Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Jon Parrish Peede, former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities:

African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song, edited by Kevin Young. “The poems gathered here have the force of event,” said the New York Times’ Parul Sehgal about this collection from the Library of America. “They were written as acts of public mourning, and as secrets; they are love poems and bitter quarrels. They are prized company.”

Patriotic Picks is a monthly feature in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.