Famous Negro Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Negro poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous negro poems. These examples illustrate what a famous negro poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Whitman, Walt
...y the wind;
The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—the supper-fires, and the cooking and
eating
by
whites and *******,
Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs,
The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees—the
flames—with
the
black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising;
Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inlets of North Carolina’s
coast—the
shad-fishery and the herring-fishery—the large...Read more of this...
by
Moody, William Vaughn
...on the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.
I
Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe,
And set here in the city's talk and trade
To the good memory of Robert Shaw,
This bright March morn I stand,
And hear the distant spring come up the land;
Knowing that what I hear is not unheard
Of this ...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...g the shores of the river,
Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens,
Stood the houses of planters, with *****-cabins and dove-cots.
They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual summer,
Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and citron,
Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward.
They, too, swerved from their course; and, entering the Bayou of Plaquemine,
Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters,
Wh...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the ***** streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared thei...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...ing his quar-
ters and smiling over the smashed baggage,
nor me looking around at the horrible dream,
nor mustached ***** Operating Clerk named Spade,
dealing out with his marvelous long hand the
fate of thousands of express packages,
nor fairy Sam in the basement limping from leaden
trunk to trunk,
nor Joe at the counter with his nervous breakdown
smiling cowardly at the customers,
nor the grayish-green whale's stomach interior loft
where we keep the baggage...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...gate
On the Housatonic, but quite a few can be seen
On the Elbe. For centuries
The Afton has flowed.
If the Rio *****
Could abandon its song, and the Magdalena
The jungle flowers, the Tagus
Would still flow serenely, and the Ohio
Abrade its slate banks. The tan Euphrates would
Sidle silently across the world. The Yukon
Was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed
Bravely along. The Dee caught the day's last flares
Like the Pilcomayo's carrion rose...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...e dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the ***** bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of gr...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...t Gage, her missionary,
Turn'd many an Afric to a Tory;
Made the New-England Bishop's see grow,
By many a new-converted *****?
As friends to government, when he
Your slaves at Boston late set free,
Enlisted them in black parade,
Emboss'd with regimental red;
While flared the epaulette, like flambeau,
On Captain Cuff and Ensign Sambo:
And were they not accounted then
Among his very bravest men?
And when such means she stoops to take,
Think you she is not wide awake?
As the goo...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...ts his slumb'ring head,
And in soft vales, in land of foes,
Their wearied virtue finds repose!
See plund'ring Dunmore's ***** band
Fly headlong from Virginia's strand;
And far on southern hills our cousins,
The Scotch M'Donalds, fall by dozens;
Or where King's Mountain lifts its head,
Our ruin'd bands in triumph led!
Behold, o'er Tarlton's blustring train
Defeat extends the captive chain!
Afar near Eutaw's fatal springs,
Lo, rebel Vict'ry spreads her wings!
Through all the la...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...freedom-loving mountaineer?
I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!
And in thy valleys, Agiochook!
The jackals of the *****-holder.
The God who made New Hampshire
Taunted the lofty land
With little men;--
Small bat and wren
House in the oak:--
If earth-fire cleave
The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
The southern crocodile would grieve.
Virtue palters; Right is hence;
Freedom praised, but hid;
Funeral eloquence
Rattles the coffin-lid.
What boot...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...Yard. So I caught the Number 15
bus on Columbus Avenue and went out there for the first time.
There were two ***** boys sitting behind me on the bus.
They were talking about Chubby Checker and the Twist. They
thought that Chubby Checker was only fifteen years old be-
cause he didn't have a mustache. Then they talked about some
other guy who did the twist forty-four hours in a row until
he saw George Washington crossing the Delaware.
"Man, tha...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...mperament to be a whore, but she's one
of these rare women who just don't have it--the whore tem-
perament. She's *****, too.
"She was a teenage girl living on a farm in Oklahoma. The
pimp drove by one afternoon and saw her playing in the front
yard. He stopped his car and got out and talked to her father
for a while.
"I guess he gave her father some money. He came up
with something good because her father told her to go and
get her things.<...Read more of this...
by
Agustini, Delmira
...de la CarneNi las flores fantásticas del alma;Piedad para los ojos que aleteanEspirituales párpados:Escamas de misterio,Negros telones de visiones rosas…Nunca ven nada por mirar tan lejos! Piedad para las pulcras cabelleras–Misticas aureolas–Peinadas como lagosQue nunca airea el abanico *****,***** y enorme de la tempestad;Piedad para los ínclitos espiritusTallados en diamante,Altos, claros, extáticosPararrayos de cúpulas morales;Piedad para los labios como engarcesCeleste...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ongs;
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems;
I hear the Virginia plantation-chorus of *******, of a harvest night, in the glare of
pine-knots;
I hear the strong baritone of the ’long-shore-men of Mannahatta;
I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;
I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;
I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain and grass with the
showers
of
their ter...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...the hammers swing—over-hand so slow—over-hand so sure:
They do not hasten—each man hits in his place.
13
The ***** holds firmly the reins of his four horses—the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain;
The ***** that drives the dray of the stone-yard—steady and tall he stands,
pois’d on one leg on the string-piece;
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast, and loosens over his hip-band;
His glance is calm and commanding—he tosses the slouch...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...e Soul
"Peculiarly enshrin'd;
"Nor from the ebon Casket stole
"The Jewel of the mind!
"Then wherefore let the suff'ring *****'s breast
"Bow to his fellow, MAN, in brighter colours drest.
VIII.
"Is it the dim and glossy hue
"That marks him for despair?--
"While men with blood their hands embrue,
"And mock the wretch's pray'r?
"Shall guiltless Slaves the Scourge of tyrants feel,
"And, e'en before their GOD ! unheard, unpitied kneel.
IX.
"Could the proud r...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...--
I was the seed of the coming Free.
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother
Deep in my breast -- the ***** mother.
I had only hope then , but now through you,
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true:
All you dark children in the world out there,
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow --
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Make of my pass a road to the light
Out of the darkness, the ign...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing...Read more of this...
by
Hughes, Langston
...Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a ***** play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...e other hum;--
Where are forests hot as fire,
Wide as England, tall as a spire,
Full of apes and cocoa-nuts
And the ***** hunters' huts;--
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes;--
Where in jungles near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear
Lest the hunt be drawing near,
Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in the palanquin;--
Where among the desert sands
Some deserted c...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Negro poems.