Born in the USA - Exploring American Poems. The South-East Poets

By James Weldon Johnson, Willa Cather and Alice Dunbar Nelson

Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another. Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.

Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy.

In the volumes of this series we take a look through the prism of individual regions of the United States through the centuries and decades.

The United States may be many things: the world’s policeman, a bully, a shameless purveyor of mass market culture but it also, in its better moments, a standard bearer for truth, transparency, equality and the more positive qualities of democracy.

Little wonder that’s its poets are rightly acknowledged as wonders of their art. Leading lights in the fight against slavery and for equality, even if the rest of the Nation is finding it problematic to catch up.

In this volume we have collected verse from poets born in one of the most diverse and wide-ranging areas of the United States; the South-East. Within its borders are the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Its huge expanse lets our world-class poets including James Weldon Johnson, Willa Cather, Alice Dunbar Nelson, and Georgia Douglas Johnson explore a wide range of topics and subjects as they share their poetic talents with us on the States of their birth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Sep 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781835471548

Book preview

Born in the USA – Exploring American Poems

The South-East Poets

An Introduction

Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another.  Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.

Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy.

In the volumes of this series we take a look through the prism of individual regions of the United States through the centuries and decades.

The United States may be many things: the world’s policeman, a bully, a shameless purveyor of mass market culture but it also, in its better moments, a standard bearer for truth, transparency, equality and the more positive qualities of democracy.

Little wonder that’s its poets are rightly acknowledged as wonders of their art.  Leading lights in the fight against slavery and for equality, even if the rest of the Nation is finding it problematic to catch up. 

In this volume we have collected verse from poets born in one of the most diverse and wide-ranging areas of the United States; the South-East.  Within its borders are the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  Its huge expanse lets our world-class poets including James Weldon Johnson, Willa Cather, Alice Dunbar Nelson, and Georgia Douglas Johnson explore a wide range of topics and subjects as they share their poetic talents with us on the States of their birth.    

Index of Contents

A Black Man Talks of Reaping by Arna Bontemps

The Day-Breakers by Arna Bontemps

Prairie Spring by Willa Cather

Evening Song by Willa Cather

A Likeness by Willa Cather

In the Tavern of My Heart by Willa Cather

The Poor Minstrel by Willa Cather

Solstice by Madison Julius Cawein

A Fallen Beech by Madison Julius Cawein

Rain Music by Joseph Seamon Cotter

Is it Because I'm Black by Joseph S Cotter Jnr

I Sit and Sow by Alice Dunbar Nelson

Impressions by Alice Dunbar Nelson

In Memoriam by Alice Dunbar Nelson

Sonnet by Alice Dunbar Nelson

Farewell by Alice Dunbar Nelson

After by John Gould Fletcher

Monadnock by John Gould Fletcher

The Calm Poem by John Gould Fletcher

The Coming Woman by Mary Weston Fordham

In Memorium. Alphonese Campbell Fordham by Mary Weston Fordham

The Mocking Bird by Timothy Thomas Fortune

The Black Sampson by Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard

Thine Own by Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard

The Corn Song by John Wesley Holloway

On the Poetic Muse by George Moses Horton

Praise of Creation by George Moses Horton

The Slave's Complaint by George Moses Horton

Journey's End by Zora Neale Hurston

The Negro Soldiers by Roscoe C Jamison

Transpositions by Georgia Douglas Johnson

When I Rise Up by Georgia Douglas Johnson

The Heart of A Woman by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Brothers. American Drama by James Weldon Johnson

A Midday Dreamer by James Weldon Johnson

A Poet to His Baby Son by James Weldon Johnson

Sleep by James Weldon Johnson

Listen Lord, A Prayer by James Weldon Johnson

To a Skull by Joshua Henry Jones Jnr

The Battle of Lexington by Sidney Lanier

The Golden Wedding of Sterling and Sarah Lanier September the 27th 1868 by Sidney Lanier

Souls and Raindrops by Sidney Lanier

An Evening Song by Sidney Lanier

Epigram by Arrmand Lanusse

The Feet of Judas by