Thank you for taking the LRC survey!

The Learning Resources Center would like to thank everyone who took our survey! There were nearly 600 people that took it and almost 300 comments. We got some incredibly helpful feedback from it, and over the next few months, we'll start working on incorporating your suggestions into our policies and services.

Pardon Our Progress

We are very excited to announce that the Southeast Campus LRC has begun a remodel. Services will be minimally impacted and you will quickly notice our improvements. Hours of operation will not be impacted so feel free to come in and take a look around. As always, if you need any assistance,please ask. We are happy to help you.

Electronic Resources Update

The LRC now has access to the Salem Press series, American Decades 1950-1990. Great Events from History - 20th Century, 1901-1940 is also available.

These products cover aspects of popular culture, politics, economics, the arts, religion, science, education, sports, military issues, etc.

You can access the electronic versions via the Reference Shelf tab on the LRC Webpage. For those that prefer print, the paper volumes are also available in the reference section at West campus.

Take the LRC Survey!

The Learning Resources Center is conducting a college-wide survey that we hope will help us improve our library's services. It's a quick, 5-10 minute questionnaire that asks questions about how you feel about the LRC's services, resources and physical space. The more people that respond, the better idea we'll get about what we're doing well and what we need to do to improve, so we're encouraging all faculty, staff and students to take it.

You can find paper surveys at any of the LRC info desks, or take it online.

Thank you for your help!

[Note: The survey was closed on Dec. 8, 2010]

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast Cancer strikes over 1.3 million women around the globe each year and is the leading cause of cancer death in women, according to the American Cancer Society.

In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, ebrary has collaborated with librarians from other organizations to create an open access database of breast cancer publications:

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/breastcancer

ebrary's Breast Cancer Searchable Information Center features a range of authoritative fact sheets, posters, and other materials from government agencies such as the National Cancer Institute, National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U. S. Preventive Services Task Force, United States Food and Drug Administration, Office of Women's Health, and other authoritative sources.

OED(Oxford English Dictionary) May Be Going Strictly Digital

The 20-volume, 750 pound, 126-year old dictionary may no longer be made available in print format. The digital edition now gets about 2 million hits a month from subscribers that pay $295 a year for service in the U.S. The print dictionary, on the other hand, runs $1,165. The new third edition will probably not be ready for another 10 years, considering the enormous task of revising and updating the work. The decision to release a print version will be made at that time.
The OED is the authoritative guide to the history of English speech........it traces the usage of words from their first recorded occurrence to the modern period and includes 2.5 million example quotations of word usage.
Associated Press

The TCC LRCs do own the print edition of the OED and the subscription on-line edition of the OED is also available to TCC students and faculty.

Banned Books Week

September 25th  to October 2nd is the American Library Association’s annual celebration of banned and challenged books, Banned Books Week; since 1990, there have been 10,676 recorded challenges, which were focused mostly in school and public libraries and brought mostly by parents. To celebrate, check out one of the challenged books from your library, or attend one of the LRC's Lunchtime Learning Programs.

A complete list of the 100 most challenged books of 2000-2009 is available on the ALA website, but a list of some that we have at the LRC follows:

1.   Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
3.   The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
5.   Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
6.   I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
14. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
15. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
17. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

18. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
19. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
21. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
24. In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
26. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
28. Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
33. Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson

36. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
46. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
49. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
50. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
66. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
69. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
74. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold

88. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
89. Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissenger
90. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
91. Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Graighead George
96. Grendel, by John Gardner
97. The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
99. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume

Remember, if there's a book you would like but it is only available at another campus, you can get it delivered to your home campus!

Banned Books Week Lunchtime Learning Programs will be held at Northeast and Metro Campus, from noon to 1 pm:

• Monday, September 27th, in the Northeast Campus Small Auditorium (NE 1603)
• Wednesday, September 29th, in the Metro Campus Film Lecture Room 

There will be pizza served and drawings for Stephen King novels and films. If you have questions, you can email Demetrius Bereolos, or call him at 595-8093.

