Poetry: Perseverance

This thematic Collection highlights poems centered on the experiences of perseverance and determination. These titles examine the human drive to overcome personal and social obstacles, such as racism. Representing hundreds of years of literary history, the Collection includes works by authors such as John Donne, Maya Angelou, Walt Whitman, and Kwame Alexander.

In Memoriam

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Publication year 1850

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Grief, Death, Conflict, Nostalgia, Perseverance

Tags Lyric Poem, Grief & Death, Victorian Period

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam AHH explores the cosmic implications of the death of a college friend (his sister’s fiancé), poet Arthur Henry Hallam, who died quite unexpectedly in 1833 at the age of 22 most likely from a cerebral hemorrhage. The poem is among the most ambitiously conceived philosophical poems in the English language and a monument to the dynamics of how Christians themselves grapple with the thorny question of mortality. The work stands... Read In Memoriam Summary

Lift Every Voice and Sing

by James Weldon Johnson

Publication year 1900

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Grief, Equality, Joy, Religion & Spirituality, Trust & Doubt, Justice, Nation, The Past, Future, Race, Perseverance

Tags Lyric Poem, Inspirational, African American Literature, American Literature, Race & Racism, Religion & Spirituality, Civil Rights & Jim Crow South, US History

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Light Shining Out of Darkness

by William Cowper

Publication year 1773

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Religion & Spirituality, Perseverance

Tags Religion & Spirituality, Lyric Poem, Depression & Suicide

“Light Shining Out of Darkness,” written by William Cowper, was first published in 1774 by John Newton, a Calvinist pastor, in Twenty-Six Letters on Religious Subjects; to Which Are Added Hymns. Later, the hymn was again collected in Olney Hymns in 1779, a text featuring hymns by both Cowper and Newton (“Light Shining Out of Darkness.” Representative Poetry Online, 1998.). In addition to being a hymn, the text could be labeled as a lyric poem... Read Light Shining Out of Darkness Summary

Me and the Mule

by Langston Hughes

Publication year 1959

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Race, Animals, Shame & Pride, Equality, Perseverance

Tags Lyric Poem, Harlem Renaissance, American Literature, African American Literature, Race & Racism, Civil Rights & Jim Crow South, Social Justice, US History

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My Father's Song

by Simon J. Ortiz

Publication year 1976

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Aging, Fathers, Nostalgia, Family, Perseverance

Tags Lyric Poem, Relationships, American Literature

Simon J. Ortiz originally published “My Father’s Song” in his poetry/story collection entitled A Good Journey (1977). Ortiz is a major writer in the Native American Renaissance, a movement which began in the 1960s and marked a significant increase in the production of literary works by Native Americans in the United States. The poem was written at a time when Ortiz was collecting and recounting stories from Indigenous tribes across the United States, and his... Read My Father's Song Summary