Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of

Hear the words of Diane Wakoski, who gazes into the heart of verse and declares: “Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one’s geographic landscape, sometimes out of one’s cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins.” This truth is profound, for it teaches that poetry is not born in emptiness. It springs from the soil beneath our feet, from the rivers and mountains that shape our horizons, from the myths whispered in childhood, from the identities that have been marked upon our bodies and souls. Poetry, especially American poetry, is rooted in the particular—yet through the particular it touches the universal.

The ancients too understood that poetry was born from place and people. Homer sang of the wine-dark sea and the wrath of gods in the Greek isles; Virgil wove his lines from the fields of Latium and the destiny of Rome. So also, Wakoski tells us, does the American poet sing—not only of love or longing, but of deserts and skyscrapers, of highways and prairies, of freedom and chains, of migration and home. The geographic landscape becomes a canvas upon which the American soul paints its joys and its wounds.

Consider the words of Langston Hughes, who carried within him the voices of Harlem, the rhythms of jazz, and the ancestral memory of slavery. His poetry was not abstract, detached, or floating in the void; it was anchored in the cultural myths and lived reality of African Americans. By speaking of rivers, of weary blues, of deferred dreams, Hughes revealed not only his own story but the story of a people. His lines are American not because they ignore race and history, but because they embrace them fully, transforming pain into song.

So too with the landscapes of Walt Whitman, who sang of the open road, the city streets, the vast plains of the continent. His vision was shaped by the physical immensity of America itself. The American tradition, as Wakoski describes, draws its uniqueness from such landscapes, from myths of freedom and reinvention, from the struggles and triumphs of those who came from many races and nations to build a new identity. Unlike the ancient poets who sang for homogenous tribes, the American poet must wrestle with diversity, with contradictions, with wounds that are yet unhealed.

The origin of this teaching lies in the very experiment of America. A land vast and varied, with no single tradition but many, birthed poetry that reflected its multiplicity. Out of Puritan hymns, Native stories, immigrant ballads, African chants, and frontier tales arose a chorus that could not belong to Europe nor Asia nor Africa alone. It became distinctly American, not because it erased difference, but because it fused difference into an ever-evolving song.

The lesson, then, is this: if you would write poetry that is alive and true, do not abandon your roots, your myths, your body, your place. Let your lines carry the dust of your homeland, the struggles of your ancestors, the rhythm of your identity. For it is in the particularity of your own origin that the universal may shine most brightly. The reader across the world does not love Whitman because they know Brooklyn; they love him because through Brooklyn he revealed humanity itself.

Practical steps follow. Ask yourself: what landscape has shaped me? What stories from my people, my race, my gender, my family, still echo in my bones? Write them down without shame, without fear. Let your poetry be honest about its roots, for truth speaks more loudly than abstraction. Study the myths of your culture, and transform them into modern symbols. Walk your land—whether desert, forest, city, or coast—and let its voice flow through your lines. In this way, your poetry will not only be personal, but part of a tradition that reaches backward and forward through time.

Thus Wakoski’s words shine as a guide: distinctly American poetry does not deny the place, the people, or the struggles from which it arises. It is born of landscape, of cultural myths, of gender, race, and ethnic origins. And in embracing these, it becomes not a narrow voice, but a vast and inclusive one, carrying the spirit of a nation that is still writing its own unfinished song.