Sometimes, we love to express ourselves with words, especially to our women. Don’t walk too far, here are some breathtaking love poems for her, for a stronger and romantic relationship. It is not too much if you decide to walk her through the adventure of your thoughts as she reads through your poems as an expression of your love and care for her.
Don’t give it doubt, just put it to test as you see her lost in her thought for you, you’d enthrall her, and seamlessly succeed in blowing her mind away. These breathtaking love poems for her from the heart will make her feel special, appreciated, express the realness of your love for her, make her feel like your queen that she is always with these deep emotional love poems.
When she reads it, it’ll always be etched in her heart, she will never forget the day her breath was taken by the wonderful words her lover writes to her. Lay your hands on any of these 70 breathtaking love poems for her and make your affection settle freely in her heart.
Deep Love Poems for Her
Deep Love Poems for HerBreathtaking love poems for her should be deep, deep things don’t lie on the surface of the earth, we dig for them, sometimes we search and search, but you don’t need to search around again, here are some deep love poems for her, deep enough to last forever in her heart as you express how deep your love and feelings are for her.
1. Amid crowded beauties
There I found yours so special
Standing out amidst others
With an open heart
A heart where love abode
Where the stream of love flows freely
Where I swim, where I drink and where I lie
2. Love is surely rare to find
But that is because men haven’t found you
Finding you is finding love
A thought without you is so empty
Because you are just love in yourself
Something purer than gold is you
Something clearer than crystal is you
More love I’ve got for you
3. People claim to find love but I think I found you
They claim to have love but I think I have you
They claim to see love but all I see is you
You have succeeded drilling a well in my heart
So deep that I cannot see the end
From it, your love pumps out and never go dry
My love for you has no limit
As it grows stronger day by day
4. Your kind of person is rare
Your simplicity is just the crown that makes you mine
Your generous hands bring more smiles to my face.
Holding love as a gift each time your stretch it out
Only words of love can describe you when words are lost
Love you more dear.
5. Smiles on my face when I glance at you
Chords strike in my ears when I hear your voice
Others thought it was madness
But to me, it is an expression of love
And if it makes me mad
I would be glad to be a mad lover
Dancing around with you in love
Singing aloud all along.
6. Some see love in the air
But I found it right here
Where I stand with you alone
Holding you tight just to make a tone
A tone of love
Sweet to the ears,
Nice in our mouth
Love is the song
A perfect song for the moment.
7. Let wealth stand and wait
Let riches hang somewhere
Until love ask them to come
They all mean nothing to me
Let your love be the leader
Let this same love usher them in
In your love there is riches
The lips of your love are wealth
Worthy to have at home.
8. When wind blows around
And storm also arise when I needed to swim
Let you be the fins right beside my arms
If love is what I need to live
Let me see you standing next to me, holding fast my hands.
You are love in yourself.
9. Standing in a long distance
Looking towards all directions
I find something to keep me focus
Putting my eyes sticky to you
Putting my head in a place
A place where love abides from any distance
Love you at any length.
Breathtaking Love Poems for Her to Make Her Feel Loved
The reality of life not only lies in the way we show our affection to our partners but the way we communicate it even when is not verbalized. Breathtaking love poems for her to make her feel loved will undoubtedly send your deep-seated feelings to her in verses and lines. So why not dive in below and pick choice words of breathtaking love poems for her to convey your love to her.
10. Hold my hands and let us dance
Closing up the wide gap distance
Love is the tune to our music
Love is the beat to our song
Love is the pillar of our stage
Love is the sole of our shoes
Love is all we smell all around
11. Tell me the sweet language of love, if not yours
Tell me the path of love if not your path
Cool at night like the moon
Warm in the morning like a rising sun
A cloth when days go cold
Snow when the days are hot
All this is all about your love
I mean, all this is about you.
12. A house of gold is beautiful
But worthless when compared with you
A house of precious stones is adorable
But your love worth much more
Let your love leads in the desert
That I may drink from the Oasis
Let your love leads in the storm
For your love storm is peace to me
Love you now and forever.
Love Poems That Will Make Her Melt
Love Poems That Will Make Her MeltBreathtaking love poems for her that will heat so nice to her heart; truly butter melt in sun, ice also melt in sun and many other things we can point to, but do you want to see your lady melt in awe-inspiring poems? This time not from the heat of the sun but with the words of your mouth, here are some love poems to make her melt.