Request books from another TCC campus Online with your TCC LRC account.

When you’re searching the LRC catalog and you find a book you want, but it’s at another TCC campus, what do you do? You can request it online with a few clicks of the mouse. Simply click on "·NEW!!! REQUEST BOOKS!!! -" link in the blue box under actions. This will take you to the log in page for your account. Log in using your CWID beginning with a T and then enter your last name in the second box. This directs you to the Patron Request page. There you’ll find two options: requesting an available book or placing a hold on a book that’s currently checked out by another patron. Make your selection. When requesting an available book you can select the location you wish to have it delivered to. You also need to enter your CWID again on this page. You’ll receive an email at your MyTcc address telling you when the book is in transit and when to expect it at the pickup location.

Using Wikipedia for research

You’ve probably heard your professors tell you over and over not to use Wikipedia for research. But, it’s so convenient and has articles on so many topics, right? Just like any source, there are good ways to use Wikipedia and bad ways to use it.

When you’re first starting your research, Wikipedia is a great place to go to get a general idea about your topic. Many of the articles have loads of information about different aspects of their subject. Plus, the articles are supposed to cite their sources, and you can check the bibliography at the end to see if any of those sources would help you out.

When you’re in the middle of some class reading or research and you come across a term, a person, an event or something else that’s unfamiliar to you, Wikipedia is, like print encyclopedias, a good place to find straight-forward background information.

When is it a bad idea to use Wikipedia, then?

In nearly all circumstances, Wikipedia should not be used as part of your research for class. After you’ve gotten a handle on your topic, turn to books, scholarly peer-reviewed journals and other material that is written by experts and reviewed by other experts before publication. Those are the sources on which you should base your research.

In the case of controversial issues or very recent events, Wikipedia may also be less reliable. Wikipedia’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness; anyone with internet access can edit articles, and while that provides us with a vast amount of correct, factual information, it also means that opinions, biases, incorrect information and even lies can be easily inserted into an article.* Wikipedia tries to keep tabs on errors and vandalism, and will turn off editing if it happens frequently to one article, but their editors are volunteers and can only do so much.

*It’s true, too, that books and scholarly articles can have the same problem but the editorial and review process helps keep it to a minimum. A good dose of skepticism can help you identify the errors and biases in what you read and watch, and will help you produce higher quality research!

Music CD's Are Now Available for Checkout at the Southeast Campus LRC

The Southeast Campus LRC has a wide variety of music cd's that are now available for checkout. You may also use them in the LRC while you are studying or using one of our computers. If you need help, just ask someone at the desk for assistance. The collection contains everything from classical to country music. Here is a partial list of artists:
Beethoven
Gershwin
Mozart
Elvis Presley
Schubert
Hank Williams

Got Life?

When I first heard about Second Life (a.k.a. SL), I was a definite skeptic. Navigating through real life is hard enough these days and I’ve never been much of a gamer. I remember playing Nintendo years ago, but Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers was as far as I got. Initially I really couldn’t see the appeal of Second Life, but lately I’ve re-evaluated my position.

One has to ask--why a virtual world and what might happen there? Of course, one might say that reality is finite, but the potential possibilities of cyberspace cover a broad spectrum. As an online community, SL goes far beyond the average 2D chat room. It’s a 3D world created by Linden Lab, but built entirely by its residents.

But is Second Life a game? If you ask dedicated SLers, many will likely say no. They will point to SL as an outlet for creativity and communication. Critics argue that it’s the worst sort of game and that it perpetuates a cruel and unequal capitalistic system. The economy of Second Life is based on the Linden dollar. Goods, services and even land are exchanged for this currency. It costs nothing to play or explore, but expect to pay cold hard cash to become a long-term resident.

