To clarify: you’re also talking specifically American culture, or the English-speaking world? My impression is that in Arabic-speaking culture, poetry is much more prominent. I also suspect that there are some significant poems in the Maoist tradition.
The last one I can recall that commanded any attention related to world events was Adrian Mitchell’s To Whom it may Concern (Tell Me Lies about Vietnam)
It very mildly annoys me that books on “recent famous poems” often include stuff from the 19th century. I guess poetry, outside of music and children’s books, has aged like jazz.
“Still I Rise” is a good choice, published in 1978, almost fifty years ago. Lander’s poem, “This Be The Verse” from 1971 is also well known and liked.
They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
More recent examples tend to be from rap, music, musicals, the occasional TV show, in children’s literature, or as an incidental in books.
I don’t know if it was the most recent significant poem but I think many people would recognize some of the lines from Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix
But that was written in 1956 so there is plenty of room for something more recent.
Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel prize in literature for his poetry.
wiki- The Nobel Prize committee announced on October 13, 2016, that it would be awarding Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.[
I’m going back a bit further, to “In Flanders Field”
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
which is why poppies are still worn in the Commonwealth for Remembrance Day
eta: And now I see that @Dr.Drake already put that in post 3. Sorry!
No, that’s a good point. Definitely not just English not that I’d be able to judge what counts as widely culturally influential. Poetry was historically even more prominent in Arabic culture than western European culture. Has that continued into recent years?
And the verse epics Mahabharata and Ramayana remain hugely significant in Hindu culture. I suspect that a lot of cultures retain traditional verse recitation, and consequently poems as cultural touchstones, to a degree that we in the English speaking world just don’t expect.
(That said, I nominate the “30 days hath September, April, June and November” couplet as the poem that remains the most universally recognized and culturally embedded fo English speakers.)
As for most recent in that category, I think a lot of people recognize Jenny Joseph’s 1961 “Warning (When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple)”. It consistently appears in various meditations on aging, and inspired the present day Red Hat Society.
Clearly, as with the Psalms in western culture. But in the OP I was asking about the most recently written poem that is “culturally significant” not for older poems that are still significant.
So that doesn’t count as it dates back to the 15th century.
Yeah that counts definitely. Though “Still I rise” also does IMO and is more recent.
True, sorry, I was circling back to the “most recent” criterion as I edited my post but you got in ahead of me.
I agree “Still I Rise” is more recent than “Howl”. But I question whether it’s well enough know to qualify as culturally significant. I feel the same about some of other recent poems that have been mentioned.
I think “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron is the most culturally significant poem of the most recent famous poems. It’s still inspiring memes ‘n’ stuff.
In fact, the same Hebrew word (shir) is used for both “song” and “poem”.
Let’s face it though, probably the most significantly culturally relevant poem of a similar vintage is that 1960-something “Footprints” thing.
I wish Scott-Heron’s had that kind of reach but I bet not.
“I have a dream” is the most culturally significant recent-ish poetry I can think of. And yes, I think that does count as poetry.
Yup I’d agree with both of these. But Still I Rise(1978) has them both beaten at 1970 and 1964(ish)
And Leonard Cohen was a published poet before he became a songwriter. Why should some of his verses called “poems” and other “songs”?
I don’t think it compares in cultural impact, though. I’d guess there are 10-20 Americans who’ve encountered the”Footprints” poem for every one who’s aware of Angelou’s or Scott-Heron’s.
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 recent? Which is going to make it difficult to even try to name a “last” one.
And during much of the time when poetry was a or the major form of human verbal culture, wasn’t a great deal of it sung? It seems very odd to me also to exclude sung poetry.