13. Do people talk about love around you?
Do they compare good things with love?
Definitely, all that they are saying about you
You are the real definition of love
With love you feed me
In love you care for me
In this same love, I find my home.
14. If all needs are met
And nothing seems missing
It is a sign that you are present
Your absence makes nothing perfect
But with you all thing I need set themselves in place
Nothing did this to me but love
Nothing hits me hard but your love
15. Many are the waters in the ocean
Flowing from different seas
Bringing the good of different lands
So is your love to me
You caused my life to flourish
Making my coast what others cherish
Love you with heart.
16. Winds of love blowing so strong
Rivers of love moving so calm
What I treasure is having you
What a costly gift love gave to me
A little love here, a little love there
Makes love available everywhere I go
Make me feel you the more day by day.
17. Morning, day and night speak about a day
Care, smiles, and beauty speak about your love
Hearing your voice brings hope of joy
Giving me the courage to live the day after the next
But your love never fails to put a smile on my face
Love you more and more
18. Rubies might be expensive
But your love is without a price
Priceless because of it worth
You give care as you own it
You send sweet words like your maids
You never go out of compassion
Your lovely lips never run dry
Love you, dear
19. If love reign
Then you are the queen of my kingdom
Sitting next to me before the council
Speaking wisdom right to my ear
Making words available for me to speak
Your love has brought me to my knees
This same love raise me up on my feet
Love you with no condition.
20. To the love one that makes up my smile
To the beautiful lady that flashes the eyes of the sun
You have made me understand what it is to be loved
You have brought me out of my doubt
Which makes me think I can never find love
Your humble head is the key to my heart
Love you more with my heart.
21. Your steps are like that of a life map
Leading to a house of treasures
You painted my sky with Love
When the sun and moon fade away
You caused love to rain even when the sky seal up
Your words are like lamps
Illuminating my path at night.
22. That which glows in your eyes is all I see
My heart beats fast when you are near
Beat faster when you are closer
You gave me your arm to lean on
Your laps to rest on
And your love to sleep on
Chaining my heart down
23. If beauty is love
Then love is common
If wealth is love
Only the rich would love
If fame is love
Only the noble would find it
None of these is love
But you are the embodiment of love
Driving my heart to a peace land
24. Love has led me this far
Holding my hands firm to her side
Cares have I received so far
Calming my heart from all fears
Telling me the definition of love
When looking in yourself
25. Can’t really say when we got here
But since it is with you by my side
We can boldly take some thousands of steps
Treated my heart with care
Cherish my hands with wealth
The wealth of love
The riches of love
Can appreciate you enough
But all I do, let me do in love
26. The Heart of man is deep
Yours is deep with love
Filling it up to your mouth
That at every opening it is a moment of love
Love rain in the desert
Love ground to build on
Filling the air all up with love
Where nose catches love breathe
27. What money cannot buy
This I have in you
What seems took some to death
I find easily with life
A life of love
Making me live in love
Love reign in your coast
Love dwells in your home.
28. Love is good with the right heart
Love is calm with the perfect mind
I find love in you
We are right to move together
I find love in you
We have a perfect matching mind together
We blow love all around
All because you have it in excess
Love you more dear.
29. The beauty of a moment is precious at a glance
But true love is precious with what you have shown
Your love has given meaning to my words
So strong not to be broken
A pool of love you brought to me
Flowing out from your heart to mine
Love you and I will always do.
30. A personal view of love
Made me lose view of other things
What matters is you
When I go some miles away
Your love calls me back
When I wonder in ignorance
All I got was a response from love
Restoring me back to my right sense
Love you more than you imagine
Love Poem for Girlfriend from the Heart
Love Poem for Girlfriend from the HeartNothing sounds good than love Poem for girlfriend from the heart, they need to be appreciated and celebrated, since they hold a special place in our hearts, express your love with these breathtaking love poems for her. Make her feel special and let her feel the love in your heart.
