Could I please have some help with finding a good list of poems that deal with social and political issues?
Any help would be appreciated.
A google search for "political poems" yields 483,000 results. Have fun!
Les
Remeber that song from the 80's "We Didn't Start the Fire". One of my teachers printed out the lyrics and we read it and it deals with every political issue under the sun!
Here you go:
1949
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe Dimaggio,
1950
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe,
1951
Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom,
Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye
1952
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new Queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana good-bye .
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
1953
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist bloc,
1954
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Tosconini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, Rock Around the Clock,
1955
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
1956
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev,
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez.
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
1957
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge on the River Kwai,
1958
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather homicide, Children of Thalidomide,
1959
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia,
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no go,
1960
U-2, Syngman Rhee, Payola, and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo.
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
1961
Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion,
1962
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
1963
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK blown away, What else do I have to say?
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
1964 to1989
Birth control, Ho Chi-Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate,Punk Rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airlines
Ayatollahs in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, Heavy metal, Suicide,
Foreign debts, Homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz,
Hypodermics on the shore, China's Under Martial Law,
Rock and Roller Cola Wars, I can't take it any more!
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on and on and on and on.....
CHORUS
The dates in between the words are not part of the song: They were placed there by Gerhart Gradenegger. Those are the dates the events occurred.
Les
W.H. Auden's poem about Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the lawyer who partitioned India and Pakistan.
Partition - W.H. Auden
Unbiassed at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
‘Time,’ they had briefed him in London, ‘is short. It’s too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate :
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we’ve arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.’
Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.
The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.
Rudyard Kipling: A dead statesman
Hilaire Belloc: Epitaph on a politician
G K Chesterton: Elegy in country churchyard
You might also check out the poem request thread authored by 'Hoos.' It's about war poems- and should have some crossover.
pam
Also, almost every movement has a website or two or dozens, and many of the websites have pages of cause-related poems.
Also, you can search for [prohibition + poetry] or [abolition + poetry] or [election + poetry] or [communism + poetry], etc., and get hits galore.
thanks everyone, those poems are great