Short Poems
Short Poems
300 Goats
Abandoned Farmhouse
Abend Der Worte
A Bird, came down the Walk
A Brave And Startling Truth
A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi...
Absalom and Achitophel
Abuelito Who
A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass
A Clock stopped—
A Complaint
Acquainted with the Night
Act of Union
Adam's Song
A Dog Has Died
A Dream Within a Dream
Advice to My Son
A Far Cry from Africa
A Following
Afro-Latina
After Apple-Picking
Again Later
A Glimpse
A Great Need
Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave
A Jelly-Fish
Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude
A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth
All That I Owe the Fellows of the Grave
A Man Said to the Universe
America
America
América
American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin ["I lock you in..."]
American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [“Probably twilight ...”]
America the Beautiful
A Miracle for Breakfast
An Agony. As Now.
An American Sunrise
An Ancient Gesture
An Ante-Bellum Sermon
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
And the People Stayed Home
An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
A New National Anthem
An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland
Annabel Lee
An Obstacle
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House
A Poison Tree
Apollo
Approach of Winter
A Prayer for My Daughter
A Primer for the Small Weird Loves
A Psalm Of Life
A Red, Red Rose
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Ariel
Arrival at Santos
Ars Poetica?
A Shropshire Lad, Poem XXXVI
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
A Small Needful Fact
A Supermarket in California
A Time To Talk
At the Galleria Shopping Mall
At the Gym
At the Sea-Side
Aubade
Aubade with Burning City
Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Ave Maria
A Wicker Basket
A Work Of Artifice
Bag of Bones
Ballad
Barbara Frietchie
Barbie Doll
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Between Walls
"B" (If I Should Have a Daughter)
Birches
Birdfoot’s Grampa
Blackberry Eating
Blackberry Picking
Black Cat
Blessing the Boats
Blizzard
Boy at the Window
Boy Breaking Glass
Break
Break of Day
Burning a Book
Burning the Old Year
Butter
Caged Bird
Casey at the Bat
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Catullus 51
Channel Firing
Cherrylog Road
Childhood Memories
Children’s Rhymes
Chosen
Coal
Columbus
Conscientious Objector
Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop
Crusoe in England
Cynthia in the Snow
Daddy
Dead Stars
Dear Future Generations: Sorry
dear white america
Death
Death Be Not Proud
Declaration
Deer Hit
Did I Miss Anything?
Different Ways to Pray
Digging
Dim Lady
Diving into the Wreck
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
Dothead
Dover Beach
Dreams
Dreams
Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter
Drum Dream Girl
Dulce et Decorum est
Dusting
Dusting
Early in the Morning
Easter, 1916
Easter Wings
Eating Alone
Ebb
Ego Tripping
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Elena
Ellis Island
Eloisa to Abelard
Emplumada
Entrance
Epilogue
Eurydice
Evening Hawk
& even the black guy’s profile reads 'sorry, no black guys'
Exchanging Hats
Facing It
"Faith" is a fine invention
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Fast Break
Fern Hill
Fifth Grade Autobiography
Fire and Ice
First They Came...
Five Flights Up
For A Poet
For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth...
Forgetfulness
For Love
For You O Democracy
Four Poems for Robin
Four Quartets
Fragment 31
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Freedom Summer
From Blossoms
From The Dark Tower
From the Wave
Gate A-4
Goblin Market
God’s Grandeur
Good Bones
Good Man
Graveyard Blues
Greater Love
Gretel in Darkness
Harlem
Hate Poem
Having It Out with Melancholy
Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
Heritage
High Flight
Highland Mary
High Windows
History Lesson
Home After Three Months Away
Hope is a strange invention
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Hours Continuing Long
