"Give Us Our Peace"
Give us a peace equal to the war
Or else our souls will be unsatisfied,
And we will wonder what we have fought for
And why the many died.
Give us a peace accepting every challenge --
The challenge of the poor, the black, of all denied,
The challenge of the vast colonial world
That long has had so little justice by its side.
Give us a peace that dares us to be wise.
Give us a peace that dares us to be strong.
Give us a peace that dares us still uphold
Throughout the peace our battle against wrong.
Give us a peace that is not cheaply used,
A peace that is no clever scheme,
A people's peace for which men can enthuse,
A peace that brings reality to our dream.
Give us a peace that will produce great schools --
As the war produced great armament,
A peace that will wipe our our slums--
As war wiped out our foes on evil bent.
Give us a peace that will enlist
A mighty army serving human kind,
Not just an army geared to kill,
But trained to help the living mind.
An army trained to shape our common good
And bring about a world of brotherhood."
This poem was written by Langston Hughes in the 1920s. How is it still relevant today? Discuss!
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Um..so I'm not so good with poetry, but this poems just seems to be saying that if the world can have have so much evil(war), then there should also be good(peace) of an equal amount. This is still relevant today and always will be because there will always be war and evil going on in the world and as long as there is war and evil, there should also be equal peace. Or maybe there should be only peace and happiness and no war and pain.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rachael about discussing poetry.
ReplyDeleteOh and in the 5th stanza, 3rd line- it should say wipe out our slums. heehee!!!
This poem is relevant in today's society because there is war going on everyday. There should be equal peace to erase all of the war and evil, but somedays it appears that there is no peace. It is hard to see good out of a bad situation, but hopefully one day that peace will appear and there will be no more war EVER!!
Thanks, Ashley, for pointing out my typo! :-P Apparently the spell/grammar check doesn't catch everything.
ReplyDeleteThe poem is still relavent today. As a country and a world we sometimes aren't fighting for the common good of everyone, and of what matters. We put more emphasis on the bad, and what needs to be fixed or destroyed that often times we overlook education and people devoted to change. I think a lot of people focus on the negative instead of the positive sometimes, maybe because it's easier. A lot of people are aware of what is happening, but there's no action involved. This is a great poem that everyone should read because it's a reminder of what matters.
ReplyDeleteI think this poem will always be true. No matter what time period we are living in, no matter what social circumstance we are facing, peace will always be essential. Langston uses peace to face the world and its problems. If the world uses peace, there will be no problems. Taking each issue one day at a time, and using peace, we can make the world a better place.
ReplyDeleteI like the poem, if i'm correctly understanding it... :) I think it is still relevant today. It seems as though lately there has just been a lot of fighting and bad things happening in the world, and it would be nice to see some good things happening too, to show that all the work and effort people put in is actually helping to make the world a better place.
ReplyDeleteI like the sixth stanza - it seems to be saying that it would be cool if everyone in the world could just work together, we could achieve so many awesome things! It would be so easy to help the people that needed it, and all we would have to do is work at it.
This poem is relevent for all time past and future. It seems humans wish for peace and Utopia, revolutions are made to try to achieve that dream of a perfect peaceful world. However, it is also human nature to want to controle, and as soon as we spend millions of lives and billions of dollars to achieve a revolutionized society, we corupt it again in a matter of years. There will never be perfect peace.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Meyers, I just accidently hit the backspace button and it erase my huge comment. Basically, what I said though is that it's human nature to want control. After revolutions promoting peace in society, we quickly become corrupt again because of that nature.
ReplyDelete