What are the best poems about knowledge? Poetry often contains a kind of wisdom or deeper knowledge: about the world, about love, about what might await us after we die. Whether we agree with the forms of knowledge poets postulate or vehemently disagree, the poet is often seeking out, in […]
Tolerance is an important topic in literature, because to tolerate something also involves an acknowledgment that there is a potential objection to the thing being tolerated. Nobody ‘tolerates’ winning a million pounds on the lottery, but we talk of ‘tolerating’ the loud music coming from a neighbour’s house when they’re […]
Poetry can be used to address and explore a range of pressing social issues, and racial prejudice and racial identity are among these topics which poets have written about powerfully, from a range of perspectives. Whether it’s African-American poets writing at the time of the Civil Rights movement in the […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Poetry’ and ‘love’ are almost synonymous in some people’s minds, with the very idea of poetry summoning images of the romantic – hopeless or otherwise – and rather highly-strung soul devoted to the beauty of words and the truth of love. But as well […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Langston Hughes (1901-67) was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance in New York in the 1920s. Over the course of a varied career he was a novelist, playwright, social activist, and journalist, but it is for his poetry that Hughes is now best-remembered. […]