How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
How Falling in Love is like Owning a Dog
Howl
How to Triumph Like a Girl
Hurt Locker
Iambicum Trimetrum
I Am Offering This Poem
I Am the People, the Mob
I Ask My Mother to Sing
I Can Wade Grief
Identity
If—
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
If I should die
If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso
If We Must Die
If You Forget Me
If you were coming in the fall
I Go Back to May 1937
I Hear America Singing
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
I look at the world
Immigrants in Our Own Land
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
In a Station of the Metro
Incident
In Memoriam
Insomnia
In the Park
In The Park
In This Place (An American Lyric)
Introduction to Poetry
Invictus
I see the boys of summer
I Sit and Look Out
I Sit and Sew
I, Too
It won’t be a bullet
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I Will Put Chaos Into Fourteen Lines
Jabberwocky
jasper texas 1998
Jazz Fantasia
Jerusalem
Joy in the Woods
juxtaposing the black boy & the bullet
Kindness
Kissing in Vietnamese
Knock Knock
Knoxville, Tennessee
Kubla Khan
Lady Lazarus
Lament
La Migra
Languages
Learning to Read
Leda and the Swan
Legal Alien
Let Evening Come
Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years From Now
Life
Lift Every Voice and Sing
Light Shining Out of Darkness
Tintern Abbey
Litany
Little Beast
Living in Sin
London
London, 1802
Lot's Wife
Loud Music
Love After Love
Love at First Sight
[love is more thicker than forget]
Love Poem
Love Poem With Toast
Love Song for Alex, 1979
(Love Song, With Two Goldfish)
Mac Flecknoe
Making a Fist
Masks
Me and the Mule
Meg Merrilies
Mementos, 1
Mending Wall
Messenger
Mid-Term Break
Miniver Cheevy
Mirror
Morning Song
Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me
Mother to Son
Mowing
Mr. Edwards and the Spider
Mr. Grumpledump's Song
Mr. Mistoffelees
Musée des Beaux Arts
Mutability
my dream about being white
my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell
My Father's Hats
My Father's Love Letters
My Father's Song
My Heart Leaps Up
My Last Duchess
My Love Sent Me a List
My Papa's Waltz
Myth
My Uncle’s Favorite Coffee Shop
Nature
Necessities of Life
Night
Nineteen
No Man Is an Island
No More Cake Here
North
No Second Troy
Not an Elegy for Mike Brown
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nothing Twice
Not In A Silver Casket Cool With Pearls
Not Waving but Drowning
O Captain! My Captain!
October
Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
Ode on Melancholy
Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market
Ode to Dirt
Ode to Teachers
Of the Threads that Connect the Stars
Old Love
Old Pond
On Anger
On Being Brought from Africa to America
Once by the Pacific
One Art
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
On Friendship
On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance
On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
On the train the woman standing
On Turning Ten
Oranges
Out, Out—
Oxygen
Parents
Peace
Perhaps the World Ends Here
Persimmons
Pied Beauty
Planetarium
Poem for Haruko
Postcard from Kashmir
Postcolonial Love Poem
Prayer
Prayer to the Masks
Prometheus
Punishment
Putting in the Seed
Pyramus and Thisbe
Quilts
Race
Remember
Remember
Requiem
Reservation Love Song
Richard Cory
Ruins of a Great House
Sabbaths, WI
Sad Steps
Sailing to Byzantium
Sandpiper
Saturday at the Canal
Scaffolding
Seal Lullaby
See How the Roses Burn!
Selecting a Reader
Selling Manhattan
Selma, 1965
September Suite
She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways
Sheep In Fog
She Walks in Beauty
She Was a Phantom of Delight
Shoulders
Siren Song
Slam, Dunk, & Hook
Sleeping with the Dictionary
Snow
Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Social Distancing
Some Afternoons She Does Not Pick Up the Phone
Some Days
Sometime During Eternity . . .
Song of a Second April
Song of Myself
Sonnet
Sonnet 116
Sonnet 129
Sonnet 130
Sonnet 138
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 29
Sonnet 55
Sonnet 60
Sonnet 73
Sonnet 76
Sorrow Is Not My Name
So This is Nebraska
So You Want to Be a Writer?
