Born in the USA - Exploring American Poems. The Great Lakes Poets

By Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ambrose Bierce and Vachel Lindsay

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 around the Great Lakes. These huge bodies of water are really inland seas and the poetic beauty created on their shores by poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ambrose Bierce, Vachel Lindsay, James Whitcomb Riley, and Alice Carey humble and inspire us all in ways that only a poet’s words can.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Sep 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781835471562

Book preview

Born in the USA - Exploring American Poems

The Great Lakes 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 around the Great Lakes. These huge bodies of water are really inland seas and the poetic beauty created on their shores by poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ambrose Bierce, Vachel Lindsay, James Whitcomb Riley, and Alice Carey humble and inspire us all in ways that only a poet’s words can.      

Index of Contents

Creation Light by James Madison Bell

A Bridal Toast by James Madison Bell

St Patrick Was a Gentleman by Henry Bennett

Fate by Ambrose Bierce

Revenge by Ambrose Bierce

To a Dejected Poet by Ambrose Bierce

The Vain Cat by Ambrose Bierce

Treasured Moments by Olivia Ward Bush-Banks

A Night In June by James Edwin Campbell

Ol' Doc Hyar by James Edwin Campbell

Through October Fields by James Edwin Campbell

Up the Line by Will Carleton

The Little Black Eyed Rebel by Will Carleton

January by Alice Cary

A Mother's Picture by Alice Cary

Untitled by Alice Cary

The Singer and the Song by Carrie Williams Clifford 

The Widening Light by Carrie Williams Clifford

At the Closed Gate of Justice by James D Corrothers

Time to Die by Ray G Dandridge

For the Man Who Fails by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Poet by Paul Laurence Dunbar

At Sunset Time by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Angel's Visit by Charlotte L Forten Grimke

Tuskegee by Leslie Pinckney Hill

Tired by Fenton Johnson

Hymn by Fenton Johnson

Singing Hallelujah (A Negro Spiritual) by Fenton Johnson

An Indian Summer Day On The Prairie by Vachel Lindsay

Eden In Winter by Vachal Lindsay

Ghosts in Love by Vachel Lindsay

Sweetheart Autumn by Vachel Lindsay

The Angel and the Clown by Vachel Lindsay

Good-bye. Off For Kansas by John