31. Looking forward to seeing that fateful day
that I will finally make you mine
That I will hold your hands on the altar
That I will make those sacred vows
And make from my heart joyful shouts
Those moments have I dreamt of
And stay with, till we wear off
32. I’ve found the one whom I love
I’ve met so many out there
And none have my heart nodded to
But the day I saw you like a mere
My heart limped and thumped too
33.If I ever have some last words to say
I would only choose to say three
If I ever have the last place to stay
I would only choose your heart
Cos’ I know I would live on
And those three words will I never give up on
34. You are to me a gift of life
the greatest one I’ve ever received
Into the pool of love I dive
Into the mirror of affection I look
Cos’ I see a reflection of you in it
35. I love you today and every other day
even till death do us part
Not even life can break our path
Those words ring in my heart
Deep down in my heart, I say
36. There are moments I wish never to stop
those moments I sleep with your lips on mine
Those times I hug and hold you tight
Those times I stay with you and dine
I cherish them all and promise never to drop,
This strong feeling that forever burn
37. Neither can distance hold me away
Cos’ wherever I am, there you are
Nor beauty lead me astray
Oh, beauty! That’s what you are
No wonder I see no other
Cos’ I have you all over
38. I’ve become nothing without you
you’ve always been a part of me
Cos’ you hold what belongs to me
A loving heart of mine with thee
Forever in you and endlessly making its beat
39. Who else was there
when I needed a listening ear
Who else could bear
All the pains that brought fear
Who else looks at me with a smile
When I say the words “my dear”
40. The beginning of a new life to me
was when you said the words “I love you”
When you adorn my lips with kisses
When you held on to my heart for me
A better life have you shown to me
A better life than that I’ve ever wanted
41. There are thousands of places on earth
why would I ever go there
I’ve seen a better place to be
A world specially made for me
A world in which I tread
A heart in which I forever live
42. If loving you this way becomes a crime
I choose to forever be wanted
To be held in the custody of your love
To be locked in the prison of your heart
That’s the best way ever to be
Way better than the way it seems
43. Ask me that which I’ve best been given
and I will show her to you and her love even
Tell me that, which I’ve done best
And I will tell you how I’ve cherished her to the best
Show me that memory that forever rings
And I will show you how it will be when we exchange rings
44. I never hesitated to tell you how I feel
Cos’ I know what loss it would bring
Not even a loss can I redeem
Like an exile is to a king
That fear caught my heart
And I decided to make you forever mine
45. Your love to me is like a water
you can’t but always need it
Hatred to it, makes you suffer
Abstain from it, and forget the laughter
Embrace it again and feel joy after
I choose to forever love you till in pit
46. I’ve got every reason to smile
in you, I feel the joy
I’ve got every season to wine
With you, I count years
But I’ve got only one reason to love
And that is you and you alone
47. One day, I’ll be with you as a family
then I’ll sing a solemn melody
That day I will start with you a new life
That very moment I’ll call you my wife
The day we will forever have the same kindred
A day you will be the mother of our children
48. That special moment with your soulmate
those moments you wish never to leave
Times you rub hearts together
Telling it to see its extension
Or Better put its other half
Those moments grow till we grow grey
49. I’ve been infected with your love
No antidote is perfect for this
Even if there is one,
I prefer to be laid in the bed of love
Covered with a blanket of love
Injected with more of love
Because you are the person I love
50. What else would I have treasured
If not your love which can’t be measured
That fills my heart always with pleasure
Made me lost in the moment of yore
Those moments we make love in a gesture
In a garden full of green pasture
That will I always cherish
Never will I let them perish.
Poems to Make Her Feel Special
Poems to Make Her Feel SpecialIt is one thing to be a lady, it is another thing to be a special lady, make your woman smile with these breathtaking love poems for her as it makes the love of your life feel so special indeed. Making her lost for words by using any of these breathtaking love poems for her. Below are poems to make her feel special a sure way to sweep her off her feet.
