Title: Poems of Protest, Resistance, and Empowerment | Poetry Foundation
Headings: Poems of Protest, Resistance, and Empowerment
Poems of Protest, Resistance, and Empowerment
Why poetry is necessary and sought after during crises.

Content: The selection of poems below call out and talk back to the inhumane forces that threaten from above. They expose grim truths, raise consciousness, and build united fronts. Some insist, as Langston Hughes writes, “That all these walls oppression builds / Will have to go!” Others seek ways to actively “make peace,” as Denise Levertov implores, suggesting that “each act of living” might cultivate collective resistance. All rail against complacency and demonstrate why poetry is necessary and sought after in moments of political crisis. Appeared in Poetry Magazine
poetry-magazine
I look at the world
Langston Hughes
Caged Bird
Maya Angelou
Making Peace
Denise Levertov
Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)
Muriel Rukeyser
Boy Breaking Glass
Gwendolyn Brooks
Bent to the Earth
Blas Manuel De Luna
RIOT
Gwendolyn Brooks
America
Allen Ginsberg
America
Claude McKay
What Kind of Times Are These
Adrienne Rich
The Envoy of Mr. Cogito
Zbigniew Herbert
Tonight, in Oakland
Danez Smith
What He Thought
Heather McHugh
We Are Not Responsible
Harryette Mullen
lady liberty
Tato Laviera
Urban Affection
Emanuel Xavier
A Song for Soweto
June Jordan
Usage
Hayan Charara
If We Must Die
Claude McKay
Short Speech to My Friends
Amiri Baraka
Rosa Parks
Nikki Giovanni
Dear Gaybashers
Jill McDonough
Appeared in Poetry Magazine
poetry-magazine
ICE Agents Storm My Porch
Maria Melendez Kelson
We Lived Happily During the War
Ilya Kaminsky
You, If No One Else
Tino Villanueva
Turnt
Juliana Spahr
Beat! Beat! Drums! Walt Whitman
Staggerlee wonders
James Baldwin
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
At the Bomb Testing Site
William E. Stafford
where our protest sound
Lenelle Moïse
Not one more refugee death
Emmy Pérez
Appeared in Poetry Magazine
poetry-magazine
For My People
Margaret Walker
London
William Blake
Appeared in Poetry Magazine
poetry-magazine
Mind Core
Juan Felipe Herrera
In the Middle of This Century
Yehuda Amichai
Ways of Rebelling
Nathalie Handal
Logic
Alice Notley
To the Censorious Ones
Anne Waldman
They Feed They Lion
Philip Levine
America, I Sing You Back
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
The Sign in My Father’s Hands
Martín Espada
At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border
William E. Stafford
Apology for Apostasy? Etheridge Knight
(Riot Police)
Sun Yung Shin
America Politica Historia, in Spontaneity
Gregory Corso
My Generation Reading the Newspapers
Kenneth Patchen
For the Consideration of Poets
Haki R. Madhubuti
In My Name
David Roderick
10-Year-Old Shot Three Times, but She’s Fine
Patricia Smith
Something is Coming Toward Us
Alli Warren
Helen Betty Osborne
Marilyn Dumont
Passive Voice
Laura Da'
Watts Bleeds
Luis J. Rodríguez
Hold It Down
Gina Myers
Advice from Rock Creek Park
Stephanie Burt
The Talking Day
Michael Klein
Jordan
Nick Arnold
If We Must Die
Claude McKay
A Poem for Pulse
Jameson Fitzpatrick
Poem by Poem
Juan Felipe Herrera
Stonewall to Standing Rock
Julian Talamantez Brolaski
Narrative: