The Poets

• Angelou, Maya: Inauguration Poem, Black Family Pledge, Phenomenal Woman, Still I Rise, Ain't That Bad?, Son to Mother, A Brave and Startling Truth, On The Pulse of Morning, Refusal, The Lesson, Caged Bird, Passing Time, When You Come to Me, Remembrance, A Conceit, Touched by An Angel, On Aging, Glory Falls, Equality, A poem from the Million Man March, These Yet to be United States, Televised, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
• Brooks, Gwendolyn: The Good Man, The Ballad of Rudolph Reed, Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward, garbageman; the man with the orderly mind, We Real Cool, Sadie and Maud, The Bean Eaters, The Crazy Woman, A Bronzeville mother loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile a Mississippi Mother burns bacon; More Poems (just a few more from the celebrated poet)
• Clifton, Lucille: seeker of visions, four notes to Clark Kent, Lorena, telling our stories, A Dream of Foxes-- 6 poems, the mississippi river empties into the gulf, memory, fury
• Dove, Rita: Lady Freedom Among Us, Hade's Pitch, Sonnet in Primary Colors, My Mother Enters the Work Force, The Boast, The Fish in the Stone, Used, History, Afield, Lost Brilliance
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence: Miscellaneous Works: (The Poet and His Song, Ere Sleep Comes Down, Unexpressed, The Poet, Little Brown Baby, Ione, To Louise, A Negro Love Song, After the Quarrel, Song, Passion and Love, Longing, Retort, Two Songs, The Lover and the Moon, The Rivals, Alice, Night of Love, The Spellin'-Bee, A Banjo Song, Keep A-Pluggin' Away, The Wooing, An Easy-Goin' Feller, The Delinquent, Riding to Town, The Party, Why Fades a Dream?, If, When Malindy Sings, The Secret, Lonesome, Changing Time, The Sparrow, A Confidence, We Wear the Mask, Dead, One Life, The Wind and the Sea, The Colored Spiders, The Debt, The Old Apple-Tree, Sympathy, Not They Who Soar, Sunset, Compensation, The Lesson, The Rising of the Storm, Ships that Pass in the Night, A Prayer, Nora: A Serenade, Phyllis, The Dilettante: A Modern Type)
• Forten[Grimke'], Charlotte: Poem (religious poem)
• Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins: A Double Standard; To the Union Savers of Cleveland
• Horton, George Moses: The Obstruction of Genius, The Poet's Feeble Petition, Excited from Reading the Obedience of Nature to Her Lord in the Vessel on the Sea, Division of an Estate, A Slave's Reflection on the Eve Before His Sale, Farewell to Frances, The Southern Refugee

Hughes, Langston: Epigram, Projection, Flatted Fifths, Jam Session, Be-Bop Boys, Song for Billie Holiday, Trumpet Player, Afro American Fragment, Cross, Harlem Night Club, Song for a Dark Girl; Selected Poems: (April Rain Song, Dream Deferred, Mama and Daughter, Puzzled, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Aunt Sue's Stories, After Many Springs, Dreams, Troubled Woman, I Too, Teacher, Love Song for Lucinda, To Beauty, Pictures to the Wall, For an Indian Screen, Being Old, Drum); Justice and Still Here; I loved my friend . . ., When Sue Wears Red, Shout, Negro, Mother to Son; Jazzonia; The South, The Weary Blues

• Lorde, Audre: Two Poems; Coal; The Nubian Message
• Marcus, Garvey: Selected Poetry (poetry c. 1930; selections from The Negro World, Poetic Meditations, and more)
• Plato, Ann: Reflections, Written on Visiting the Grave of a Venetrated Friend
• Ray, Henrietta Cordelia: The Dawn of Love
• Shange, Ntozake: Selected Poems (twentieth century poet and inventer of the "choreopoem")
• Thompson, Clara Ann: His Answer (religious poem)
• Truth, Sojourner: Ain't I A Woman? (twentieth century free-verse)
• Walker, Alice: For My Sister Molly Who in the Fifties; Rage; Gray; I Said to Poetry: from Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll see you in the morning (Malcolm, Streaking, January 10 1973, Facing the Way, The Abduction of Saints, Early Losses: A Requiem); from Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (Killers, Torture, We Alone, Attentiveness, A Few Sirens, First They Said, 1971, Each One Pull One); Revolutionary Petunias
• Wheatley, Phillis: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (eighteenth century poetry); Liberty and Peace, A Poem (political verse); On Imagination

Also on-line:

A Brief Biography of Langston Hughes (with links to other sources of information on Hughes' life and works) Selected Bibliography of Critical Works on Langston Hughes "Phillis Wheatley: Precursor of American Abolitionism" (an article providing general information about this early, African-born, American poet)

Bibliography of literary criticism of African American literature Documenting African American Poetry in Books (a bibliography) African American Mosaic (historical influences on African American literature) A Pathfinder to Harlem: 1920-1940 (an index of library resources for the Harlem Renaissance) Resources for Africa and African-American Studies (databases, journals, directories, and archives)       This site created and maintained by Kim.Oldenburg@Reed.edu Contact Laura.Arnold@Reed.edu with questions or comments about the course and materials provided on this page.