Do you get the newsletter from the Academy of American Poets?
“The Avenue in the Rain,” oil on canvas, by the American painter Childe Hassam. 42 in. x 22.25 in. Courtesy of The White House Collection, The White House, Washington, D. C. Image courtesy of The Athenaeum. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A 2012 newsletter included this list:
Poems of American Experience
- I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman
- I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes
- Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander
- America by Robert Creeley
- America by Claude McKay
- On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley
- A Nation’s Strength by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Election Year by Donald Revell
- In a Country by Larry Levis
- A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg
People in some states complain that the liquor stores and bars won’t open on election day. So, try the next best thing, or the better thing, and read some poetry.
What works of poetry, or literature, or visual arts, strike you as appropriate for the U.S. election day? Which works would be most useful in school classrooms, to teach our young people about voting, how to vote, and why it’s important?
U.S. Flag Code urges the flag be flown at every polling place on any election day. Be sure to compliment your poll judges if the flag is up. You may fly your flag at home, too.
More:
- Walt Whitman Poems: Election Day November 1884. Poetry Corner (newgrandmas.com)
- The Presidency, in Verse (theparisreview.org)
Yes, this is an encore post. Defeating ignorance takes patience and perseverance.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
I like “The Avenue in the Rain!” I forgot to see if a flag was flying at my polling place, but it is next to city hall so perhaps there was one there and I didn’t notice it.
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