Speech to the Young
Spring
Spring and All
Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
Spring is like a perhaps hand
Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse
Still I Rise
Still Life in Landscape
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Storm Ending
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Swan and Shadow
Sympathy
Talking in Bed
Tamerlane
Tattoo
Tear it Down
Telephone Conversation
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Tender Buttons [A Long Dress]
Thanatopsis
The Albatross
The Almond Trees
The Argument of His Book
The Art of Disappearing
The Author to Her Book
The Bagel
The Ballad of Rudolph Reed
The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver
The Battle of Maldon
The Bear
The birth in a narrow room
The Blind Men and the Elephant
The Blue Bowl
The Blue Terrance
The Book of Thel
The Book of Yolek
The Bronze Horseman
The Bull Moose
The Burning Babe
The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock
The Chimney Sweeper
The Colonel
The Coming on of Night
The Congo
The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to Be Bilingual
The Conundrum of the Workshops
The Convent Threshold
The Courage That My Mother Had
The Crazy Woman
The Darkling Thrush
The Dead
The Death of a Soldier
The Diameter of the Bomb
The Disquieting Muses
The Eagle
The End and the Beginning
The End of Science Fiction
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Eve of St. Agnes
The Expatriates
The Explosion
The Facebook Sonnet
The Fish
The Flea
The Flock
The Fly
The Garden of Love
The Gift
The Good Life
The Goose Fish
The Guitar
The Hand
The Highwayman
The Hill We Climb
The History Teacher
The Illiterate
The Imaginary Iceberg
The Immigrant's Song
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
The Lady Of Shalott
The Lamb
The Landlady
The Land of Counterpane
The Last Ride Together
The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica
The Lesson of the Moth
The Lisbon Earthquake
The Lost Baby Poem
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Lynching
Theme for English B
The Mother
The Munich Mannequins
The New Colossus
Theogony
Theology
The Only News I Know
Theories of Time and Space
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
The Painter
The Paper Nautilus
The Partial Explanation
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
The Progress of Poesy
The Rape of Lucrece
The Rape of the Lock
The Raven
The Red Shoes
The Red Sweater
The Red Wheelbarrow
There's A Certain Slant Of Light
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
There Will Come Soft Rains
The Rider
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
the rites for Cousin Vit
The Road Not Taken
The Rose that Grew from Concrete
"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"
The Schooner Flight
The Second Coming
The Secretary Chant
The Shampoo
The Soldier
The Solitary Reaper
The Song of the Jellicles
The Song of the Shirt
The Soul unto itself
The Spring And The Fall
The Summer I Was Sixteen
The Sun Rising
The Tradition
The Triumph of Achilles
The Tropics in New York
The Tyger
The Undefeated
The United States Welcomes You
The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Venus Hottentot
The Victims
The Virus
The Vision of Sir Launfal
The War Works Hard
The Waste Land
The Weary Blues
The White Goddess
The White House
The White Man's Burden
The Windhover
The World Is Too Much with Us
The Writer
They Don't Love You Like I Love You
The Young Housewife
Things We Carry on the Sea
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
This Is Just to Say
This Morning I Pray for My Enemies
This World is not Conclusion
Those Winter Sundays
Thyrsis
Tired
To a Daughter Leaving Home
To a Mouse
To an Athlete Dying Young
To a Skylark
To Aunt Rose
To Autumn
To Be in Love
To Be Of Use
To Daffodils
Today
To Help the Monkey Cross the River
To His Coy Mistress
To His Excellency General Washington
To make a prairie
To My Mother
To One Coming North
To Penshurst
To Return To The Trees
To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works
To The Diaspora
To the Skylark
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
To Waken An Old Lady
Toy Boat
Travel
True Love
Tula ["Books are door shaped"]
Two Lorries
Two Sisters Of Persephone
Ulysses
Ulysses
Valentine
Valentine for Ernest Mann
Verses upon the Burning of our House
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Wade in the Water
Wait
Walking Down Park
Wedding Poem
We Grow Accustomed to the Dark
We Have Been Friends Together
We Lived Happily During the War
We never know how high we are
We Real Cool
Western Wind
West-Running Brook
We Wear the Mask
Whales Weep Not!
What Do Women Want?
Whatever You Say, Say Nothing
What mystery pervades a well!
What Soft — Cherubic Creatures
What Teachers Make
What the Living Do
What Work Is
When Dawn Comes to the City
When I Consider How My Light is Spent
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
When the World as We Knew It Ended
When You Are Old
WHEREAS
Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
Whose cheek is this?
Wild Bees
Wild Geese
Wind
Wind, Water, Stone
Wingfoot Lake
Wirers
wishes for sons
Woodchucks
Works and Days
You Are Jeff
You Can Have It
[you fit into me]
Young
Our Short Poems Collection highlights the power of poetry through titles that make an impact in few words. These bite-sized selections offer a convenient starting place for readers new to analyzing poetry or anyone who appreciates short-form verse and its ability to move and inspire.
