Introduction
An Anecdote: Where Poetry Starts
Speaker, Listener, and Context
The Star-Spangled Banner
Lyric, Narrative, Dramatic
The Language of Poetry
Figurative Language
Allegory and Symbol
Tone of Voice
Repetition: Sounds and Schemes
Meter and Rhythm
Free Verse, Open Form and Closed Forms
Stanza Forms
Fixed Forms
Literary History, Poetic Conventions, and Theory
Writing about Poetry
Poetry
Anonymous
Western Wind
Bonny Barbara Allan
Sir Patrick Spens
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?-1542)
They Flee from Me
Whoso List to Hunt
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
Amoretti
: Sonnet 75
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
Astrophel and Stella
: Sonnet 1
Robert Southwell (1561?-1595)
The Burning Babe
Michael Drayton (1563-1631)
Idea
: Sonnet 61
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 20
Sonnet 29
Sonnet 73
Sonnet 116
Sonnet 129
Sonnet 130
When Daisies Pied (Spring and Winter)
Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
There Is a Garden in Her Face
John Donne (1572-1631)
The Flea
Holy Sonnet 10
Holy Sonnet 14
The Sun Rising
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Ben Jonson (1573-1637)
On My First Son
Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount
Mary Wroth (1587?-1651?)
In This Strange Labyrinth How Shall I Turn
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
George Herbert (1593-1633)
Easter Wings
The Pulley
Redemption
Edmund Waller (1606-1687)
Song
John Milton (1608-1674)
How Soon Hath Time
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
The Author to Her Book
Richard Lovelace (1618-1658)
To Lucasta, Going to the Wars
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
To His Coy Mistress
John Dryden (1631-1700)
To the Memory of Mr. Oldham
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
A Description of a City Shower
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
from
An Essay on Criticism
Ode on Solitude
Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
William Blake (1757-1827)
The Chimney Sweeper
The Little Black Boy
A Poison Tree
The Tyger
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
A Red, Red Rose
John Barleycorn
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
It Is a Beauteous Evening
Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room
Ode: Intimations of Immortality
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Frost at Midnight
Kubla Khan
Work Without Hope
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
She Walks in Beauty
Stanzas
When We Two Parted
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Ode to the West Wind
Ozymandias
John Keats (1795-1821)
* Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast as Thou Art
La Belle Dame sans Merci
Ode to a Nightingale
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Sonnets from the Portuguese, 18
Sonnets from the Portuguese
, 43
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
The Arsenal at Springfield
The Cross of Snow
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
The Haunted Palace
The Raven
Sonnet: To Science
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
The Eagle
The Lady of Shalott
Tears, Idle Tears
Ulysses
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
My Last Duchess
Porphyria's Lover
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
A Noiseless Patient Spider
O Captain, My Captain
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Grey and Dim
Song of Myself, 1
Song of Myself, 5
Song of Myself, 6
Song of Myself, 11
Song of Myself, 21
Song of Myself, 32
Song of Myself, 52
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Dover Beach
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
After Great Pain a Formal Feeling Comes
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
The Brain Is Wider than the Sky
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Much Madness is Divinest Sense
A Narrow Fellow in the Grass
Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
Tell All the Truth, But Tell It Slant
There’s a Certain Slant of Light
Wild Nights--Wild Nights
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Up-Hill
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?
Channel Firing
Neutral Tones
The Ruined Maid
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
God's Grandeur
Pied Beauty
Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
The New Colossus
A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
Eight O'Clock
Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now
Stars, I Have Seen Them Fall
“Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff . . .”
