Does anybody know of any good poets who have written at least three poems regarding racism, stereotypes, and culture? Or know of any really good poems about the politics of race?
AJ, look at the work of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou.
Les
There's good stuff by Countee Cullen as well.
pam
Here are two by Countee Cullen, noted award-winning black poet and author of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s. Many of his other poems also deal brilliantly with the themes of racism and intolerance.
For more information on Cullen, go here: [www.english.uiuc.edu] />
Incident
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
Simon the Cyrenian Speaks
He never spoke a word to me,
And yet He called my name;
He never gave a sign to me,
And yet I knew and came.
At first I said, "I will not bear
His cross upon my back;
He only seeks to place it there
Because my skin is black."
But He was dying for a dream,
And He was very meek,
And in His eyes there shone a gleam
Men journey far to seek.
It was Himself my pity bought;
I did for Christ alone
What all of Rome could not have wrought
With bruise of lash or stone.
I just tried a net search for [racism + poem] and found a link to this thread!
I also found this:
"Telephone Conversation"
by Wole Soyinka
[www.ksu.edu] />
And this webpage has (at the bottom) links to several more poems you might be able to use:
[home.earthlink.net]