John Dryden’s “Absalom and Achitophel” was first published in 1681, in direct response to a political crisis faced by King Charles II from 1679 to 1681. In what became known as the “Exclusion Crisis,” the king’s opponents in Parliament tried to exclude Charles’s brother James from the succession on the grounds that he was a Roman Catholic. “Absalom and Achitophel” is a satiric narrative poem in which Dryden uses a biblical allegory to discuss the... Read Absalom and Achitophel Summary
Among Peter Meinke’s most anthologized poems, “Advice to My Son” is best known for its humorous, ironic tone and contemporary interpretation of traditional rhyme structure. First published in 1964 in The Antioch Review, the poem was anthologized in the volume Liquid Paper: New and Selected Poems (1991), published by the Pittsburgh Press. According to Meinke, he had little idea that the poem would so deeply resonate with readers when he first wrote it as a... Read Advice to My Son Summary
Joy Harjo is a seminal voice in the US poetry canon, and she has long been an advocate for Native American women in the literary world. Her work has merited tremendous acclaim, such as a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, the Josephine Miles Poetry Award, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the American... Read An American Sunrise Summary
The last poem Edgar Allan Poe—infamous poet and fiction author of the macabre—completed during his tumultuous life, “Annabel Lee,” was first published in the New York Tribune in 1849, two days after Poe’s death. Displaying the melodic lyricism, gothic overtones, and memorable imagery which informed so much of Poe’s work, “Annabel Lee” is considered one of the defining entries in his canon, and a classic of 19th century American poetry.The poem concerns the death of... Read Annabel Lee Summary
“A Prayer for my Daughter” by William Butler (W.B.) Yeats was originally published in his collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer in 1921. This book also includes one of Yeats’s most famous poems—“The Second Coming”—and was Yeats’s eighth collection of lyrical poems. “A Prayer for my daughter” was written in 1919, a year that marked the beginning of the Irish War of Independence. The war lasted until 1921 and heavily influenced Yeats. The poem’s location... Read A Prayer for My Daughter Summary
“A Supermarket in California” is a prose poem by the American poet Allen Ginsberg. Written in 1955, it appears alongside Ginsberg’s most well-known work, “Howl,” in his book Howl and Other Poems. Published November 1, 1956 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books as part of their Pocket Poets Series, Howl and Other Poems was subject to an obscenity trial in 1957 due to its use of sexually explicit language. The trial eventually ruled in the... Read A Supermarket in California Summary
“Aubade” is a contemporary love poem by American poet Major Jackson. Published in 2017 in Jackson’s fourth collection of poetry Roll Deep, the poem first appeared in The New Yorker in 2015. The title of the poem references a form of love song or poem that marks the dawn—the time of day when lovers must separate. Aubades were popular in medieval times, and unlike a serenade, which accompanies the evening and nightfall, an aubade evokes... Read Aubade Summary
The American writer Marge Piercy wrote “Barbie Doll.” Originally published in Moving Out (1971), the poem also appears in her 1982 collection, Circles on the Water. A highly descriptive poem, “Barbie Doll” offers staunch diction and vivid, stereotypical imagery of a girl who grows up and dies by suicide as an adult. This free verse poem is an example of second-wave feminist thought, also known as the Women’s Liberation Movement, something Piercy explores here through... Read Barbie Doll Summary
Emily Dickinson holds a special place in the firmament of American writers. Although she lived in the 19th century and seldom left her home region in Massachusetts, her poetry speaks to readers of all ages and backgrounds. Dickinson possessed a singular poetic style, characterized by inventive punctuation, powerful efficiency, and deep inquiry of the human experience. Her poem “Because I could not stop for Death” has become a touchstone for readers encountering Dickinson for the... Read Because I Could Not Stop for Death Summary
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English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy wrote “Channel Firing” in May of 1914, only three months before the beginning of WWI. Eerily prophetic, the poem depicts the global chaos and destruction that soon followed. Overlaid by tones of satire and irony, the poem details the violence of war and humanity’s age-old proclivity toward it through a conversation between God and the dead. Hardy, although best known for his earlier novels, received positive reception concerning war... Read Channel Firing Summary
Marilyn Nelson is part of a coterie of writers who published in the late-1970s and 1980s after the revolutionary fervor of the Black Arts Movement. Though the period during which Nelson wrote is less acknowledged than those aforementioned, it was a time when diverse Black poetic talents emerged. Nelson’s contemporaries included Afaa Michael Weaver, Yusef Komunyakaa, Rita Dove, Ntozake Shange, Melvin Dixon, and Essex Hemphill. Their work grappled with the aftermath of the Vietnam War... Read Chosen Summary
