African American Poetry

Shmoop's got the blues.

  • Course Length: 3 weeks
  • Course Type: Short Course
  • Category:
    • College Prep
    • English
    • Humanities
    • Literature
    • High School

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Sad truth: much of African American poetry started with slavery. A few slaves, tired after a long day's work, sat down and wrote some of the first poems in the African American tradition. This course follows slave narratives, songs, and traditions, as well as everything that came after—Black Power, double-consciousness, and simile, metaphor, and personification to boot. Poetry (plus, obviously, close reading) will be covered extensively in this fifteen-lesson Common-core aligned course, jam-packed with readings and activities.

In this course, we'll 

  • meet poetry VIPs who wrote through old-timey quill pens, oral traditions, typewriters, and slam poetry competitions. 
  • learn about American history and the African American experience through their allegories, metaphors, and allusions. 
  • try our hand at some poetry-writing and performing of our own. Not to give you preemptive stage fright or anything.

Sure, studying Shakespeare and Pound is fine...if you're into old white dudes. It's time to get a new poetic perspective with this course.


Unit Breakdown

1 African American Poetry

In this standards-aligned poetry course, you'll survey African American poetry from its origins abroad and in the early colonies to contemporary works. You'll perform close readings, read informational texts, and make connections between African American history and its major works of poetry. By the time the course is through, you'll be not only a poetry lover, but a poetry creator—or, uh, as it's more frequently called, a "poet."


Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 1.01: Writing Poetry in Chains

A picture of an enslaved person, with his hands in chains.
"C'mon, man, are these chains really necessary?"
(Source)

Imagine this, guys:

  • It's the 1700s.
  • You're a slave in the South. 
  • You've either been taken from your homeland and brought to the United States through the Middle Passage or you were born a slave and have spent your entire life working on the plantation, or in the factory, or in the main house, serving supper to your master.
  • Perhaps your mother was a slave. Perhaps your father is actually white.
  • Either way, your first thought is, "Man, I gotta write this down."

We know, it sounds crazy, but a lot of slaves had this exact thought. They were beaten, ridiculed, and worked halfway to death, but at the end of the day, when they were dead tired, they sat down to write some poetry. 

How did they manage it? Some were lucky enough to have "benevolent" masters who taught them to read and write. Others were freed by their masters and able to earn an education of their own. Some turned to the church and learned about the alphabet. 

The point? If there's a will, there's a way.


Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.01a: "On Being Brought from Africa to America"

What can we say about Phillis Wheatley? She was a poet, a mother, a slave. Born in West Africa and brought to America at the age of seven, she was bought by John Wheatley and taught to read by his children. At an early age, she was reading Greek and Latin classics, and felt inspired to write her own poetry. Her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was the first collection of poetry written by an African American and included such standouts as "On Being Brought from Africa to America."

You'll notice that the poem is written in heroic couplets, so called because they were used in the old days to talk about heroes and their adventures (like in the Greek and Latin classics Wheatley was reading as a child). You'll also notice that some words have been italicized. As you read, think about what the italics symbolize and about the position Wheatley is taking on slavery.

"On Being Brought from Africa to America" (1773)

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

(Source)

When you're done, check out our line-by-line summary to make sure you got everything.


Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.01b: "On Liberty and Slavery"

George Moses Horton was perhaps the most entrepreneurial young poet to ever live. Born into slavery in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, he taught himself to read and started composing poems in his head. Poems he then sold at the local market. As in, he stood up on a box and recited them for people to memorize. He got so famous, a professor's wife helped him publish his poems, but even then, his owner wouldn't give him his freedom.

Horton would spend 30 years buying his time from his master so that he could work as a full-time poet, which, as you can imagine, left him pretty sore about the whole business. Much of Horton's poetry is about the evils of slavery and oppression, and you'll see that in our next reading. 

As you read "On Liberty and Slavery," think about how this poem's message differs from that of Wheatley's and how it reflects his experience as a slave.

"On Liberty and Slavery" (1829) 

Alas! and am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil and pain!

How long have I in bondage lain,
And languished to be free!
Alas! and must I still complain— 
Deprived of liberty.

Oh, Heaven! and is there no relief
This side the silent grave— 
To soothe the pain—to quell the grief
And anguish of a slave?

Come Liberty, thou cheerful sound,
Roll through my ravished ears!
Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,
And drive away my fears.

Say unto foul oppression, Cease:
Ye tyrants rage no more,
And let the joyful trump of peace,
Now bid the vassal soar.

Soar on the pinions of that dove
Which long has cooed for thee,
And breathed her notes from Afric's grove,
The sound of Liberty.

Oh, Liberty! thou golden prize,
So often sought by blood— 
We crave thy sacred sun to rise,
The gift of nature's God:
Bid Slavery hide her haggard face,
And barbarism fly:
I scorn to see the sad disgrace
In which enslaved I lie.

