I've added a new current to the poetic voices that flow through Poetry River: poems of resilience.
These poems convey strength, persistence, hope, ingenuity, and imagination in the face of oppression, abuse, illness, or loss--subjects often omitted from textbook anthologies which tend to lean away from topics considered impolite to discuss at the dinner table or controversial to bring into the classroom.
In the initial group of poems highlighted in this new section of Poetry River's poems page, you'll find poems about emerging from child abuse and substance abuse, persisting within an environment of neglect or disapproval, and holding onto hope in a childhood riddled with death--of parents, cousins, neighbors, siblings, and friends.
Here is one of the selections also available in video form, Patricia Smith's "Building Nicole's Mama."
These poems convey strength, persistence, hope, ingenuity, and imagination in the face of oppression, abuse, illness, or loss--subjects often omitted from textbook anthologies which tend to lean away from topics considered impolite to discuss at the dinner table or controversial to bring into the classroom.
In the initial group of poems highlighted in this new section of Poetry River's poems page, you'll find poems about emerging from child abuse and substance abuse, persisting within an environment of neglect or disapproval, and holding onto hope in a childhood riddled with death--of parents, cousins, neighbors, siblings, and friends.
Here is one of the selections also available in video form, Patricia Smith's "Building Nicole's Mama."