Harryette Mullen’s “Dim Lady” may remind some readers of 17th century English playwright and poet William Shakespeare’s well-known “Sonnet 130,” in which the speaker of the poem makes a mockery of his beloved’s physical appearance. During Shakespeare’s time, fashion encouraged poets to write flowery poetry that extolled the virtues and the beauty of their beloved. However, the speaker of this sonnet toys with poetic conventions of the time, describing the physical attributes of the speaker’s... Read Dim Lady Summary
“Diving into the Wreck” is the title poem of Adrienne Rich’s 1973 National Book Award-winning collection. A 94-line, ten stanza free verse poem, the work encompasses Rich’s thematic concerns of radical feminism and art and examines how gender functions within the larger context of culture, literature, and oral tradition.Rich’s mid-career poem came about during a period of intense change in her life. While her earlier poems had been more traditional in form and topic, over... Read Diving into the Wreck Summary
“Do not go gentle into that good night” is an iconic poem by 20th-century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who occupied a special place in the public imagination for his magnetic readings and the revival of Romantic themes in his poetry. This poem, which appeared in his 1952 collection In Country Sleep, remains a favorite in anthologies and popular culture for its universal content and unforgettable dual refrain. “Do not go gentle into that good night” is... Read Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Summary
Among Wilfred Owen’s most famous poems, “Dulce et Decorum Est” was written in 1917 while he was in Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland, recovering from injuries sustained on the battlefield during World War I. The poem details the death of a soldier from chlorine gas told by another soldier who witnesses his gruesome end. Owen himself died in action on November 4, 1918 in France at the age of 25. He published only five poems... Read Dulce et Decorum est Summary
... Read Ebb Summary
“Ego Tripping,” also known as “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why),” is one of American poet Nikki Giovanni’s most well-known poems. Giovanni first published this poem in 1972, which is the year that also marks Giovanni’s first trip to Africa, three years after the birth of her son. As the title of the poem suggests, this poem is a fulsome celebration of the many facets of Giovanni’s identity as a Black woman. Written... Read Ego Tripping Summary
“Eloisa to Abelard” is a poem published in 1717 by Alexander Pope. The poem discusses the ill-fated love affair of a real-life couple from 12th-century France: Heloïse d’Argenteuil, a gifted 18-year-old student, and Peter Abelard, a renowned French scholar, philosopher, and poet of the Medieval era who was 20 years older than Heloïse. The poem is a heroic verse epistle, which is a genre first made famous in Ovid’s Heroides. Pope adopts Eloisa’s persona and... Read Eloisa to Abelard Summary
The poem “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa is a meditation on the first time Komunyakaa visited the US Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Komunyakaa served in the Vietnam War as an Army journalist for the military newspaper, Southern Cross, until he was discharged in 1966. He began writing about the war approximately 14 years after coming home from Vietnam.Prior to this, he had only written one poem about his experience in the war, and... Read Facing It Summary
Four Quartets is a collection of four poems by T.S. Eliot. The four pieces were originally published between 1934 and 1942, during a period of time in which Eliot’s life was disrupted by the events of World War II. They were then collected into a single volume in 1943. The poems are linked loosely by theme; all of them are about the relationship between people and the divine. At the time of its publication, several of... Read Four Quartets Summary
Sappho wrote “Fragment 31” centuries ago in her Greek homeland with the intention of performing her poetry as songs. Contemporary readers should therefore remember two important details. First, readers who do not read Greek experience Sappho’s poetry through the words of a translator who adds unique interpretations and impressions to Sappho’s original version. This study guide uses the Christopher Childers translation of “Fragment 31” which first appeared in Boston University’s literary magazine AGNI, volume 83... Read Fragment 31 Summary
Enigmatic and strange, English poet Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” has sparked multiple interpretations since its publication in 1862. The poem helped launch her career and expand the Pre-Raphaelite art movement into literature.The long narrative poem centers on Lizzie’s rescue of her sister from an enchantment cast by malicious goblins. Fairy tales and folklore inspired many Victorian writers, who felt weary about England’s increasing industrialization.Often seen as an allegory, scholars have posited that the poem’s characters... Read Goblin Market Summary
Louise Glück is among the most lauded poets in the American canon. Glück’s writing is often surgically precise in terms of formal craft, and reveals a deep emotional complexity. She addresses sadness, mourning, trauma, and individual suffering metaphorically through the natural world, mythology, autobiographical events, or universal truths. She is known for alluding to cultural myths and personas in her work, some of which appear in “Gretel in Darkness” through the perspective of young Gretel... Read Gretel in Darkness Summary
