Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing (James Weldon Johnson)

Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson

A frank poem for this Thanksgiving-season. It's well crafted, with meter and rhyme. It is honest in its praise. I find that refreshing.

Favorite line: "Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee"

The Creation (James Weldon Johnson)

You know what I love? A good story. Things are not read aloud much past childhood, but I first heard this poem by James Weldon Johnson at a high school assembly performed by another student. The most repeated comment about this poem that I have heard from other people is that this is a poem that is meant to be read aloud. While I think that all poems would benefit from being read aloud, it is true that this particular one shines when performed.

This poem is one of the longest poems that I have talked about. I think it reads quickly because the lines are not so long and because the story is so well known.

It is a wonder that this common story can be retold in a way that still strikes one (er, me) as new and original. I love that this common, old, white story is reinterpreted as being more regional and yet, also more universal.

Favorite line: "Darkness covered everything,/Blacker than a hundred midnights/Down in a cypress swamp."