Chose one poet from the following list which you admire most. (See instructions to see more)

*To your mind, what are the 3 (THREE) most important elements (aspects) of the poetry of any one of these poets: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Gary Snyder, Marilyn Chin, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Lucille Clifton, Adrienne Rich, Joy Harjo, Jelaluddin Rumi, Naomi Shihab Nye, Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Allen Ginsberg. 

Choose the poet from among those listed whose work you admire most. Illustrate clearly, specifically, and generously the way in which her/his poetry is important as [American] poetry, not just because “you like it,” but in some objective sense that you can articulate and illustrate. Offer support for your ideas by showing examples form poems—including specific passages. Connect ideas and examples. 

For example (these are only examples—use at will, or make up your own!), you may understand the poetry to be important:

• in the way that it deals with particular themes
• in the way it addresses and/or heals important personal as well as cultural wounds or tensions
• in the way it advances cultural discourses on race, class, or gender
• in the way it proposes certain values, subversions, or useful sets of interconnections
• in the way it breaks silences or speaks for an oppressed or silenced group (or pays homage to/ “re-humanizes” the dehumanized)
• in the way it brings language to life and defines key terms (which is to say, key values/ value terms)
• In the way it:
• engages the reader in articulating key tensions of its historical moment, generation, or culture
• negotiates some important tonal (and/or cultural) tension or edge
• challenges its reader to think and act—to be changed—to question assumptions—to read or think in a new & important way
• challenges us to innovate in our understanding of one of the following: God, nature, poetry, America, identity, class, race, gender, masculinity, femininity etc.
• inspires readers by finding a voice with which to cope with, confront, or even transcend difficult problems
• is historically significant (helps us see our history or provides a window into our cultural history)
• serves multiple purposes simultaneously (for example, expressive, informative, persuasive, and definitive—taken from Kenneth Burke’s pentad—or both personal/ universal and cultural/ sociopolitical).
• or innovates in its use of language in terms of voice, rhetoric, craft, or form.