Dear Liberty! upon thy breast,
I languish to respire;
And like the Swan unto her nest,
I'd to thy smiles retire.

Oh, blest asylum—heavenly balm!
Unto thy boughs I flee— 
And in thy shades the storm shall calm,
With songs of Liberty!

(Source)


Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.01a: Finding God

So…that was rough. Wheatley uses words like "diabolic," "benighted," and "Saviour" (with an English "u"). The language here's very difficult, so for this activity, you're just going to answer some questions to make sure you're on the right track.

Answer the following questions in two to four sentences each. Cite at least one specific example for each question. For example, if asked about religion in the poem, we might write about the "redemption" the speaker is so glad to have access to, now that she's a slave.

  1. The speaker was brought to America as a slave, but in the first line of the poem, she says, "'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land." What does that suggest about her attitude toward slavery? Does she look on slavery as an entirely bad thing?

  2. Why does the speaker think that slavery was a "mercy" in disguise? What did she learn as a result of being brought to America?

  3. Why does the speaker think that "some" are wrong to "view our sable race with scornful eye"? What do her words suggest about the relationship between external appearances (race) and spirituality?

  4. The speaker says that African Americans ("Negros") can be "refin'd." How does the poem's structure (its use of rhyming heroic couplets, for instance) affirm this idea? In other words, in what ways is the poem itself "refin'd," and how does this support the speaker's argument that African Americans can themselves be "refin'd"?


Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.01b: Wheatley vs. Horton

You've probably noticed that the two poems we've read have vastly different opinions about slavery: 

  • Wheatley's calls it refined and thinks it is a mercy she was taken from her African homeland to be educated by her new masters.
  • And Horton talks about slavery like the bondage that it is.

At the same time, both poems use classical rhyme schemes and poetic tools like alliteration and metaphor to get their message across, and that's what we'll be looking at in this activity as we focus on "On Liberty and Slavery."

Answer each of the following questions about Horton's poem in two to four sentences, just like you did before.

  1. According to the speaker of "On Liberty and Slavery," why is slavery so bad? What are some of the things it deprives the speaker of? Cite at least one specific example from the poem.

  2. Identify at least three instances of alliteration in the poem.

  3. What does the "the dove" symbolize in line 21? What is a metaphor?

  4. What metaphors are used to represent "Liberty" in these lines?

  5. What does the imagery of "soaring" and "rising" suggest about peace and liberty?

  6. How does the speaker use personification in this poem? What is personified, and why?

  7. How is the image of the "Swan" used as a simile in line 35?

  8. Where does the speaker think he can find peace, and why does he think that it is only there he can find peace?


Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.01c: Instruments of Torture

It's super depressing to hear, but America was struggling with slavery and race relations long before we were even...America, and you won't take a course on African-African poetry that doesn't cover slavery.

However, we want to note early on in this course that African-American poets have earned their place in the literary world for more reasons than just writing about oppression, violence, and racism—the more obvious themes that we'll see in a lot of these poems. Aside from teaching us about history, African-American poets can roll with—and challenge—literary greats who haven't experienced slavery, and they have plenty to say about gender, religion, class, sexuality, identity, and the enduring marginalization that African Americans face. So, keep that in mind.

That being said, the history of African-American poetry is marked by slavery. And slavery is marked with some particularly gruesome realities. We'll get a sense of that in this activity by learning about some of the terrible ways slaves were punished under slavery.

Have a look at the picture gallery, "10 Barbaric and Heartbreaking Ways Enslaved Black People Were Punished by Their Slave Masters."

Now that you've gone through the entire gallery, which of these punishments do you think is the most violent or cruel? Write 75 – 100 words indicating the following:

  • Why do you think this particular punishment is the worst? For instance, you might say that pouring salt into a wound is, like, the definition of cruelty.
  • What does the punishment you chose say about how slaves were treated then? For example, you might say inflicting sexual violence on slaves is like adding insult to injury in an effort to dehumanize them.

Sample Lesson - Activity

  1. What does the speaker of Phillis Wheatley's poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America" find as a result of being enslaved?

  2. What do some people say about African Americans, according to Wheatley's speaker?

  3. Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is written in what?

  4. Which character from the Bible does Wheatley's speaker refer to?

  5. What is personified as having "a haggard face" in George Horton Moses' "On Liberty and Slavery"?

  6. The line "Roll through my ravished ears" in "On Liberty and Slavery" reflects which poetic device?

  7. How does the speaker's attitude toward slavery in "On Being Brought from Africa to America" differ from the speaker's attitude in "On Liberty and Slavery"?

  8. The reference to "Liberty" as a "golden prize" in "On Liberty and Slavery" is an example of what poetic device?

  9. The speaker of "On Liberty and Slavery" says he will find "asylum" (or shelter) in what?

  10. What is the "gift of nature's God" in "On Liberty and Slavery"?