Game or not, millions of dollars have exchanged virtual hands in Second Life. Universities and businesses are using this virtual world in a variety of ways. Some colleges conduct classes, engage in research and run lab simulations in SL, while businesses use it as an alternative medium for holding online meetings and training sessions as well as a marketing platform for launching new products.

I have attended several meetings of the Virtual World Education Roundtable, a group I recently joined in SL. For the most part, I’ve been impressed with the quality of presentations as well as the possibilities SL offers to the future of education. Whether you like it or not, virtual worlds are here. Currently, two nursing classes at TCC include a component involving SL in their course work. Second Life might be coming to a virtual campus near you in the not too distant future.

See you “In World”. --Meredith

New Books

Over the past few weeks, we've gotten some great new books at Metro! Some of them are:

Fiction:
Dead Until Dark (and three other Sookie Stockhouse books)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Nightlight: A Parody

Non-fiction:
The Blind Side
House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street
Long Way Gone

Graphic Novels:
DMZ: On the Ground
Maus
Pride of Baghdad

Check them out on the new books shelf (at the end of the magazines display area near the info desk).

LRC YouTube Tutorials

For those of you that are having trouble navigating the wealth of information at your TCC LRC, we have some excellent, short tutorials available via YouTube. Some of the most recent include:

• Search the Catalog
• What are Scholarly Articles?
• Avoid Plagiarism at TCC
• Set Google Scholar to TCC LRC Databases
• How to Find Peer Reviewed Articles
• LRC Webpage Navigation
• TCC: Accessing Journals by Title
  

Welcome back!

Classes begin again today, and we're happy to have the students back in the LRC after a quiet intersession. Our hours for the summer semester are:

• Metro: Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
• Northeast: Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
• Southeast: Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.
• West: Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.

With your new classes, you may need help finding books, articles or websites for homework or papers; our librarians would love to help! You can drop by or make an appointment, call, email, or chat online with our e-librarian.

If you need help logging on to the network, the reference or circulation desks can help you with that too. Stop by and we'll get your password set-up or reset.

13th Annual Oklahoma Global Education Consortium Essay Contest for Community Colleges

A great opportunity for any student writers:

The annual Oklahoma Global Education Conference will be held on Sept. 30, 2010 at Oklahoma City Community College and is now seeking essay submission for the Student Essay Contest.

• The essay contest is focused on "The Need for Global Education Today"
• It is intended to be a non-research essay that should be approximately 500 words.
• 3 winners will be chosen and each awarded $200 and will be asked to read their essay at the OGEC conference in September.
• Deadline for entries is August 20, 2010.

Please direct inquires and submissions to sburris@mscok.edu.

Interlibrary Loan and OK Share

When you need a book or article that none of the TCC LRCs have, and you've already checked the Tulsa City-County Library and found that they don't have it either, there are two services you can use to get that item:

Interlibrary Loan: The ILL office can order a book for you to check out from thousands of other libraries in the United States and across the world. Check with a librarian at one of the LRC Reference Desks about requesting books or articles through Interlibrary Loan. ILL is free for students, faculty and staff, and it takes 7-10 days for item delivery.

OK Share: If you can't wait that long, and know your book is at one of the local colleges, you can check it out directly! First, go to one of the LRC Reference Desks to request an OK Share card, and then go to one of the following libraries to find your book:

• Northeastern State University
• Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College
• OSU-Tulsa
• Rogers State University
• Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology
• OU-Tulsa

You can also use some of the other resources they have, but you'll need to check with each library to ask about their policies. And, you'll have to drive there to check out and return the books you borrow. Lots of other libraries in Oklahoma participate in this program too; check out the full list here.

