To celebrate Black History Month in February—and the rich tradition of American poetry all year long—browse essays on literary milestones and movements, find important books on black history and poetics, look for lesson plans for Black History Month, read archival letters from classic Black poets, and search poems about the Black experience by both classic and contemporary poets.
Poems for Black History Month
Featured Poems
“Tending” by Elizabeth Alexander
In the pull-out bed with my brother …
"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history...
"The Tradition" by Jericho Brown
Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought...
“American Sonnet (10)” by Wanda Coleman
our mothers wrung hell and hardtack from row …
“Dirt” by Kwame Dawes
We who gave, owned nothing …
"The Weakness" by Toi Derricotte
That time my grandmother dragged me...
"A Negro Love Song" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Seen my lady home las’ night...
“Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)” by Nikki Giovanni
I was born in the congo ...
“Middle Passage” by Robert Hayden
Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy …
“American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [But there never was a black male hysteria]” by Terrance Hayes
But there never was a black male hysteria …
"Dreams" by Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams...
“To America” by James Weldon Johnson
How would you have us, as we are?
“Notes on the Peanut” by June Jordan
Hi there. My name is George …
“Soul Train” by Allison Joseph
Oh how I wanted to be a dancer …
"Shared Plight" by Kamilah Aisha Moon
Bound to whims …
“The Bronze Legacy” by Effie Lee Newsome
‘Tis a noble gift to be brown, all brown …
"Washington Mews" by Rowan Ricardo Phillips
I won’t ever tell you how it ended …
"Here" by Ed Roberson
There is nothing concrete to grasp in...
"there is no flash" by Metta Sáma
the eyes fine tuned perhaps...
"This Is Not a Small Voice" by Sonia Sanchez
This is not a small voice...
"du bois in ghana" by Evie Shockley
at 93, you determined to pick up and go—
“& even the black guy’s profile reads ‘sorry, no black guys’” by Danez Smith
imagine a tulip, upon seeing a garden full of tulips …
"Incendiary Art" by Patricia Smith
The city’s streets are densely shelved with rows …
"Amos, 1963" by Margaret Walker"
Amos is a Shepherd of suffering sheep...
"Walk On, Walk Away" by Afaa Michael Weaver
Can we just stay here in the space where our loud laughing …
“Watch Us Elocute” by Marcus Wicker
So I’m at this party, right …
Featured Audio Poems
"Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou
"We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks
"litany" by Mahogany L. Browne
“‘I’m Rooting for Everybody Black’” by Cortney Lamar Charleston
"homage to my hips" by Lucille Clifton
"A Place in the Country" by Toi Derricotte
“Given to Rust” by Vievee Francis
“Rocksteady” by Ishion Hutchinson
“Fly” by Gary Jackson
“What Would Gwendolyn Brooks Do” by Parneshia Jones
"These Poems" by June Jordan
from “The Last Bohemian of Avenue A” by Yusef Komunyakaa
“the valley of its making” by Nate Marshall
“America Gives Its Blackness Back to Me” by Shane McCrae
from Citizen, IV; from Citizen, VI; from Citizen, VI, part 2 by Claudia Rankine
“Nomenclatures of Invisibility” by Mahtem Shiferraw
"When Black People Are" by A. B. Spellman
"The Day Duke Raised: May 24th, 1974" by Quincy Troupe
Featured Video
Rachel Eliza Griffiths’s Poets on Poetry (P.O.P.)
This video series features contemporary American poets who read both an original poem and a poem by another poet and reflect on their choice. Watch videos featuring Cornelius Eady, Ross Gay, Terrance Hayes, John Murillo, Roger Reeves, Tracy K. Smith, Afaa Michael Weaver, and many more.
Verses for Hope
On November 13, 2016, just days after the 2016, the Academy of American Poets and Brain Pickings presented a pop-up reading, “Verses for Hope.” Watch Chancellor Elizabeth Alexander read her poem “Praise Song for the Day.”
Archival Letters
In this letter from our archive, Ai sends her materials to the Academy of American Poets after hearing that she has been selected as the winner of the Lamont Prize.
Here Ai makes a special point to say that she wishes to be referred to solely as “Ai.” She writes: “Please, please in all publicity call me Ai and nothing else. That’s the only name I want on the book and should be the only name you use. Hardly anyone knows who P. Ogawa is. Thanks.”
Ai was the recipient of the Lamont Prize, the Academy of American Poets’ second book prize, for Killing Floor (Houghton Mifflin, 1979), selected by judges Maxine Kumin, Philip Levine, and Charles Wright.
In this letter from our archive, Robert Hayden responds to the news that he has been named the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Fellowship. In his letter he writes, “I am sensible of the honor bestowed upon me—one that I never expected to receive—and I am deeply moved by the fact that you and your distinguished Board of Chancellors have found merit in my work.” Modesty aside, by the time he wrote this letter in 1975, Hayden’s career had hit a notable stride begun with a number of honors he received in 1966.
In the summer of 1966, Elizabeth Kray, then executive director of the Academy of American Poets, invited Langston Hughes, the leading poetic figure of the Harlem Renaissance, to read in New York City at the Guggenheim Museum with fellow New York poet Léonie Adams. In the letter, he writes, “In these rather dreary times, it might enliven the evening if I choose a selection of my humorous poems for our program, as I think I will …” The “dreary times” Hughes mentions likely refers to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and the escalating war in Vietnam.
