Throughout history, poetry has always spoken in the most challenging, tragic, and formative circumstances. Poets have been at the forefront of wielding language to create change for the people. Explore the work of Elizabeth Alexander, Agha Shahid Ali, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Marilyn Chin, Aracelis Girmay, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Claudia Rankine, Roger Reeves, Adrienne Rich, and Muriel Rukeyser, to name just a few.
Listen to Audre Lorde read “A Song for Many Movements.”
Find protest poetry, including poems about equality, social justice, human rights, Black Lives Matter, and climate change:
Poems of Protest, Rebellion, & Hope
“Ars Poetica #1,002: Rally” by Elizabeth Alexander
I dreamed a pronouncement / about poetry and peace...
“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history...
“Unlawful Assembly” by Kimberly Blaeser
Don't hurry to safety...
“The Pedestrian” by Tommye Blount
When the pickup truck, with its side mirror...
“litany” by Mahogany L. Browne
today i am a black woman in america...
“No, Kanye, it’s not LIKE we’re mentally in prison” by Erica Dawson
We don't have heirlooms. Haven't owned things long enough. We're hoarding us...
“Mantahhan is a Lenape Word” by Natalie Diaz
It is December and we must be brave...
“How We Could Have Lived or Died This Way” by Martín Espada
I see the dark-skinned bodies falling in the street as their ancestors fell...
“A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay
Is that Eric Garner worked...
“You are Who I Love” by Aracelis Girmay
You, selling roses out of a silver grocery cart...
“What Do We Do—Now” by Ellen Hagan
We mourn, we bless,...
“Angrily Standing Outside in the Wind” by Brenda Hillman
—kept losing self control...
“I, Too” by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes
Let it be the dream it used to be...
“When I Rise Up” by Georgia Douglas Johnson
When I rise up above the earth...
“Defiant” by Patricia Spears Jones
Fruit from one vine tangles with another...
“I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies” by June Jordan
1. I will no longer lightly walk behind...
“Firing Squad” by Ilya Kaminsky
On balconies, sunlight. On poplars, sunlight on our lips...
“Breathe. As in. (shadow)” by Rosamond S. King
Breathe / . As in what if...
“A New National Anthem” by Ada Limón
The truth is, I've never cared for the Natonal...
“Now That We Have Tasted Hope” by Khaled Mattawa
Now that we have come out of hiding,...
“America” by Claude McKay
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,...
“declaration” by Andrés Montoya
i have found / the face / of story / lying again...
“Red Brocade” by Naomi Shihab Nye
The Arabs used to say,...
“from Citizen, VI [On the train the woman standing]” by Claudia Rankine
On the train the woman standing makes you understand there are no seats available...
“A House Called Tomorrow” by Alberto Ríos
You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—...
“little prayer” by Danez Smith
let ruin end here...
“Good Bones” by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children...
“Unrest in Baton Rouge” by Tracy K. Smith
Our bodies run with ink dark blood...
from “denoument” by Anne Waldman
Resistance. Had to resist. Ward off. Deflect...
“Amos (Postscript, 1968)” by Margaret Walker
From Montgomery to Memphis he marches...
“The Women’s Litany” by Margaret Widdemer
Let us in through the guarded gate,...
“Protest” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To sin by silence, when we should protest,...
“Make Me Human or Give Me Death” by May Yang
This matters because i’ve lived on that side of life that you all have made for...
“juxtaposing the black boy & the bullet” by Danez Smith
one is hard & the other tried to be...
Read about Political Poetry in our glossary of poetic terms.
Shelter in Poems
I am deliberate / and afraid / of nothing
In March 2020, the Poetry Coalition launched “I am deliberate / and afraid / of nothing: Poetry & Protest.” For this collaborative effort, each organization in the Poetry Coalition brought its unique mission to the task of presenting programs and projects on this timely theme.