American Beat-era poet Allen Ginsberg began writing “Howl” as a private recollection for friends, though he later published the long poem in his 1956 book Howl and Other Poems. Also known as “Howl: For Carl Solomon,” the poem cemented Ginsberg’s status as a prophet-poet in the romantic literature vein of Walt Whitman and William Blake (two major influences). “Footnote for Howl,” written in 1955, is the final portion, though it’s not always included with the... Read Howl Summary
Along with his contemporary Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser is one of the most important literary figures from the English Renaissance (c. 1550-1660), also known as the Early Modern Period. Spenser’s work was greatly influenced by his studies of Classical and Italian Renaissance poets, including Virgil, Ludovico Ariosto, and Torquato Tasso. His faith and study of Christianity also informed his work. With Sidney, who was also an influence, and his friend Gabriel Harvey, Spenser belonged to... Read Iambicum Trimetrum Summary
... Read If— Summary
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam AHH explores the cosmic implications of the death of a college friend (his sister’s fiancé), poet Arthur Henry Hallam, who died quite unexpectedly in 1833 at the age of 22 most likely from a cerebral hemorrhage. The poem is among the most ambitiously conceived philosophical poems in the English language and a monument to the dynamics of how Christians themselves grapple with the thorny question of mortality. The work stands... Read In Memoriam Summary
“Light Shining Out of Darkness,” written by William Cowper, was first published in 1774 by John Newton, a Calvinist pastor, in Twenty-Six Letters on Religious Subjects; to Which Are Added Hymns. Later, the hymn was again collected in Olney Hymns in 1779, a text featuring hymns by both Cowper and Newton (“Light Shining Out of Darkness.” Representative Poetry Online, 1998.). In addition to being a hymn, the text could be labeled as a lyric poem... Read Light Shining Out of Darkness Summary
Composed in the middle of July 1798, “Tintern Abbey” was the last poem submitted for the publication of Lyrical Ballads, which was already in the press at Bristol. As the coda to Lyrical Ballads, “Tintern Abbey” represents a pivotal modulation in Wordsworth’s poetic development and ambition, prefiguring much of his distinctive verse to follow. Its sustained meditative subjectivity, masterful control of tone, elevated theme, scale of conceptual development, and orchestrated musicality mark the convergence of... Read Tintern Abbey Summary
“Love Song for Alex, 1979” is a lyric sonnet that Margaret Walker wrote for her husband. The poem is frequently labeled a sonnet because of its 14 lines, though it doesn’t follow the strict rhyme scheme of a traditional sonnet. In the style of lyric poetry, the poem expresses Walker’s warm feelings for her husband. Though it doesn’t reveal a narrative, we can glean some details about the couple’s relationship from the poem.Poet BiographyMargaret Walker... Read Love Song for Alex, 1979 Summary
During his lifetime, John Dryden (1631-1700) was an esteemed poet, literary critic, and playwright. His influence was so large that the literary period after the Restoration of Charles II is sometimes called the “Age of Dryden.” Dryden’s literary abilities were recognized by the Stuart Monarchy in 1668 when he was made England’s first Poet Laureate. In addition to his role as Poet Laureate, Dryden is best remembered for his refinement of English verse, his development of... Read Mac Flecknoe Summary
“Meg Merrilies” (sometimes titled “Old Meg she was a gipsy” or simply “old Meg”) is a short, playful ballad by the English Romantic poet John Keats. It was written on Keats’s walking tour of northern England and Scotland in 1818. At the time, Keats was worried about the health of his brother, Tom, and about his own health; the tuberculosis that would soon kill Tom had already begun to manifest in Keats. While his doctor... Read Meg Merrilies Summary
A meditative lyric poem on the boundaries between people, “Mending Wall” was first published in 1914 in North of Boston, a collection of poetry by the American poet Robert Frost. “Mending Wall” is one of Frost’s most popular and anthologized works. It exemplifies the themes which came to define his poetry. Set in a rural American wood, its honest, colloquial tone belies a psychologically deep and ambiguous reality. The poem’s most quotable lines exhort two... Read Mending Wall Summary
Simon J. Ortiz originally published “My Father’s Song” in his poetry/story collection entitled A Good Journey (1977). Ortiz is a major writer in the Native American Renaissance, a movement which began in the 1960s and marked a significant increase in the production of literary works by Native Americans in the United States. The poem was written at a time when Ortiz was collecting and recounting stories from Indigenous tribes across the United States, and his... Read My Father's Song Summary
Many scholars agree that “Old Pond” (1686) by Matsuo Bashō is one of the most—if not the most—famous haiku of all time. The term “haiku” translates as “play verse,” and though “Old Pond” appears whimsical and simple—a frog jumping into water and the subsequent splash—Bashō utilizes various literary devices such as key words and onomatopoeia to ensure this three-line poem is both didactic and enjoyable. “Old Pond” is instructional, especially for its use of common... Read Old Pond Summary
