Title: The Best Poems about Prejudice and Discrimination – Interesting Literature
Headings: The Best Poems about Prejudice and Discrimination
The Best Poems about Prejudice and Discrimination
By Dr Oliver Tearle
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Content: Dudley Randall, ‘ Ballad of Birmingham ’. This is a powerful poem about the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Taking the form of a dialogue between a young child and her mother, the poem highlights the racial prejudice – and the real threats to their lives – that African Americans faced during Civil Rights-era America. The mother sends her daughter to church, thinking she will be safe from harm and trouble there; tragically, the church becomes another target of white nationalist hate. Audre Lorde, ‘ Power ’. This is a harrowing but powerful poem about power: both the power of the state (specifically, the case of a police officer shooting dead a black child in the United States) and the power of words. Lorde, one of the finest African-American poets of the twentieth century, takes in the difference between poetry and rhetoric as she responds to the upsetting realities of life in contemporary America, including racial prejudice. Chrystos, ‘ Into the Racism Workshop ’.