"To the Negro Farmers of the United States" by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( June 9, 2019 [To the Negro Farmers of the United States]( [Alice Dunbar-Nelson]( God washes clean the souls and hearts of you, His favored ones, whose backs bend o’er the soil, Which grudging gives to them requite for toil In sober graces and in vision true. God places in your hands the pow’r to do A service sweet. Your gift supreme to foil The bare-fanged wolves of hunger in the moil Of Life’s activities. Yet all too few Your glorious band, clean sprung from Nature’s heart; The hope of hungry thousands, in whose breast Dwells fear that you should fail. God placed no dart Of war within your hands, but pow’r to start Tears, praise, love, joy, enwoven in a crest To crown you glorious, brave ones of the soil. [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 9, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. ["To the Negro Farmers of the United States" by Dunbar-Nelson]( About This Poem “To the Negro Farmers of the United States” was published in The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer (J. L. Nichols, 1920). [Alice Dunbar-Nelson]( Alice Dunbar-Nelson was born on July 19, 1875, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is the author of Violets and Other Tales (Monthly Review, 1895), among other plays and short story collections. She died on September 18, 1935, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [more-at-poets]( [The Works of Alice Dunbar-Nelson]( Poetry by Dunbar-Nelson [The Works of Alice Dunbar-Nelson]( (Oxford University Press, 1988) "September" by Helen Hunt Jackson [read-more]( "America Gives Its Blackness Back To Me" by Shane McCrae [read-more]( "Before the Feast of Shushan" by Anne Spencer [read-more]( June Guest Editor: Samiya Bashir Thanks to [Samiya Bashir](, author of Field Theories (Nightboat Books, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a [Q&A with Bashir]( about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our [guest editors for the year.]( [make a one-time donation]( [illustration]( [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038