Read the excerpt from "My City” by James Weldon Johnson.Will it be that no more I shall see the trees Or smell the flowers or hear the singing birds Or watch the flashing streams or patient herds? No, I am sure it will be none of these.
Read the excerpt from "On Imagination” by Phillis Wheatley. Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies, Till some lov'd object strikes her wand'ring eyes, Whose silken fetters all the senses bind, And soft captivity involves the mind.Imagination! who can sing thy force? Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Read the excerpt from "Missing in Action” by Thanhha Lai.This day Mother prepares an altarto chant for his return, offering fruit, incense, tuberoses, and glutinous rice.She displays his portrait taken during Tết the year he disappeared.How peaceful he looks, smiling, peacock tails at the corners of his eyes.Each of us bows and wishes and hopes and prays.
Read the excerpt from "Rosa” by Rita Dove.How she stood up when they bent down to retrieve her purse. That courtesy.
Read the excerpt from "We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar.We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!
Read the excerpt from "Missing in Action” by Thanhha Lai.Everything on the altar remains for the day except the portrait. Mother locks it away as soon as her chant ends.She cannot bear to look into Father’s forever-young eyes.
Read the excerpt from "Jabari Unmasked” by Nikki Grimes. The ignorant ignore as best you can, and in the end, mask aside, freshen your mouth with ferocious lines of potent poetry, with metaphors that mightily reveal the myriad of emotions you feel—yet, in all their subtleties.
Read the excerpt from "Jabari Unmasked” by Nikki Grimes.Is such unfairness what the world is filled with? The evidence is seen in spirits ripped and torn. Still, the world needs the dreams we offer, and should we leave those dreams bleeding on the road, we’d shrink our own hearts down to nothing, and that we would regret. Better to let our anger go, and smile.
Read the excerpt from "My City” by James Weldon Johnson.But, ah! Manhattan's sights and sounds, her smells, Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comes From being of her a part, her subtle spells, Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums— O God! the stark, unutterable pity, To be dead, and never again behold my city!
Read the excerpt from "Jabari Unmasked” by Nikki Grimes.One look, and we are neatly judged this gang, these thugs, these dark delinquents in debt to society. Meanwhile, you fail to see that we are college-bound (more than a few), prepared to pay attention to psychology, the sciences, the arts, to thoughtfully unfurl the scrolls of human history. Instead, you see a thief who uses guile.
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