Amanda Gorman’s poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ is a moving depiction of the United States as it was on the cusp of President Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade.
‘Lochinvar’ is a ballad about a young and courageous knight who saves his beloved, the fair lady Ellen, from marrying another man.
‘The Hermit’ by Alan Paton suggests that it is impossible to find peace by locking out the pain, hunger, and emotions of others. Justice and peace are only possible through human connection and compromise.
‘Parades, Parades’ by Derek Walcott is an interesting, allusion-filled poem that discusses Saint Lucia after the end of British colonial rule.
‘A Nation’s Strength’ by William Ralph Emerson asks readers to consider what it is that makes a country great and why countries fail.
‘Earthrise’ by Amanda Gorman is a powerful contemporary poem about climate change, the Apollo 8 mission to the moon, and the future of the Earth.
In ‘3 November 1984,’ Indian-English poet Sujata Bhatt shows how history plays a vital role in the process of writing poetry, and their interconnectedness.
‘A Person is a Person Because of Other People’ by Jeremy Cronin is a poem which examines the idea of communication, in its various forms.
‘A Song: “Men of England”’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a Romantic poem that calls for the English revolution. It is set in England in 1819 when the poem itself was written.
Allen Ginsberg’s ‘America’ deals with the turbulent times in America. It was written during and focused on the period after the Second World War.
‘Animal Crackers’ by Richard de Zoysa describes the political situation in Sir Lanka through the drawing of symbolic animals.
‘First News from Villafranca’ is a protest poem written in reaction to the Villafranca Armistice (11 July 1859) between Emperors Napoleon III of France and Francis Joseph I of Austria.
Robert Lowell’s poem ‘July in Washington’ shows both sides of a coin, the coin being America. Lowell inserts different expressions and comparisons to make his stand clear to readers.
‘Mesopotamia’ by Rudyard Kipling describes the aftermath of the siege of Kut-al-Amara and those who do and do not feel the imapct of it.
The twelve-line poem, ‘No Second Troy,’ is addressed to Maud Gonne, who, to Yeats’s great distress, married John MacBride in 1903.
‘Punishment’ is featured in North, a poetry collection published in 1975. North seeks for images and symbols to convey violence and political conflicts.
‘Queenhood’ by Simon Armitage was written to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022. It celebrates the Queen’s lifetime of service and describes the unique features of her life.
‘Sonnet 124,’ also known as ‘If my dear love were but the child of state,’ is a poem about the speaker’s superior love. It has withstood a great deal and will last the test of time.
Published in Robert Bly’s award-winning collection, The Light Around the Body (1967), ‘The Great Society’ satirizes the set of domestic programs launched by Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964-65 by presenting contrasting imagery from contemporary American society.
In ‘The Lost Leader’, Browning criticises those who have abandoned liberal political ideologies and embraced the conservative lifestyle.
The Tradition is the titular poem from Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown’s poetry collection. It brings to light the maltreatment of African Americans in the present US, while relating it to the past.
‘To A Shade’ is a political poem that speaks on the treatment of Charles Parnell the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party.