51. I wish you knew, how my heart melts
The very first day I saw you
I wish you noticed how I felt
When I first thought of you
All I wanted was to be with you
Cos’ I know my future is bright with you
52. Mere looking at your eyes gets me thrilled
Your charming smiles engrosses me
You are all my world have been waiting for
Just like an incomplete puzzle
But now set in place perfectly
Girl, you really complete me
53. My future is certainly bright
Because I’ve seen a light
That shines into my life
Making all certainly clear
Radiating all in its content
That is you, my dearly beloved
54. Through the storms and turbulence
It was always you by my side
Through the times I was pained
You gave me a shoulder to cry on
And those times I needed words
You’ve given me the best I could hear
Forever in my heart will I cherish you
55. Oh, in the large, wide ocean
You’ve been to me, a ship
The one that carries us on
Till oceans turn to drip
What else do I need to desire
Cos’ I have you to admire
56. I am here to stay forever
And never to look back yonder
But lay my focus on you
And love you like I never would
Hold you tight with all I could
And be to you a man I should be
57. This fear once grabbed my heart
The fear of losing you
Cos’ I know I wouldn’t find,
Anyone in the world like you
A gem is worthless to me
Not that it has no value
But that I have someone,
Who is better off than it
58. Out of the wind, comes air
Which makes it blow like a flare
Out of the sun, comes light
Which shines brightly to the sight
Out of nature, comes beauty
Making all around glittery
Out of the beauty comes you
Making you look always new
59. People do run after fame
Some cling to get a name
Yeah, the flesh wants nice things
Especially that which is so rare
But heartthrobs at the sight of you
Cos you are indeed a rare gem
60. A diamond isn’t worth comparing
Any rich folks possess that
Some have it as a ring
While some have it all stored up
But their riches can’t stand mine
Cos’ I have you in possession
61. What eyes will dare ignore you
Amazement catches those that behold,
Your beauty that is ever glowing
And not all eyes can withhold
That which glitters from you
Making you forever mind-blowing
62. Every morning I wake up,
I notice I’ve been with someone special
You’ve made your world so perfect
Like it has been done by an architect
Amazement lies in your eyes for me
63. Measureless is your happiness
Oh, this makes me call you “a royal Highness”
The royalty in you can’t be expressed with words
Of course, You are a queen cos you rule your world.
This world have I found myself
All in order to meet you and be loved by you.
64. All of my days, I’ve wanted a good life
But all that stopped when I met you
Not that I forgot what I wanted
But I know I’ve achieved it
Cos’ in you I’ve got a new life
Not only new but an eternal one
65. All words can never express
That which you worth
Words will just be wasted
But never reach where they ought
Deep down in my heart
I know what to express
But never found those suitable words
To express that which is in my heart
66. Your face is all I seek
A stare at it is enough for a lifetime
To gaze is all I wish
Just a glance will make my heart drown
Not in any other thing
But in your love, that forever obsess me
67. Having you here is all I want
Just a second you were gone
It felt like I’ve long last seen you
I even miss you when I’m with you
Cos’ I don’t want to take my eyes off you
And together watch our love burn
68. In you, I’ve found a solace
A heart I call my place
A perfect domain for me
A place where I would forever be
It all occurred to me a dream
When I found you to be mine
When I was chosen out of numerous beings
When you told me all in a line,
Those three words that forever make me smile
69. If all I ever and will ever have is you
I’ll thank my lucky stars
Cos’, not just a person can have you
Then, that would have made me “not just”
You are the best present I’ve received
The best one I will ever get from Nature
70. Oh your beauty mesmerizes me
What eyes dare ignore thee
An imputed arcane into you
An obscure gem,
Not in any other have I seen
What you possess
Not anyone can access
Your beauty has none of its kind
You own it all in you in a queue.
I'm far away but always near.
And it's my pleasure to have you seeing my face today again.
Ready for the long wait? I go again!
February is Black History Month, and to celebrate the contributions Black poets have made, and continue to make, to the richness of American poetry, we asked twelve contemporary Black poets from across the country to choose one poem that should be read this month and to tell us a bit about why.
Tyehimba Jess on "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks
We know the Seven. Know them like our neighbor's boy gone bloodied to bullets. Like our cousins nodded off into prison terms or hyped into the ground. Like our brothers gone homeless. Like our fathers gone missing. Like ourselves when we look in the blurry mid-morning mirror. One for every day of the week, one for each of our deadly sins. One waiting around the bend of each American corner. We stand in the June of our lives and try to sing it all the way through each season, always ending each line on the word that brings us together as much as it pivots us into new revelations: We. We. We. We. We. We. We.
Safiya Sinclair on "won't you celebrate with me" by Lucille Clifton
What a balm and a blessing this poem has been to me. I have carried this sonnet—both an ode to the self and also an act of resistance—inside me like gospel, like armor. Against a world that has marked us invisible and unworthy, black joy is important. Self-love is imperative. And here Lucille Clifton shows us that both joy and self-love radiating from a black woman is also a kind of defiance.
