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Poems

Begin in delight, end in wisdom.

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    • Poem of the Day

      Meditation at Decatur Square

      By Natasha Trethewey
      1

      In which I try to decipher
                                the story it tells,
      this syntax of monuments
                                flanking the old courthouse:
       ...

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    • poem

      Caged Bird

      By Maya Angelou
      A free bird leaps
      on the back of the wind   
      and floats downstream   
      till the current ends
      and dips his wing
      in the orange sun rays
      and dares to claim the sky.

      But a bird that stalks
      down his narrow cage
      can seldom see through
      his bars of rage
      his wings...

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    • poem

      Lift Every Voice and Sing

      By James Weldon Johnson
      Lift every voice and sing   
      Till earth and heaven ring,
      Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
      Let our rejoicing rise
      High as the listening skies,
      Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
      Sing a song full of the faith that...

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    • poem

      I, Too

      By Langston Hughes
      I, too, sing America.
      I am the darker brother.
      They send me to eat in the kitchen
      When company comes,
      But I laugh,
      And eat well,
      And grow strong.

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    • poem

      Booker T. and W.E.B.

      By Dudley Randall
      “It seems to me,” said Booker T.,
      “It shows a mighty lot of cheek
      To study chemistry and Greek
      When Mister Charlie needs a hand
      To hoe the cotton on his land,
      And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
      Why stick your nose inside a...

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From the Current Issue of Poetry Magazine
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Near-Earth Object

      By John Shoptaw
      Unlike the monarch, though
      the asteroid also slipped
      quietly from its colony
      on its annular migration
      between Jupiter and Mars,
      enticed maybe by
      our planetary pollen
      as the monarch by my neighbor’s
      slender-leaved milkweed.
      Unlike it even when
      the fragrant Cretaceous
      atmosphere meteorized
      the airborne rock,
      flaring it into what might
      have looked to...

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    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine The Truth

      By James Tate
                Mitzy fell asleep as soon as we got home, but I didn’t.
      The evening had upset me. Why did Jack keep asking me if I’d
      been married before? And why did my answer not satisfy him?
      It was...

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    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Lychee Express

      By Adrienne Su
      What would the lovely Yang Guifei,
      concubine to the emperor,
      a Helen of China, have made
      of our gleaming grocery stores,

      always awash in berries, melons,
      tangerines? Her passion for lychees,
      rushed north by a chain of horsemen,
      laid waste to a dynasty.

      She must have understood,
      at least...

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