Robert Hayden

from The Lost Letters of Frederick Douglass by Evie Shockley

“The Blues Don’t Change” by Al Young

“Ode to Big Trend” by Terrance Hayes

“waiting on the mayflower” by Evie Shockley

“Nina’s Blues” by Cornelius Eady

“1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer” by June Jordan

“Race” by Elizabeth Alexander

“History as Process” by Amiri Baraka 

“Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall

from Citizen: “You are in the dark, in the car...” by Claudia Rankine

“Elegy for the Native Guards” by Natasha Trethewey

“From the Unwritten Letters of Joseph Freeman” by Camille T. Dungy

“Satchmo” by Melvin B. Tolson

“Manifesto, or Ars Poetica #2” by Krista Franklin

“Green-Thumb Boy” by Marilyn Nelson

“The Laws of Motion” by Nikki Giovanni

“Billie Holiday” by E. Ethelbert Miller

“American Income” by Afaa Michael Weaver

“The Slave Auction” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

“Miz Rosa Rides the Bus” by Angela Jackson

“The Gospel of Barbecue” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

“Eddie Priest’s Barbershop & Notary” by Kevin Young

“A Black Man Talks of Reaping” by Arna Bontemps

“Runagate Runagate” by Robert Hayden

“Black Boys Play the Classics” by Toi Derricotte

“Ode to Herb Kent” by Jamila Woods

“alternate names for black boys” by Danez Smith

“Alameda Street” by Douglas Kearney

“Sorrow Home” by Margaret Walker

“Dr. Booker T. Washington to the National Negro Business League” by Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr.

“faithless” by Quraysh Ali Lansana

“Enlightenment” by Natasha Trethewey

“Harlem Shadows” by Claude McKay

“Southern Gothic” by Rickey Laurentiis

“Ghana Calls” by W.E.B. Du Bois

“Dancing with Strom” by Nikky Finney

“__________ my loved blacknesses & some blacknesses I knew” by Khadijah Queen

“Afterimages” by Audre Lorde

[up from slobbery] by Harryette Mullen

“Robeson at Rutgers” by Elizabeth Alexander

“The Fifth Fact” by Sarah Browning

“Rwanda: Where Tears Have No Power” by Haki Madhubuti

“The Great Pax Whitie” by Nikki Giovanni

from Citizen: “Some years there exists a wanting to escape...” by Claudia Rankine

“Poem for My Father” by Quincy Troupe

“Short Speech to My Friends” by Amiri Baraka

“Take Me Out to the Go-Go” by Thomas Sayers Ellis

“Slave Sale: New Orleans” by Charles Reznikoff

 

ARTICLES

“200 Years of Afro-American Poetry” by Langston Hughes

“The Black Poet as Canon-Maker” by Elizabeth Alexander

“The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” by Langston Hughes

“The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America: Something like a sonnet for Phillis Wheatley” by June Jordan

“Finding a Window: Nikky Finney on the South, Condoleezza Rice, and why curiosity trumps rage” by Kimberly Reyes

“Lights and Shadows: Dewey Roscoe Jones and the Chicago Defender’s poetic legacy” by Delaney Hall

“Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood” by June Jordan

“Blueprint for BreakBeat Writing: Why hip-hop has everything to do with poetry” by Nate Marshall

“Beware the Dog: How the African-American literary organization Cave Canem came to be” by Abigail Deutsch

“Langston Hughes and the Broadway Blues” by Franklin Bruno

“Jazz as Communication” by Langston Hughes

“Playing by Ear, Praying for Rain: The Poetry of James Baldwin” by Nikky Finney

“She Could Tell You Stories”: Lucille Clifton interviewed by Hilary Holladay 

“The Roads Taken” by Haki Madhubuti

“Life Upon These Shores: On Robert Hayden’s powerful poem about the transatlantic slave trade” by Lavelle Porter

“Way Out of Africa: Chris Abani’s years of torture and persecution by the Nigerian government” by Charles Mudede

“Art, Artifice, and Artifact: On rap’s delights” by Quraysh Ali Lansana

  

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES 

“With A Little Help from Dr. Angelou” by the Editors

“Experience, Experiment: Using Black poetry in creative writing classes” by Patricia Spears Jones

“Square Toes and Icy Arms: Personification in the works of Zora Neale Hurston and James Weldon Johnson” by Catherine Barnett

“Verse Journalism and the Poet as Witness: Teaching history and current events through a new type of poetry writing” by Georgia A. Popoff and Quraysh Ali Lansana

“Maya Angelou 101: A brief guide to her poetry” by the Editors

“Gwendolyn Brooks 101: Classic poems from a Chicago poet” by Danielle Chapman

Poem Guide on Elizabeth Alexander’s “Race” by Stephen Burt

Poem Guide on Nikky Finney’s “The Afterbirth, 1931” by Kwame Dawes

Poem Guide on Gwendolyn Brooks’s “kitchenette building” by Hannah Brooks-Motl

Poem Guide on Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” by David Biespiel

Poem Guide on Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me” by Robin Ekiss

 

 

PODCASTS 

The Poet and the Riot: Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem on the Chicago riots of 1968

No Images: Celebrating Black History Month with William Waring Cuney, Cornelius Eady, and Thomas Sayers Ellis

Follow the Drinking Gourd: Quraysh Ali Lansana channels the voice of Harriet Tubman

Beautiful Voices Project: Harmony Holiday on Afrosonics, an archive of rare audio clips featuring African American voices

Amiri Baraka is Back in the Building: His poetry and legacy one year after his death

Middle Passage: Robert Hayden’s harrowing narrative poem on the slave trade

Obamapoetics: Elizabeth Alexander on how the Derek Walcott-toting, June Jordan-quoting president will affect poets and poetry

Social Media, Race, and Disney Princesses: Franny Choi and Saeed Jones blend poetry and culture

I’ve Known Rivers: The poetry of Langston Hughes

When the Weary Blues Met Jazz: Langston Hughes’s collaboration with Charles Mingus and Leonard Feather

“Confronting the Warpland: Black poets of Chicago” A radio documentary by Ed Herrmann

June Jordan: Producer Wesley Weissberg interviews poets and critics about June Jordan’s legacy and rap’s place in poetry.

History’s Lost and Found: Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey reads from and discusses her work

“Without the Blues There Would Be No Jazz”: The magazine editors discuss poems by Danez Smith, Franny Choi, and Claudia Rankine, plus Nikky Finney on the poetry of James Baldwin.

The BreakBeat Poets: Quaraysh Ali Lansana describes how his life and poems have been shaped by hip hop, plus the editors discuss poems by Jamila Woods, Tara Betts, and Kristiana Rae Colón.

The Snowed-in Life: What does snow have to do with race?

A Name Like a Handcuff: Reginald Dwayne Betts reads his poems and discusses why he is “no longer a black poet.”

from the Washington DC Poetry Tour: Highlights featuring Reuben Jackson, Brian Gilmore, and A.B. Spellman.