Author Sandra Cisneros surrounded by students at an NEA Big Read event at the Just Buffalo Writing Center, a 25-26 NEA Big Read Grantee. Photo by Pat Cray, courtesy of Just Buffalo Literary Center

Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee—you could rattle off American authors all day long and barely graze the surface of notable names in our country’s literary canon. These giants have not only told America’s story, they’ve shaped the global literary landscape with their innovative styles, boundary-pushing themes, and singular perspectives.

Given this far-reaching influence and America’s approaching semiquincentennial, it’s only natural that this coming year two of the Arts Endowment’s signature literature initiatives are focused on American writers and works about America: Poetry Out Loud and the NEA Big Read. Poetry Out Loud is an arts education program and dynamic poetry recitation competition that is designed to improve students’ public speaking skills, help build their confidence, and teach them about literary history. Meanwhile, the NEA Big Read is a community reading program that is meant to inspire meaningful conversations, celebrate local creativity, elevate a wide variety of voices and perspectives, and build stronger connections in each community.

As we get ready to turn the page on the next 250 years, join us in looking back at America’s rich and varied literary history through the lens of this year’s Poetry Out Loud anthology and NEA Big Read catalog. Let’s celebrate America250 and get reading!  

Phillis Wheatley Peters. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

This period of American literature is notable for all its firsts—the first American novel, the first American play, and the country’s first published Black poet: Phillis Wheatley Peters, an enslaved woman whose work predates America’s independence. Her first poetry collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was printed in 1773 (she was emancipated shortly after), and following its publication, she continued to write about her experiences and observations on subjects of national importance, including Revolutionary War hero and future president General George Washington. Her poem “His Excellency General Washington”, dated 1775, was included in a letter to Washington in which she wrote, “I have taken the freedom to address your Excellency in the enclosed poem…though I am not insensible of its inaccuracies, your being appointed by the Grand Continental Congress to be Generalissimo of the armies of North America, together with the fame of your virtues, excite sensations not easy to suppress.” 

This period also saw the creation of our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. Written by lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key, the poem was his response to witnessing the British navy’s bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The poem was originally released on a broadside and then printed several local Baltimore papers. While the poem was written in 1814, it wasn’t recognized as our national anthem until 193, passed by Congressional joint resolution and signed into law by Herbert Hoover.

Edgar Allan Poe. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Logic and reason are thrust aside during the Romantic Period in favor of passion and the personal. Edgar Allan Poe was a paragon of Romanticism—he conveyed a depth of feeling in his writing that reflected his own emotional torment. Poe is known for eerie short stories and unnerving poetry, including The Tell-Tale Heart and The Raven, which remain widely read and hugely popular today, even crossing over to the world of stage and screen (you may have seen a Poe adaptation on a certain streaming service this year).

Another figure whose work is defined by an intensity of emotion, Emily Dickinson is regarded as one of America’s finest writers. She wrote about the world around her in a lyric style—short and thoughtful, brimming with sentiment. From “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”: ““Hope” is the thing with feathers -/ That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words –”

A Branch of romanticism, Transcendentalism was more than a literary movement, it was a philosophy and spirituality. Emerging in New England during the during the late 1820s, it is defined by a belief in the inherent good—that all people and things are, at their core, pure. Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist, is perhaps best known for Walden, his book about living simply in nature, but he was also a prolific poet. Many of his poems were published in a Transcendentalist magazine, The Dial, and focused on nature and how to live well, the two subjects that dominated the bulk of his work.

Turning away from romanticism, the writers of the late 19th and early 20th century embraced unvarnished reality in their writing, writing the world as it really was (at least as they saw it). Middle-class life was a major focus of realism, partly inspired by growing literacy across the country and expanding urbanization.  

Samuel Clemmons, more commonly known by his pen name Mark Twain, is a classic figure of American Realism. One of Twain’s most notable works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, depicted American childhood with humor and honesty. Tom and his friend Huckleberry Finn are mischievous, imaginative, and adventurous—a departure from puritanical portrayals of angelic children that didn’t illustrate the truth of growing up, making mistakes, and occasionally causing trouble. 

Naturalism also sought to explore the world as it really is, but with a more fatalistic bent. Naturalist writers wrote from the belief that society and circumstance are what shape a person’s life, rather than free will or the culmination of one’s choices. Jack London’s The Call of the Wild is an example of naturalism—the novel is told from the perspective of a dog, Buck, who is taken from sunny California to the harsh climate of the Yukon and made into a sled dog. He becomes more wolflike, transformed by his new environment. 

Langston Hughes. Reiss, Winold. c. 1925. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of W. Tjark Reiss, in memory of his father, Winold Reiss

Like the name suggest, the Modernist period sought to break with the past—literature created as part of this movement was tinged with disillusionment with old structures, norms, and beliefs. This was mixed with a desire to create something new, bold, and innovative. 

One of the most notable groups to create work during the Modernist period was the Lost Generation—writers who were shaped by growing up during (and sometimes serving in) World War I. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ezra Pound came to Paris to write in the 1920s, brought together by Gertrude Stein at her famous salon. She is credited with dubbing them “the Lost Generation,” a moniker that caught on as a result of its mention in Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast. 

Harlem was another literary hub during the Modernist period. A New York City neighborhood that saw an influx of Black residents during the Great Migration, Harlem became a major cultural and economic center. Poets like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Alice Dunbar Nelson called the area home and contributed to the Harlem Renaissance, a period of creative abundance in which Black life and stories were explored and celebrated beyond the confines of a predominantly white society. Their work, along with the plays, music, and visual art that was created during the Harlem Renaissance, continue to have enormous cultural significance today. 

As the United States emerged from World War II, entered the Cold War, and saw vast social change from the Civil Rights and women’s rights movements, American literature evolved and reflected all that was happening at home and abroad. 

Different styles and movements continued to emerge—the Beat movement, absurdism, metafiction—and a greater number of voices were represented through traditional publishing, reflecting the true breadth of American experiences. 

In 1984, Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street became an instant literary sensation and is considered a modern classic. Set in Chicago’s Hispanic quarter, it tells the story of one year in the life of Esperanza Cordero, a 12-year-old Chicana girl as she navigates coming of age while dealing with economic hardship and patriarchal expectations. 

An American Sunrise (2019), the eighth poetry collection by former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, tells in verse the story of her ancestral homeland, from which her people were forced from because of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. 

Poet Adrian Matejka’s collection The Big Smoke(2013) also revisits the past, following the life of one man: the legendary prizefighter Jack Johnson. The first African American to win the world heavyweight champion title, the poems follow him on his journey from impoverished to boxing titan while dealing with pervasive racism. From Prize Fighter: “When I hook a man, it’s like being hit/ by frustration. I can’t tell if horses// are happy or confounded by the new/ means of locomotion, but I can say// with certainty my prize fighting cohorts/ are decidedly dissatisfied by my presence.” 

Continue exploring America’s literary history by participating in Poetry Out Loud and the NEA Big Read! Learn how to get involved with POL at PoetryOutLoud.org. Find more information on how to apply for the NEA Big Read grants at ArtsMidwest.org (mandatory intent to apply due January 15, 2026).