Poetry history themes

							                American Poetry - History
War
Civil War
“O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman

“Do Not Weep Maiden for War is Kind” By Steven Crane 1889
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/do-not-weep-maiden-for-war-is-kind/

WWII
“The House that Fear Built:Warsaw, 1943” by Jane Flanders
http://www.brynmawr.edu/Alumnae/bulletin/flanders.htm scroll down

Death of the Ball Turrett Gunner by Randall Jarrell
Published 1942
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/gunner/gunner.html

At the Bomb Testing Site by William Stafford
Published 1960; event 1945
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem14.html

“Losses” by Randall Jarrell 1948
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/losses/

Vietnam War
“Vapor Trail Reflected in the Frog Pond” by Galway Kinnell 1965
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171396

“Things we dreamt we died for” by Marvin Bell 1965
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=19215


“On a Line From Valery ( The Gulf War)” by Carolyn Kizer 1996
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15245


American Life

The west
“Kansas Boy” Ruth Lechlitner 1931 available in 811 Poe The Poetry Anthology 1912-
2002
Pastimes
“Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer 1888
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_case.shtml



Cities and Communities
“Chicago” by Carl Sandburg 1914 http://carl-sandburg.com/chicago.htm

“The Mending Wall” by Robert Frost 1915
http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html


“Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge” by Hart Crane 1933
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15444

“[anyone lived in a pretty how town]” e.e. cummings 1940
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15403

“Love Calls us to the Things of This World” by Richard Wilbur 1956
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171793

War against the Trees by Stanley Kunitz
Published 1958
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-waragainsttrees/poem.html


Travel
“I Like to see it lap the miles” by Emily Dickenson 1891
http://www.bartleby.com/113/1043.html

Southbound on the Freeway by May Swensen
Written early 1960s
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-southboundfreeway/poem.html

“Driving Montana” by Richard Hugo 1973
http://leftinthewest.org/index.php/2006/07/21/driving-montana-by-richard-hugo-1973

The African American Experience
“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar 1896
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw8.html

“Merry –Go-Round” by Langston Hughes http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/merry-go-
round/
“Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen 1925
http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/cullen.htm

Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall
Written 1969; event 1963
http://webinstituteforteachers.org/~vfjohnson/ballbham.html

Alabama Centennial by Naomi Long Madgett
http://www.crmvet.org/poetry/amadgett.htm


Youth Culture
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks 1959
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15433

“Recuerdo” Edna St. Vincent Millay 1919 http://www.poetry-
archive.com/m/recuerdo.html

Family Life
Richard Corey by E. A. Robinson
Published 1919
http://www.bartleby.com/104/45.html

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden 1962
http://www.naic.edu/~gibson/poems/hayden1.html


Loss
“One Art by Elizabeth Bishop” 1976
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212

The Missing by Thom Gunn
Written 1982
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/121104.html#THE_MISSING

“At the Swings” by Henry Taylor 1985 available in The Flying Change

“Elegy for John, My Student Dead of Aids” by Robert Cording 1986 811 Poe The Poetry
Anthology 1912-2002

Women
Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/barbie-doll/

Citizenship/immigrant experience
“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus 1883
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16111



Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden
Published 1940
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15549


For a New Citizen of These United States by Li-Young Lee
Published 1990
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-a-new-citizen-of-these-united-states/



Culture
“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus 1883
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16111

Reactionary Essay on Applied Science by Phyllis McGinley
Published 1951
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-appliedscience/poem.html

In Memory of Radio by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)
Published 1961
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-inmemoryradio/poem.html

“Failing in the Presence of Ants” by Gary Soto 1982 available in 811 Poe The Poetry
Anthology 1912-2002

“Exquisite Candidate” by Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton 1997
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19336


Tragedies
“Checkmate” by Lucio Mariani 2001
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16566
“We Are Virginia Tech” by Nikki Giovanni 2007
http://www.vt.edu/remember/archive/giovanni_transcript.html