Freedom Poetry Voices

“I’m so grateful that poetry remains a space where people can express ourselves freely without censure.”

We are searching for freedom.

Freedom

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

Freedom will not come

Today, this year

            Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right

As the other fellow has

            To stand

On my two feet

And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,

Let things take their course.

Tomorrow is another day.

I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

            Freedom

            Is a strong seed

            Planted

            In a great need.

            I live here, too.

            I want my freedom

            Just as you.   

Copyright Credit: Langston Hughes, “Freedom [1]” from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.

Source: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes.  (University of Missouri Press (BkMk Press), 2002)

Poetry is sought to publish here on this blog that is about the search for freedom from voices less heard. 

The perspective of marginalized persons, the disabled, the immigrants, the undocumented, the colorful, the neuro-diverse, the unhoused, the hungry, the victims, the uneducated, the imprisoned, the demented, the struggling, the very young and the very old, those living in war-torn places, and liminal spaces such as subway stations, is sought here on Freedom Poetry Voices. 

The search for freedom is a universal strand in our very beings and it’s the task of humanity to gather us into this carrier bag of poems by Freedom Poetry Voices by allowing our words to shine here in this space.

Poetry that is racist, ableist, discriminatory about people of color, discriminatory towards marginalized people such as LGBTQ2S+, or with even any hint of white supremacism, bomb-dropping violent advocacy, or any warmongering, will not be allowed on this site.

For more about the “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” please read Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1986 essay, here: https://communityofwriters.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/The-Carrier-Bag-Theory-of-Fiction.pdf#:~:text=Many,in%20Women’s%20Creation%20(McGraw%2DHill%2C%201975)