# What was the last culturally significant poem? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** poetry\ **Created:** [December 21, 2025, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919 "2025-12-21T18:27:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/41 "2025-12-21T23:25:27Z")
Some of these 21st century poems are pretty good. All of them are very brief, as a sop to the digital age. The authors are all essentially unknown to me and probably anyone else who does not follow poetry professionally. > **[12 Of The Best 21st Century Poems You Should Read This Week – Writer's Edit](https://writersedit.com/inspiration/12-of-the-best-21st-century-poems-you-should-read-this-week/)** ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/42 "2025-12-21T23:27:59Z")
Dylan did win the Nobel. But the answer may be JK Rowling, depending on what you consider a poem. > **[Official Harry Potter poems by JK Rowling from the books](https://members.tripod.com/uditkhanna_harrypot/poems.htm)** ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/43 "2025-12-21T23:33:03Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > When is the last time a poem did that? …I just posted this in another thread, but “If I must die”, by Refaat Alareer. > **[If I Must Die](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Must_Die)** > > If I Must Die is a poem by Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer. Written in 2011, the poem became famous following the death of its author, and has been recognized as a testament to the resilience, resistance, and humanity of the Palestinian people during the Gaza genocide. It has been analyzed in academic, journalistic, and cultural contexts for its evocative imagery and its symbolic challenge to narratives of occupation and marginalization. > [@](#): > > Written in 2011… > > Following Alareer’s death, _“If I Must Die”_ went viral, viewed over 33 million times on Twitter alone and translated into more than 100 languages. The poem has been publicly read at vigils, protests, and artistic gatherings around the world. > > The poem is considered a notable example of decolonial literature, resonating beyond the context of Gaza and contributing to transnational dialogues on resistance and injustice. > … > It has been described as one of the most **widely known poems of the 21st century.** As read by Bryan Cox. > **[Brian Cox reads IF I MUST DIE, the last poem by Refaat Alareer, killed by an...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMpk2vynJiQ%2F)** > > Brian Cox reads If I Must Die, by beloved Palestinian poet, teacher and martyr Refaat Alareer.Refaat was killed on December 7th by an Israeli airstrike.This ... ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/44 "2025-12-21T23:36:23Z")
Yeah, I was coming in here to post that. I think the 2011 “If I Must Die” is probably the most recent candidate for really widespread cultural recognition and intense impact, though it didn’t attain that level until the author’s death in 2023. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/45 "2025-12-21T23:41:41Z")
That’s very moving. But i hadn’t heard it before today. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/46 "2025-12-21T23:45:31Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > First thing that came to my mind also: but if we’re supposed to rule out anything that hasn’t had long term influence, doesn’t that automatically exclude anything Though Gorman’s piece from 2020 would could if people were still talking about it 2025. The fact it’s can’t actually remember anything about the poem itself, kind of rules it out. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/47 "2025-12-22T00:09:48Z")
> [@susan](#): > > Beowulf. The Odyssey. The Canterbury Tales. The Decameron. The Bhagavad Gita. Psalms. Four of those six were set to music (even if the original music has since been lost). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/48 "2025-12-22T00:10:26Z")
Yeah, concur that it’s not up there with “Footprints”. I think it’s far and away the most real-world culturally impactful of 21st-century poems, though. I would say that nowadays the traditional role of the poem as a shared cultural touchstone of perceptions, reactions to events, etc., has been largely usurped by the meme. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/49 "2025-12-22T00:15:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel prize in literature for his poetry. And which caused no small amount of disagreement in the poetry and literature world, where many people felt that song lyrics (which is what Dylan won the award for) are distinct from what is usually termed as “literature.” YMMV, of course, and yes, one can find definitions for the word “literature” which would appear to include song lyrics. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/50 "2025-12-22T00:40:51Z")
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned “First They Came”. > **[First They Came](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came)** > > "First They Came" (German: Als sie kamen lit. 'When they came', or Habe ich geschwiegen lit. 'I did not speak out'), is the poetic form of a 1946 post-war confessional prose piece by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). It indirectly condemns complicity of German intellectuals and clergy following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent incremental purging of their chosen targets. Many variations and adaptations in the spirit of the original have been published in the Englis... ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/51 "2025-12-22T00:43:59Z")
If notoriety counts as cultural significance, Calvin Trillin’s “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?” made quite a stir when the New Yorker published it in 2016: > Have they run out of provinces yet? > > If they haven’t, we’ve reason to fret. > > Long ago, there was just Cantonese. > > (Long ago, we were easy to please.) > > But then food from Szechuan came our way, > > Making Cantonese strictly passé…. > **[Poetry Sunday: Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?](https://www.thenatureofthings.blog/2016/04/poetry-sunday-have-they-run-out-of.html?m=1)** > > All week I kept seeing stories and comments online about a "racist and hurtful" poem by Calvin Trillin that appeared in the latest New Yor... > **[We’re in the Room, Calvin Trillin](https://aaww.org/in-the-room-calvin-trillin/)** > > Writers respond to Trillin’s doggerel “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/52 "2025-12-22T00:48:55Z")