Throughout her life, Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) suffered many losses. Her father died before her first birthday and her mother entered a mental institution when Bishop was only five, leaving her to the guardianship of maternal and paternal grandparents. Later, Bishop’s lover committed suicide in Brazil, prompting Bishop’s return to the US. “One Art” (1976) alludes to several of these prominent losses, though the poem objectively approaches loss. “One Art” defines loss as a special form... Read One Art Summary
“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” is a sonnet by the English poet John Keats. It was first published in The Examiner on Dec. 1, 1816, and describes Keats’s awed reaction to Elizabethan playwright George Chapman’s startling translations of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey. Keats’s lyric poem is informed by the Romanticism movement, of which he became a chief practitioner in its late form, despite his brief life.The poem is the most famous of... Read On First Looking into Chapman's Homer Summary
“Prayer to the Masks” is a poem by influential Senegalese poet and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor, published in 1945 in his collection Chants d’ombre (Songs of Shadow). Senghor often used his work to illuminate African history and contemplate the consequences of colonialism. Educated in Paris, Senghor was a founding member of the artistic and political movement Négritude, which emphasized pride in African and Black identity and history, which he practiced through his poetry. With “Prayer... Read Prayer to the Masks Summary
“Pyramus and Thisbe” is an episode from Book 4 of the Metamorphoses, an epic poem published by the Roman poet Ovid in 8 AD. In contrast to the epics of Ovid’s contemporaries (like Virgil’s Aeneid), the Metamorphoses does not focus on a single, cohesive narrative. Rather, Ovid takes as his theme “bodies changed to other forms” (Book 1, Line 1) and fittingly, his Metamorphoses is a work in constant state of change. Its 15 books... Read Pyramus and Thisbe Summary
“Richard Cory” (1897), arguably Edwin Arlington Robinson’s most famous poem, is about perspective and realizing that everything is not always what it seems. About 10 years before the poem was published in a collection, entitled Children of the Night, the United States had experienced a series of economic depressions. The consequences of these economic downturns appear throughout this poem in Robinson’s notorious cynicism, which creates a bleak tone of irony. This situates the poem comfortably... Read Richard Cory Summary
“She Was a Phantom of Delight” is a short lyric poem by the English poet William Wordsworth. Often regarded as the greatest of the English Romantics, Wordsworth composed “Phantom” in 1804 and published it in his 1807 collection Poems, in Two Volumes. He wrote it in praise of his wife Mary (née Hutchinson), whom he first met in 1787 and married in 1802. The poem explores three stages of development in William and Mary’s relationship... Read She Was a Phantom of Delight Summary
“Song of Myself” is a free verse poem by the American writer, journalist, and poet Walt Whitman. The poem is often classified as a work of transcendentalist literature. Originally self-published by Whitman himself in 1855, it was considerably revised and expanded over subsequent decades. In 1889, “Song of Myself” was released in its final form as part of the last edition of the collection Leaves of Grass. This final version—the version referenced in this guide—is... Read Song of Myself Summary
William Shakespeare is the author of “Sonnet 130.” The sonnet is one of 154 sonnets that Shakespeare published in 1609 under the title Shakes-spears Sonnets. The first 126 sonnets address a young man, while Sonnets 127-152 focus on a mysterious woman. As with “Sonnet 130,” the sonnets about the enigmatic woman concern ideas of love and beauty and directly undercut typical representations of both. Thus, “Sonnet 130” is satire; it makes fun of how adored... Read Sonnet 130 Summary
William Shakespeare is the best-known author of the English Renaissance—also known as the Early Modern Period and the Elizabethan Age. Though readers’ attention tends to be more riveted toward his plays, Shakespeare published 154 sonnets during his exceptionally prolific career, in addition to the longer-form poems Venus and Adonis (1593), The Rape of Lucrece (1594), and The Phoenix and the Turtle (1601). Fifteen editions of Venus and Adonis—a poem in the form of 199 six-line... Read Sonnet 18 Summary
“Sonnet 55” (1609) is an English love sonnet by renowned poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The sonnet is part of Shakespeare’s Fair Youth sonnet sequence, which makes up the first 126 of his sonnets. This sonnet follows a number of the Fair Youth sonnets in the way it praises the fair youth’s beauty and claims his beauty is eternal. In this sonnet specifically, Shakespeare claims that the subject’s beauty will outlive all monuments of princes and... Read Sonnet 55 Summary