When I was growing up there were so few examples of what a strong, successful black woman could look like, much less a black woman poet—how could we, the unseen and unconsidered, find a place of our own not just to exist, but to thrive?
For all of us, black women born in Babylon, with our meager inheritance of oppression and the diminishment of our selfhood and a world that turns its back to say, “You are not enough as you are”—for a black woman to stand in exaltation of herself is radical, is necessary. This poem gave me a voice and a crucial model to carve out my own world, to know it is possible to sing a self.
Here is Clifton stepping inside the American poetic tradition—a tradition that never considered her, however multitudinously it declared itself—and fashioning a new mold for her life, for black womanhood in all its broad fields and rivers of wonder. Here, “on this bridge between / starshine and clay,” she not only beams out a nation that has tried to snuff her out, but knowing that the black woman must nurture and cherish her own self in the world, she divines this life as a rebellious necessity. To be black in America is to be endangered. To be a black woman in America is to be the unsung casualty. To be a black woman alive in America and writing poetry is miraculous. Here I am, she says—despite a fight against my selfhood and survival at every turn, here I am—in radiant joy, in full bloom, in celebration of myself, and despite you, I’m still alive and alive and alive.
Rickey Laurentiis on "Heartbeats" by Melvin Dixon
“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,” said Dickinson, “I know that is poetry.” But how does it feel to be exiled from your own heart—and not just artfully, but literally, from your real and fallible heart? This is the question I return to, a quality of thought and careful sensation I find in Melvin Dixon’s “Heartbeats” and the steady patient-turned-at-moments-insistent spondees of its lines that, for always renegotiating this pace, manages to maintain what sadness we suspect is present alongside something like strength, audacity. So, of course, who else but a black, queer poet could offer us such uneasy music? Who else but him—present in a world that claimed he was, in at least two ways, wrong—could bring us so much closer, that intimate with our own breathing bodies, which will fail us? It is maybe like how history often looks back on such poets as Dixon, erasing his legacy, failing him, so that this poem, among many, becomes as a whole the last declaration. It does not whimper; it swells.
Rowan Ricardo Phillips on "American History" by Michael S. Harper
A great poem releases the language it uses from the tether of its normal terms—not to destroy language but to reveal the wounds therein and enliven them and, in turn, the entire language. That the explosive first line carries five stresses in its six syllables; that the poem posits a “me” and the possibility of multiple “yous” (an addressed second person and a rhetorical one); that the net is torqued into an embedded clause you have to see and swallow before moving on to the drowning; that we lose a sense of protagonist and antagonist, moral gravity; that the poem is in search of gravity among its tragic parts and dangling question—what to say but to read it, parse it, memorize it, and pay it forward? Why is it not in every canon? Can't find what you can't see, can you?
Toi Derricotte on "Hurricane" by Yona Harvey
In “Hurricane” by Yona Harvey, a mother focuses on the time in her daughter’s life when the girl begins to move from childhood into adulthood. The poem considers two events, two hurricanes that have had an impact on the daughter—one, Hurricane Katrina, the event of enormous proportions that occurred when she was an infant living in New Orleans, and the other her first ride alone on a scary amusement park ride called “Hurricane.” The poem celebrates the practice of strength and independence in the daughter and captures the mother’s joy in supporting these characteristics. The poem also points to the impact of the mother’s choices as a model for her daughter’s courageous actions. “I did so she do,” the mother says.
I love the playful leaps in the poem, the shifting dramas, the changes in voice, syntax, and diction, how the poem pulls the rug out under us as it breaks out into song, “Ahh awe & aw.” I love the way the poem uses black vernacular, repeating “she/Do” instead of “she/Does.” The two quick and clear syllables perfectly capture the sound and sense of an explosive action, and the repetition of the phrase creates the feeling of an action that keeps happening. The kind of power urged in this poem is not a list of accomplishments, but a way of being alive.
More than anything, I love the engaging uniqueness of a Yona Harvey poem, how her poems weave elements that, in the end, come together with emotional and intellectual resonance. In the last two lines, all four forces in the poem—the mother, daughter, the hurricane, and the ride—seem to merge and become the one source of an indomitable female nature.