For a time in the 1970s, [“Deteriorata”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deteriorata) probably was the best-known poem in America. It was a parody of a 1920s poem called “Desiderata”, rediscovered and made into a spoken-word record by Les Crane in 1971. The National Lampoon couldn’t resist mocking it, and put out a parody version by Tony Hendra on their _Radio Dinner album_ and released it as a single. (Some instrumental noodling was in the background, but still a spoken-word piece.) It made the Billboard Hot 100. Posters with the words were in every third college dorm room, proving the parody caught the Nixon-era mood perfectly. > Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do. > > Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate. > > Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls > Would scarcely get your feet wet. > > You are a fluke of the universe. > You have no right to be here. > And whether you can hear it or not, > The universe is laughing behind your back. Always remember that Rod McKeun is the best selling poet in American history, [according to some sources](https://slate.com/culture/2022/10/rod-mckuen-bestselling-poet-songs-what-happened.html), with 60 million books sold. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/53 "2025-12-22T01:12:11Z")
I feel like some of Shel Silverstein’s works might be worth a mention, here. Certainly they’re widely-recognized, and even if a person might not be familiar with some particular poem of his, his style is always recognized. Though again we run into the song issue, because the best-recognized ones are probably the ones that were later set to music: “Boa Constrictor”, “The Unicorn”, “A Boy Named Sue”. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/54 "2025-12-22T01:13:22Z")
I never heard on this controversy, and I have every humor book published by Trillin, including all four books of Deadline Poetry. By 2016, Trillin had been writing satire for four decades. He also was the food writer for _The New Yorker_, a tireless champion of good food that wasn’t fancy food. He made Arthur Bryant’s bbq in Kansas City the most famous bbq restaurant in America. His oeuvre probably includes dozens of articles satirizing pompous foodies. This context seems crucial to understanding the poem. I have to agree with the writer in your first link that the satire is glaringly obvious. Talk about culturally significant, a huge reaction war is spreading through the left saying that woke had gone too far and that’s a major reason the right conquered the general public. I have my doubts about the truth of this. For me, woke meant simply treating each other equally and was also glaringly obvious as a way to run a society. I’m white and I’ve read enough by people of color (still no better term) to know that I don’t see the world as they do and that liberal whites have long been scorned as ignorant hypocrites whose good intentions paved myriad roads. I can’t include this one. Satire necessarily must invoke the thing being satirized. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/55 "2025-12-22T01:24:55Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > The obvious example to me is WW1 poetry e.g. For The Fallen (“Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them.”) and Dulce et Decorum est (“The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori”) The fourth stanza of _For The Fallen_ is the piece of poetry I have heard most often in my lifetime. It is read out in every RSL club in Australia every night at 6PM. That is about 1,000 venues a day. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/56 "2025-12-22T01:25:56Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Satire necessarily must invoke the thing being satirized. I don’t know if Trillin took any Classics courses at Yale, but his poem does have a few faint echoes of Horace’s Satire 2.2: > …It’s not > > So long since the auctioneer Gallonius’ serving _sturgeon_, > > Caused a scandal. And the sea hid as much turbot, then. > > Yet turbot were still safe, and storks safe in their nests, > > Till a creative “praetor” led you astray! So that now, > > If someone proclaimed roast seagulls were tasty, > > The youth of Rome, so easily seduced, would agree. > **[BkIISatII:23-52 Gourmet eating is ridiculous - Horace (65 BC–8 BC) - The...](https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceSatiresBkIISatII.php#anchor_Toc98154907)** > > Horace 'The Satires' Book II Satire II: A new, downloadable English translation. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/57 "2025-12-22T01:26:00Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Lander’s poem, “This Be The Verse” from 1971 is also well known and liked. Nitpick: Philip Larkin, as it states in your link preview. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/58 "2025-12-22T01:27:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I feel like some of Shel Silverstein’s works might be worth a mention, here. Certainly they’re widely-recognized, and even if a person might not be familiar with some particular poem of his, his style is always recognized. Some of Dorothy Parker’s epigrams might count, too. I could also add children’s folk poetry: _Rain, rain, go away / come again some other day_ and _Eenie meenie miney moe_ are definitely poetry. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/59 "2025-12-22T01:27:55Z")
Poem: **The Hill We Climb** by Amanda Gorman Including songs: **They Not Like Us** by Kendrick Lamar ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919/60 "2025-12-22T01:27:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Yeah, concur that it’s not up there with “Footprints”. I think it’s far and away the most real-world culturally impactful of 21st-century poems, though. How well-known is “Footprints” outside of the English-speaking world? How well-known is “If I Must Die”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-last-culturally-significant-poem/1025919.md?page=4)