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Leda and the Swan
Sailing to Byzantium
The Second Coming
The Song of Wandering Aengus
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)
Firelight
The Mill
Richard Cory
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
The Trees in the Garden Rained Flowers
The Wayfarer
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
We Wear the Mask
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Acquainted with the Night
After Apple-Picking
Design
Home Burial
The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
The Road Not Taken
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1034)
Amaze
Languor after Pain
Trapped
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
Anecdote of the Jar
Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
The Snow Man
Sunday Morning
The Worms at Heavens Gate
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
The Last Words of My English Grandmother
The Red Wheelbarrow
Spring and All
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
In a Station of the Metro
Portrait d'une Femme
The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter
Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)
Let No Charitable Hope
Ophelia
H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961)
Pear Tree
Sea Rose
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
Dreamers
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)
The Purse-Seine
Marianne Moore (1887-1972)
The Fish
Silence
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
Journey of the Magi
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Preludes
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
If I Should Learn, in Some Quite Casual Way
Oh, Oh, You Will Be Sorry for that Word
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Dulce et Decorum Est
e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
pity this busy monster,manunkind
plato told
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
* somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond
Jean Toomer (1894-1967)
Georgia Dusk
Louise Bogan (1897-1970)
Women
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Dream Boogie
* Harlem Sweeties
The Weary Blues
Stevie Smith (1902-1971)
Our Bog Is Dood
Countee Cullen (1903-1946)
Incident
Yet Do I Marvel
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
As I Walked Out One Evening
Musée des Beaux Arts
The Unknown Citizen
Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
Dolor
My Papa's Waltz
Root Cellar
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
The Fish
One Art
* The Shampoo
Robert Hayden (1913-1980)
Those Winter Sundays
Dudley Randall (1914-2000)
Ballad of Birmingham
William Stafford (1914-1993)
Traveling through the Dark
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Poem in October
Weldon Kees (1914-1955)
For My Daughter
Margaret Walker (1915-1998)
For Malcolm X
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
the ballad of chocolate Mabbie
the mother
We Real Cool
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919)
A Coney Island of the Mind
, #15
May Swenson (1919-1989)
How Everything Happens
Howard Nemerov (1920-1991)
A Primer of the Daily Round
Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
Junk
* For C
The Writer
Year's End
Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
Next, Please
This Be the Verse
The Whitsun Weddings
James Dickey (1923-1997)
The Heaven of Animals
Alan Dugan (1923-2003)
Love Song: I and Thou
Anthony Hecht (b. 1923)
The Dover Bitch
Third Avenue in Sunlight
Daniel Hoffman (b. 1923)
As I Was Going to Saint-Ives
Louis Simpson (b. 1923)
American Classic
My Father in the Night Commanding No
Vassar Miller (1924-1997)
Subterfuge
Donald Justice (b. 1925)
Counting the Mad
Carolyn Kizer (b. 1925)
The Ungrateful Garden
Pro Femina: Part Three
Maxine Kumin (b. 1925)
Noted in the New York Times
Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
A Supermarket in California
James Merrill (1926-1995)
Casual Wear
Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)
The Day Lady Died
W. D. Snodgrass (1926-2009)
Mementos, I
John Ashbery (b. 1927)
Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape
Paradoxes and Oxymorons
W. S. Merwin (b. 1927)
For the Anniversary of My Death
The Last One
James Wright (1927-1980)
Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
Saint Judas
Philip Levine (b. 1928)
You Can Have It
Anne Sexton (1928-1974)
Cinderella
Thom Gunn (b. 1929)
From the Wave
Terminal
X. J. Kennedy (b. 1929)
In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day
Little Elegy
Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
Diving into the Wreck
Rape
Ted Hughes (b. 1930-1998)
Pike
Gary Snyder (b. 1930)
A Walk
Miller Williams (b. 1930)
The Book
Linda Pastan (b. 1932)
Ethics
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Daddy
Edge
Metaphors
Gerald Barrax (b. 1933)
Strangers like Us: Pittsburgh, Raleigh, 1945-1985
Mark Strand (b. 1934)
The Tunnel
Lewis Turco (b. 1934)
The Premonition
Russel Edson (b. 1935)
Ape
Mary Oliver (b. 1935)
The Black Walnut Tree
Honey at the Table
Fred Chappell (b. 1936)
Narcissus and Echo
Lucille Clifton (1936-2010)
homage to my hips
wishes for sons
Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
What’s That Smell in the Kitchen!