Graphic Novels @ the LRC. Part II: Superheroes

The Death of Superman

Includes:

• Superman: The Man of Steel #17-19
• Superman #73-75
• The Adventures of Superman #496-497
• Action Comics #683-684
• Justice League American #69

The Uncanny X-Men

Includes:

• God Spare the Child
• Dazzler
• Run for Your Life
• And Hellfire is Their Name
• Wolverine: Alone
• Too Late, the Heroes
• Dark Phoenix
• Child of Light and Darkness
• The Fate of the Phoenix

Watchmen

"It all begins with the paranoid delusions of a half-insane hero called Rorschach. But is Rorschach really insane or has he in fact uncovered a plot to murder super-heroes and, even worse, millions of innocent civilians? On the run from the law, Rorschach reunites with his former teammates in a desperate attempt to save the world and their lives, but what they uncover will shock them to their very core and change the face of the planet! Following two generations of masked superheroes from the close of World War II to the icy shadow of the Cold War comes this groundbreaking comic story — the story of The Watchmen." - DC Comics

X-Men image by Greg Land.Watchmen and Death of Superman images from covers.

Privacy Week

The American Library Association is celebrating Privacy Week, a national week-long event to remind ourselves that information is powerful, and that we need to be mindful about how we use and share our personal information. While there are some laws that help protect your information, like the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), internet users can take steps of their own to protect themselves. For instance, take some time to look at your Facebook profile and make sure you're not sharing more information with the world than you need to:

• The New Facebook Privacy Settings: A How-To
• Protect Your Privacy Opt Out of Facebook’s New Instant Personalization – Yes You Have to Opt Out

Intersession Hours

As you may have heard, TCC is going to be closed on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays all summer. The LRC will only be open Monday through Thursday, starting next Monday.

From May 10th to June 4th, we will be open the following times:

• Metro Campus: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday
• Northeast Campus: 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday
• Southeast Campus: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday
• West Campus: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday

Blackboard, TED, MyTCC and the library's electronic resources will still be available from your home computer over the weekend and all night. Our website has our current hours, our intersession hours, and our summer hours.

Got a textbook you want to sell?

With the rising costs of textbooks, students are increasingly looking for innovative ways to save money. The TCC Textbook Task Force acknowledges the heavy burden textbook prices can have upon students and is hoping to offer some relief with a new site for TCC students to buy, trade and sell their textbooks www.text2trade.org. Right now this site is only available to TCC students who can create free accounts with their TCC email. Sean Weins, TCC Chief Technology officer, explains, "This is something we would eventually like to make available to all students at Oklahoma state schools," and goes on to state, "We know from TCC's Textbook Task Force and hearing from students that textbook prices weigh heavily on students' minds. We hope Text2Trade makes purchasing books a litter easier on their pocketbooks." To watch a short tutorial on navigating the site click here.

Graphic Novels @ the LRC. Part I: Real Life?

Recently, the LRC has been trying to improve our collection of graphic novels. We just got a bunch in, and they'll be ready for checkout soon. Here are a few that deal with the challenges that we face in our day-to-day lives:

American Splendor: Ordinary Life is Pretty Complex Stuff, by Harvey Pekar

"American Splendor is the world's first literary comic book. Cleveland native Harvey Pekar is a true American original. A comic book writer and V.A. hospital file clerk, Harvey chronicles the ordinary and mundane in stories both funny and touching. His dead-on eye for the frustrations and minutiae of the workaday world mix in a delicate balance with his insight into personal relationships. Pekar has been compared to Dresiser, Dostoevsky, and Lenny Bruce. But he is truly more than all of them - he is himself."


Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli

"Who is Asterios Polyp? Architect, professor, author, husband - but that was all in the past. Now, as he marks half a century, he's become a shadow of his former self. But it's a stormy night, and a lightening bolt is about to set him on a fateful journey."





Black Hole, by Charles Burns

"The setting: suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area's teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease manifests itself in any number of ways - from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) - but once you've got it, that's it. There's no turning back."



The notes about each one are taken from the covers of the items. In the coming weeks, I'll post a little on some of the other graphic novels we've gotten:

• DMZ: On the Ground
• The Death of Superman
• Maus I
• Maus II
• Pride of Baghdad
• The Uncanny X-Men
• Watchmen

More Research Guides

The LRC librarians have been adding and updating more research guides! Some of the newest ones are:

• Computer Tips & Tricks
• Controversial Issues
• Entrepreneur Research Guide
• eReader Information
• Music 2133: Introduction to the History and Literature of Music
• Nursing

To see more, check out our Research Guides home.

