1. When Bryan Speaks - written by Vachel Lindsay
Read 543 times on American Poems.

When Bryan speaks, the town's a hive.
From miles around, the autos drive.
The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows.
The place is kicking and alive.

When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows.
The raw procession onward flows.
The small dogs bark. The... (Read full poem)

My hands were stained with blood, my heart was 
proud and cold,
My soul is black with shame . . . but I gave Shakespeare gold.
So after aeons of flame, I may, by grace of God,
Rise up to kiss the dust that Shakespeare's feet have trod.(Read full poem)

3. There was a man and a woman - written by Stephen Crane
From The Black Riders & Other Lines. Published in 1905. Read 4392 times on American Poems.

i

There was a man and a woman
Who sinned.
Then did the man heap the punishment
All upon the head of her,
And went away gaily.

ii

There was a man and a woman
Who sinned.
And the man stood with her.
As upon her head, so upon his,
Fell blow and... (Read full poem)

A chant for a children's pantomime dance, suggested by a picture painted by George Mather Richards.


I saw a proud, mysterious cat,
I saw a proud, mysterious cat
Too proud to catch a mouse or rat—
Mew, mew, mew.

But catnip she would eat,... (Read full poem)

5. Her Kind - written by Anne Sexton
Read 16883 times on American Poems.

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been... (Read full poem)

THE RIVER is gold under a sunset of Illinois.
It is a molten gold someone pours and changes.
A woman mixing a wedding cake of butter and eggs
Knows what the sunset is pouring on the river here.
The river twists in a letter S.
  A gold S now speaks... (Read full poem)

7. When Man Enters Woman - written by Anne Sexton
From The Awful Rowing To God. Published in 1975. Read 8653 times on American Poems.

When man,
enters woman,
like the surf biting the shore,
again and again,
and the woman opens her mouth with pleasure
and her teeth gleam
like the alphabet,
Logos appears milking a star,
and the man
inside of woman
ties a knot
so that they will
never... (Read full poem)

PAPA JOFFRE, the shoulders of him wide as the land of France.
 
We look on the shoulders filling the stage of the Chicago Auditorium.
 
A fat mayor has spoken much English and the mud of his speech is crossed with quicksilver hisses elusive and... (Read full poem)

9. The Black Unicorn - written by Audre Lorde
Read 4554 times on American Poems.

The black unicorn is greedy. 
The black unicorn is impatient. 
'The black unicorn was mistaken 
for a shadow or symbol
and taken
through a cold country 
where mist painted mockeries 
of my fury.
It is not on her lap where the horn rests 
but deep in... (Read full poem)

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my... (Read full poem)

11. Unfolded Out of the Folds. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 7382 times on American Poems.

UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to
	come unfolded; 
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest
	man of the earth; 
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to come the... (Read full poem)

The long lines of diesels 
groan toward evening 
carrying off the breath 
of the living. 
The face of your house 
is black, 
it is your face, black 
and fire bombed 
in the first street wars, 
a black tooth planted in the earth 
of Michigan 
and... (Read full poem)

13. To the Pay Toilet - written by Marge Piercy
Read 1550 times on American Poems.

You strop my anger, especially
when I find you in restaurant or bar
and pay for the same liquid, coming and going.
In bus depots and airports and turnpike plazas
some woman is dragging in with three kids hung off her
shrieking their simple... (Read full poem)

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish... (Read full poem)

15. The Woman in the Ordinary - written by Marge Piercy
Read 2211 times on American Poems.

The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
The woman in the block of ivory soap
has massive thighs that... (Read full poem)

LISTEN a while, the moon is a lovely woman, a lonely woman, lost in a silver dress, lost in a circus rider’s silver dress.
  
Listen a while, the lake by night is a lonely woman, a lovely woman, circled with birches and pines mixing their green... (Read full poem)

17. This Beautiful Black Marriage - written by Diane Wakoski
Read 2254 times on American Poems.

Photograph negative
her black arm: a diving porpoise,
sprawled across the ice-banked pillow.
Head: a sheet of falling water.
Her legs: icicle branches breaking into light.

This woman, 
photographed sleeping.
The man,
making the photograph in the... (Read full poem)

One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand cafe in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.

One fine day.(Read full poem)

19. Woman with a Past - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 2042 times on American Poems.

THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown
And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder
And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry.
  
There was a woman spoke six short words
And quit a life that was old to her
For a life that was new.... (Read full poem)

Here, as in childhood, Brother, no one knows us.   
And someone has died, and someone is not yet   

born, while our father walks through his church at night   
and sets all the clocks for spring.  His sleeplessness   

weighs heavy on my... (Read full poem)

21. Humming Bird Woman - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1744 times on American Poems.

WHY should I be wondering
How you would look in black velvet and yellow? in orange and green?
I who cannot remember whether it was a dash of blue
Or a whirr of red under your willow throat—
Why do I wonder how you would look in humming-bird... (Read full poem)

IN the moonlight under a shag-bark hickory tree
Watching the yellow shadows melt in hoof-pools,
Listening to the yes and the no of a woman’s hands,
I kept my guess why the night was glad.
  
The night was lit with a woman’s eyes.
The night... (Read full poem)

23. Cadenza - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1979 times on American Poems.

THE KNEES
  of this proud woman
are bone.
  
The elbows
  of this proud woman
are bone.
  
The summer-white stars
  and the winter-white stars
never stop circling
  around this proud woman.
  
The bones
  of this proud woman
answer the vibrations... (Read full poem)

And, yeah brothers
while white America sings about the unsinkable molly brown
(who was hustling the titanic
when it went down)
I sing to thee of Shine
the stoker who was hip enough to flee the fucking ship
and let the white folks drown
with screams... (Read full poem)

25. the photograph: a lynching - written by Lucille Clifton
Read 843 times on American Poems.

is it the cut glass 
of their eyes
looking up toward
the new gnarled branch 
of the black man
hanging from a tree?

is it the white milk pleated
collar of the woman
smiling toward the camera,
her fingers loose around
a christian cross... (Read full poem)