Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were the central figures of 19th century American poetry and wrote iconic poems that have often inspired musical settings. While Whitman’s poetry evokes the seemingly endless grasslands of the American prairie, Dickinson describes symbolically charged and phantasmagorically absurd worlds of language that leave the literary conventions of her time far behind. The present settings by Joachim Brügge for soprano, flute and string trio, partly joined by a harp, portray this diverse spectrum of poetry, with some poems also forming the inspiration for some instrumental pieces. Furthermore, Lousia May Alcott, another American writer and poet, is addressed, who can be regarded as the founder of American youth literature with the Little Women triad. Particularly in view of the current political upheavals and escalations in America, this American poetry embodies more than ever the idea of an American moral conscience – as an overarching respect for democracy and civil rights.