E-Books

Ever find yourself needing books late at night or on the weekends when the LRC is closed? Need to do research but don't feel like going out in the rain?

In addition to our electronic article databases like Academic Search Premier and CINAHL, the LRC has a dozen e-book subscriptions which provide us with about 55,000 digital, online, always-available e-books! TCC students, faculty and staff can search for books and access them from our library catalog (you have to be logged in through Blackboard to read them, though). To limit your catalog search to just e-resources, choose "Electronic Resources" from the drop down "Limit To:" menu underneath the search box.

You can find more information about using these e-books, see a list of the subscription providers, or access the collections directly from the E-books page on our website (look under the Books & More tab on our homepage).

Earth Day

April 22^nd is Earth Day, a international celebration of our green and blue planet. The LRC has some great resources to help you understand more about earth and environmental sciences:

Science Direct is an online database that includes ten million full text articles from 2,500 scientific, technical and medical well respected, peer reviewed journals.

GreenFILE, an EbscoHost database, offers articles about climate change, sustainable building, waste management, energy practices and agriculture and pollution.


If you’re looking for an introduction to these topics, Facts On File Today’s Science is a great place to start for a student-focused look at scientific disciplines. In addition, they provide access to a glossary of scientific terms and a science encyclopedia to help get you started and provide quick answers when you have questions.

On the Earth Day website, you can learn more about what you can do to preserve the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil we depend on to grow our food. In addition, the LRC has created an Environment research guide to help you find more of our library resources.

Top photo by Andrew H. Brown, National Geographic Stock. Bottom photo from Facts on File website.

The Low Down On Plagiarism

In our copy/paste world it can be tempting to lift the work of another and claim it as one's own to complete an assignment. However, anyone who's done so can tell you there are tough consequences. Plagiarism can be a tricky concept, so we've created a research guide, "Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism" dedicated to helping students make sense of it. This guide features useful resources for both students and faculty including links to the CSE style guides available in our Learning Resources Centers. A video tutorial discussing how to avoid plagiarism is also included in the guide. This guide is listed under the research guides tab of the LRC homepage. Be sure to check it out at this persistent link: http://guides.lrc.tulsacc.edu/content.php?pid=108241

Health Information Online

Good medical information can be hard to find on the internet. Without knowing who is writing the articles, you can't really trust what you find. Fortunately, there are some very good sources for health and medical information that are based on clinical trials and up-to-date research and published by the government or non-profit health organizations. The LRC has gathered a few of them together for you, in the Health section on the Sciences page under the "Websites" tab on our homepage.

Bookcrossing Books

As part of National Library Week, the LRC will release more Bookcrossing books on April 14th! Look for them around all four campuses and see if you can catch one. Some of the books we're releasing are:

• The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
• Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Princess Bride, William Goldman
• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare
• The Odyssey, by Homer
• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

Didn't find the one you were hoping for? Stop by one of the LRCs to see if we have a copy!

National Library Week

Next week, April 11-17th, is a national celebration of libraries, sponsored by the American Library Association. You can participate by coming into the LRC to check out a book or look at our online resources, or by attending one of our library workshops.

On Tuesday, April 13th, at 1 pm, one of our librarians will be hosting a Lunchtime Learning program on copyright and intellectual property. Information on origin and purpose of copyright, exemptions (especially fair use), the TEACH Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, licensing agreements, use of digital learning materials, course packs, and the TCC policy statements about copyright and intellectual property will be useful to students, faculty and staff. Plus, there will be pizza!