Marilyn Nelson on "Middle Passage" by Robert Hayden
"Middle Passage" is one of the major landmarks of modern American poetry, right up there with "Prufrock" and "Sunday Morning." Its grand ambition, its researched knowledge, the range of its literary allusion, its handling of many diverse voices, and its achievement of deep wisdom are, well, I can't think of words right now to describe my admiration of this beautiful masterpiece.
Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib on “We Should Make a Documentary About Spades” by Terrance Hayes
Sitting in a circle around a table outside of a southern hotel this fall, I played and lost several games of spades with black writers I love. The cards, themselves, were a language. But we added our own seasoning, as the children of black people who also moved cards along tables know to do.
What I love about the work of Terrance Hayes is how interested it is in the freezing of the small nuances of the moment. He does it without sacrificing the history that, perhaps, occupies any table of black people playing any game. In this poem there are slave ships. There is Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. But more than anything, the poem is an instruction on the interior of the game and the stakes associated with it—the stakes of pride, of family.
Resting in the middle of the poem, almost surprising, is the line, “My mother did not drink / and that’s how I knew something was wrong with her.” And yet, there is a dry spot on the table when couples come to play spades at his mother’s table. The way we make room for one another to revel in these small humiliations that pull us closer. More than anything, the poem’s work is in this: speaking in a language heard only among friends. Spades, of course, is not a game our enemies play.
Camille Rankine on "Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes
“Let America Be America Again” has been ringing in my ears for months now. It snaked its way into the back of my mind when the Trump campaign rolled out its red-hatted slogan: “Make America Great Again.” The first time I saw those words, I knew exactly what they meant, and that they weren’t meant for me. I knew that the great America hoped for within those words was one where I’m a little less free, where the patriarchal grip on every system of power is white, white-knuckled, and unassailable. For a person of color in America, there is no greater time than a hopeful future; there are no good old golden days of yore. I don’t do nostalgia. I don’t long for anything before, because life becomes more dangerous for me the further back I go.
After Trump’s victory, I watched the liberal flank of white America shimmering in its astonished disbelief, feeling betrayed by a place they thought they knew. What had this country become? “Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed.” Hughes’s words rolled over and over in my head. “There’s never been equality for me, / Nor freedom in this ‘homeland of the free.’” The violent white male supremacy that Trump traded on throughout his campaign is embedded in the foundation of this place. The country we all woke to on November 9, 2022, was the same one it’s always been. Black America has been living in that reality all along. And we’ve been trying to show you. The first dream of this country didn’t see me free within it. I draw my veil across the stars. “America never was America to me.”
Mahogany L. Browne on “Brief History of Hostility” by Jamaal May
Jamaal May dissects the many limbs of the assault of an oppressive system and the resilient resistance of an oppressed people in the five-act poem “A Brief History of Hostility”:
The war said let there be war
and there was war.
The war said let there be peace
and there was war.
Like a surgeon with a sturdy hand, May pens a succinctly textured psalm, birthing light and life against the landscape of a machine designed to punish and wound until extinction. The poetic craft of chant and righteous rage finds a delicate balance on the page as May threads together repetition and steel and nature as comforting as any lullaby. This is no easy feat: writing about life and fire and death and the desire for peace through air and flowers birth graveyards without the promise of losing interest, a privilege for some.
Ruth Ellen Kocher on "Coherence in Consequence" by Claudia Rankine
Is it still cliché to say that you can read a poem and be inspired? Or is it still cliché to say that you find something like hope in language? In a time when some of us feel that we are post-hope, Claudia Rankine’s poem “Coherence in Consequence” realigns the subtle shift that determines whether the reader is in step with the poem, or at odds.
Rankine begins the poem by collaborating with her reader. She asks us to “Imagine them in black, the morning heat losing within this day / that floats. And always there is the being, and the not-seeing / their way.” I love these lines and use them at times to help students understand that issues of accessibility in poetry have much to do with how we read as opposed to what we read. If we trust this poem and this poet, we can immerse ourselves in the effect of the language here as opposed to the direction of the narrative. And when that trust comes into play, the rest of the poem holds greater rewards.