Betty Adcock (b. 1938)
Voyages
Robert Phillips (b. 1938)
The Stone Crab: A Love Poem
Dabney Stuart (b. 1938)
Discovering My Daughter
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939)
Siren Song
Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)
The Sacred
Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
Digging
Punishment
Ted Kooser (b. 19390
Abandoned Farmhouse
Tom Disch (b. 1940)
Ballade of the New God
Florence Cassen Mayers (b. 1940)
All American Sestina
Pattiann Rogers (b. 1940)
Foreplay
Billy Collins (b. 1941)
Litany
Paradelle for Susan
Robert Hass (b. 1941)
Meditation at Lagunitas
Simon J. Ortiz (b. 1941)
The Serenity in Stones
Gibbons Ruark (b. 1941)
The Visitor
Gladys Cardiff (b. 1942)
Combing
B.H. Fairchild (b. 1942)
Body and Soul
Charles Martin (b. 1942)
E.S.L.
Sharon Olds (b. 1942)
The One Girl at the Boys Party
Henry Taylor (b. 1942)
From
Brief Candles
Diane Lockward (b. 1943)
My Husband Discovers Poetry
Ellen Bryant Voight (b. 1943)
Daughter
Robert Morgan (b. 1944)
Mountain Bride
Craig Raine (b. 1944)
A Martian Sends a Postcard Home
Enid Shomer (b. 1944)
Women Bathing at Bergen Belsen
Wendy Cope (b. 1944)
Rondeau Redoublé
Dick Davis (b. 1945)
A Monorhyme for the Shower
Kay Ryan (b. 1945)
Bestiary
Leon Stokesbury (b. 1945)
The Day Kennedy Died
John Whitworth (b. 1945)
The Examiners
Marilyn Nelson (b. 1946)
The Ballad of Aunt Geneva
Ai (1947-2010)
Child Beater
Jim Hall (b. 1947)
Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too
Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947)
Facing It
R.S. Gwynn (b. 1948)
Approaching a Significant Birthday, He Peruses an Anthology of Poetry
Timothy Steele (b. 1948)
Sapphics Against Anger
James Fenton (b. 1949)
God, a Poem
Sarah Cortez (b. 1950)
Tu Negrito
Carolyn Forché (b. 1950)
The Colonel
Dana Gioia (b. 1950)
Planting a Sequoia
Rodney Jones (b. 1950)
Winter Retreat: Homage to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Timothy Murphy (b. 1950)
Case Notes
Joy Harjo (b. 1951)
She Had Some Horses
Andrew Hudgins (b. 1951)
Air View of an Industrial Scene
Robert Wrigley (b. 1951)
Thatcher Bitchboy
Judith Ortiz Cofer (b. 1952)
The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica
Rita Dove (b. 1952)
American Smooth
Mark Jarman (b. 1952)
After Disappointment
Julie Kane (b. 19520
Alan Doll Rap
Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952)
The Traveling Onion
Alberto Ríos (b. 1952)
The Purpose of Altar Boys
Julia Alvarez (b. 1953)
Bilingual Sestina
Harryette Mullen (b. 1953)
Dim Lady
Kim Addonizio (b. 1954)
Sonnenizio on a Line by Millay
David Mason (b. 1954)
Fog Horns
Mary Jo Salter (b. 1954)
Welcome to Hiroshima
Cathy Song (b. 1955)
Stamp Collecting
Ginger Andrews (b. 1956)
Primping in the Rearview Mirror
Annie Finch (b. 1956)
Coy Mistress
*
Amy Gerstler (B. 1956)
Advice from a Caterpillar
* Rebecca Faust (B. 1957)
Family Story
April Lindner (b. 1962)
First Kiss
Catherine Tufariello (b. 1963)
Useful Advice
Sherman Alexie (b. 1966)
The Exaggeration of Despair
Natasha Trethewey (b. 1966)
Domestic Work, 1937
* Craig Arnold (1967-2009)
The Singers
Allison Joseph (b. 1967)
The Athlete
Brian Turner (b. 1967)
Here. Bullet
Suji Kwock Kim (b. 1968)
Occupation
A. E. Stallings (b. 1968)
First Love: A Quiz
Joshua Mehigan (b. 1969)
Riddle
*
Ernest Hilbert (B. 1970)
Domestic Situation
Sophie Hannah (b. 1971)
The Guest Speaker
Emily Moore (b. 1977)
Auld Lang Syne
* Erica Dawson (B. 1979)
Somewhere Between Columbus and Cincinnati
Appendix: Stanza, Fixed, and Nonce Forms
Acknowledgments
Index of Critical Terms
Index of Authors, Titles, and First Lines of Poems
Additional Titles of Interest