If you wish to attend this workshop, please R.S.V.P. to dbereolos@tulsacc.edu or call 595-8093

Poetry Resources

Interested in learning more about American and English poetry? One of our librarians has put together a research guide of poetry criticism resources. In it, you can find links to some of our online and print poetry reference titles, such as Poetry for Students. Or, you can find out more about drama and short story criticism and what we have to help you out.

You can also find a list of some websites with information about American and English literature under the Humanities section of our Websites tab on the LRC homepage:

MLA and APA Citation Guides

Does citing sources get you down? Do you love to give credit to authors, but just hate remembering where the date goes and how to format the title of the article in the citation? Does making bibliographies for some subjects and reference lists for others drive you crazy?

You can find our guide to MLA and APA citation styles under "Quick Links" on the right-hand side of the LRC homepage. If you need more help, make an appointment with one of the writing center specialists at your campus:

Metro: 595-7240
Northeast: 595-7592
Southeast: 595-7749
West: 595-8063

New Research Guides Published

LRC Research Guides are now available electronically and are designed to help you find resources for all your research needs.

Check out some of the latest additions or visit http://guides.lrc.tulsacc.edu to see them all:

Business
Human Services
Streaming Audio/Video
Reading
Speech 1113

Website Redesign

If you cannot find what you are looking for, try one of 3 things:

1. Go to our old website here http://lrc.tulsacc.edu/webvoyold.htm.
2. Use the Search box in the upper right corner of the homepage and use the "guides" menu setting for a site search.
3. Get help from Kim Monday, our Virtual Librarian via chat.

Thank you for your patience while the website is in development.

Featured Resource: Greenfile

As we all stop to consider our impact on the environment this month the Learning Resources Center wants you to know about a great resource provided by Ebscohost: Greenfile.

"Focusing on the relationship between human beings and the environment, with well-researched but accessible information on topics ranging from global warming to recycling to alternate fuel sources and beyond. Comprised of scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports, GreenFILE offers a unique perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the ecology" (ebschohost.com).

This is a great resource for research assignments as well as for general information about sustainability and the environment. Stop by the LRC for tips on using Greenfile!

Bookcrossing at your campus!

For the past two semesters the LRC has been releasing books into the wild as part of the global Bookcrossing project!

Bookcrossing is the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise (bookcrossing.com).

You may have found books with the Bookcrossing sticker placed throughout the campus for your enjoyment. Feel free to pick-it-up read, register it online, share your thoughts, and then pass it along. Nearly a million people are "hunting" Bookcrossing books across the world. Stop by any LRC to find out more information or visit Bookcrossing.com to register your "catch" today!

CINAHL, a Nursing and Allied Health Database

Looking for scholarly sources for nursing or allied health? A great place to start your research is CINAHL, an Ebscohost database of nearly 3000 titles that covers topics in many nursing and allied health specialties. For more information about the journals they include, see their website. To get help using CINAHL, talk to one of our reference librarians in person, by phone, by email (lrcelectroniclibrarian@tulsacc.edu) or online via chat.

EbscoHost Mobile

You can now access the TCC EbscoHost Research Databases from your cell phone or other mobile device!

Click on the icon above to access EbscoHost Mobile interface.

Click here for information on how to download the application for your iPhone.

For more help see the EbscoHost Mobile FAQ.

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month! To kick off the month-long celebration of poets and poems, here are two selections from poets.org, the sponsor of National Poetry Month.

A selection from “Let America be America Again,” by Langston Hughes

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.

A selection from “Negotiations with a Volcano,” by Naomi Shibab Nye

Please think of us as we are, tiny, with skins that burn easily.
Please notice how we have watered the shrubs around our houses
and transplanted the peppers into neat tin cans.
Forgive any anger we feel toward the earth,
when the rains do not come, or they come too much,
and swallow our corn.
It is not easy to be this small and live in your shadow.

Often while we are eating our evening meal
you cross our rooms like a thief,
touching first the radio and then the loom.
Later our dreams begin catching fire around the edges,
they burn like paper, we wake with our hands full of ash.