My favorite lines in the poem are, “Never mind / the loose mindless / grip of their forms reflected in the eye-watering hues of the / surface. These two will survive their capacity to meet, / to hold the other beneath the plummeting.” I love how Rankine tells us, essentially, to “Never mind … forms.” The form is elusive and a stumbling block if we cannot first understand what exists within the form and how the form exists out of shear necessity to embody the epiphany therein. How my mind becomes keenly alert when I read, “These two will survive in their capacity to meet.” The language of simple resolve deflects what is often the most salient adversity. To believe that we can overcome “what is” by embracing some faith in “what will be” is the stuff of inspiration and always has been, but to overcome “what is” by understanding the gravity of “what can be” is an animal we don’t often handle adeptly in the serious poem, the poem that resists reduction, the poem that tells us not what to feel but what we already know and have perhaps forgotten. We are more than our forms. We may potentially transcend our constructs. We are light contained and not containment. How can you not relish in such faith?
Afaa Michael Weaver on "For My People" by Margaret Walker
“For My People" is timeless. When we are reminded now, after eight years with a black president, of the need for vigilance in the ongoing effort for equal access to the American ideal of democracy, Walker’s poem is an accomplishment that grows and grows in value for everyone. The encompassing imagery of a people drawn in the mythic proportions of history is given in language that arouses the spirit. The poem is the gift of a poet’s sincerity.
It is an excellent teaching poem. Students have a chance to explore the period in which the poem was written and published. It was the time of a young Gwendolyn Brooks, who would win the first Pulitzer given to a black writer; a young James Baldwin, who would write foundational essays for the national culture in unequalled eloquence; a mature and accomplished Langston Hughes, the dean of African American letters; and many more.
A poem such as “For My People,” evokes not just the subject but the temper and texture of the time in which it was created. Its creator, Margaret Walker, gave of her heart to touch our hearts and remind us of the necessary work of goodness. She is a poet with a work that celebrates a people and their country. Her vision, courage, and imagination in this work deserve our celebration.
Camille T. Dungy on "On Being Brought from Africa to America" by Phillis Wheatley
In 1761, when she was about seven years old, the girl we have come to know as Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped from her home on the West Coast of Africa. She was transported to Boston because she was too frail to be of practical use in the physically demanding sugar plantations of the South. She learned English, Greek, and Latin. But she remained enslaved. Twelve years later, in 1773, this same girl would become the first black person to publish a book in English. From that collection comes "On Being Brought from Africa to America" one of the most amazing poems I have ever read.
The poem itself follows the neoclassical model—it’s concerned with order, structure, reason. We see it in the rhyme, the meter, in its controlled organization, and also its logic. There is an orderly series of four heroic couplets. There are the requisite nods to Christian ideals. In the mode of her time, Wheatley's poem is clean, uncorrupted. Practically dismissible, it seems so perfect.
But this is not a poem to be easily dismissed. Scan it with me. In doing so, you'll see some of the ways Wheatley uses the apparent order of the poem to reveal an entirely different line of reasoning than what might be evident at first glance. There is practically a secret code inside this poem. The “save” in “Savior” is stressed, the “Christ” in “Christian,” the word "black" in the penultimate line, and the word "join" at the poem's end. The word "die" at the end of a line about the "diabolic" skin tone of black people is stressed along with the “di-” in “diabolic,” and both syllables are close enough in proximity to create a shocking internal rhyme. This all has something to do with English itself, with where stresses naturally fall in particular words, but the way that these words are put together in Wheatley's poem directs whether and how we attend to them. Wheatley knew this. She uses the logic of the structure of metrical verse as a means toward revelation and resistance.
We see this same thing throughout the poem in her use of punctuation, in her rare enjambment, in the ways she plays with allusions, and especially in the fun she has with the homonymic potential of the English language. Toward the latter two points, I will never cease to wonder at her play on the word “Cain” to indicate the potential for refinement (and, therefore, exalted status) of the darker of the two sons of Adam and Eve, as well as the expected refinement (and, therefore, salvation) of the sugar cane (and sugar cane workers) at the center of the slave trade. Wheatley revels in the ways that something can appear to have one conclusion and also another.
This neoclassical poem, written by an enslaved young woman, barely out of her teens, is rebellious even as it appears to follow all the rules. It is about the complicated blessing of being kidnapped from her home and sold into slavery in a land where she is able to learn about the order and structure of Western traditions (including Christianity), and it has at its heart words, phrases, and lines that can be read (completely logically) in a number of ways. At every turn, she undermines and complicates the logic to which she is bound. I love that! I love her.