Matthew Arnold’s “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse” takes its name from a seventeenth-century monastery in Grenoble in the French Alps, famous as the headquarters of the Carthusian order of Catholic monks. Arnold wrote this philosophical poem after visiting the monastery in the early 1850s. Comprised of thirty-five stanzas, each of which contains six lines of iambic tetrameter verse set to an “ABABCC” rhyme scheme, the poem is one of the better-known examples of Arnold’s early poetry... Read Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse Summary
Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist whose career spanned over 50 years. She published seven autobiographies, several books of poetry, and three essay collections and wrote plays, movies, and television shows. Her widely acclaimed work has received numerous awards, and Angelou has received over 50 honorary degrees. Her best known work is her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing, which focuses on her childhood up to the... Read Still I Rise Summary
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a short, structured poem written in 1922 by the American poet Robert Frost, one of the foremost poets of the 20th century. The poem was originally published in 1923 in the magazine New Republic, and then in Frost’s poetry collection New Hampshire. The poem explores themes of nature, beauty, duty, life, and death, and is written using simple and accessible language that has made it beloved by... Read Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening Summary
“The Battle of Maldon” is a heroic poem, also classified as an epic, dating from the 10th century. Originally written in Old English, the text details a violent battle between the Anglo-Saxon warriors and the raiding Vikings. The Anglo-Saxons are led by Earl Byrhtnoth, who held land in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Essex and fought for his ruler, King Æthelred the Unready. The poem depicts some of the central tenets of Anglo-Saxon culture, praising loyalty... Read The Battle of Maldon Summary
The Book of Thel was written and etched by William Blake in 1789. It is one of his prophetic illuminated books, crafted after Songs of Innocence but before The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Blake’s recognition as an influential figure in the British Romantic literary movement only came after his death. The Book of Thel is a narrative, allegorical, and symbolic poem written in 14-syllable lines. Its themes include the expansiveness of God’s love, interconnectedness... Read The Book of Thel Summary
The Bronze Horseman: A Saint Petersburg Story is a narrative poem by 19th-century Russian poet, dramatist, and novelist Alexander Pushkin, who is considered Russia’s greatest poet. It was written in 1833, but was not published until 1841, after Pushkin’s death due to censorship of Pushkin’s works by the Russian government.Regarded as one of Pushkin’s most accomplished works, The Bronze Horseman has had a marked influence on Russian literature. The poem tells of the founding of Saint... Read The Bronze Horseman Summary
William Blake’s poem “The Chimney Sweeper” was first published in his poetry collection Songs of Innocence (1789) and then republished in the expanded Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). The latter collection includes another poem of the same title, which complements the first poem and clarifies Blake’s intention. All poems in the collection are short and deceivingly simple in form, borrowing from and building on the conventions of 18th-century poetry for children, designed to... Read The Chimney Sweeper Summary
"The Epic of Gilgamesh" is the oldest existing myth in the world. It tells of the historical king Gilgamesh who reigned over Mesopotamia (in what is now Iraq) around 2750 BCE. The author of the poem is unknown, for "The Epic of Gilgamesh" is sourced from multiple fragments that have been excavated since the 19th century. The earliest versions of the epic are written in Sumerian and date to about 2100 BCE. The current translation... Read The Epic of Gilgamesh Summary
English poet Alfred Noyes wrote and published “The Highwayman” in 1906 during the early period of his literary career. The poem was written during the Edwardian Period of English literature but reflects influences from the romantic period a century earlier. Told as a narrative, “The Highwayman” recounts the doomed romance between a highwayman and a landlord’s daughter, Bess, who he visits in the night. Their love is sabotaged by jealousy; the poem romanticizes Bess’s sacrifice... Read The Highwayman Summary
“The Lady of Shalott,” one of Lord Alfred Tennyson’s best-known poems, is a four-part lyrical ballad loosely inspired by the 13th-century Italian novella Donna di Scalotta. It makes use of vivid romantic language and heavy symbolism. Based on Arthurian legend and medieval sources, the poem tells the story of Elaine of Astolat, a fictional woman confined to a tower overlooking the fields surrounding Camelot. The Lady of Shalott falls in unrequited love with Sir Lancelot... Read The Lady Of Shalott Summary
“The Last Ride Together” is a poem by the Victorian poet Robert Browning (1812-1889), first published in his 1855 collection Men and Women. It is an example of the poetic genre for which Browning is most famous: the dramatic monologue. Such a poem consists of words uttered by a speaker who is different from the author and whose personality is gradually revealed through his/her own words. This genre appealed to Browning because it allowed him... Read The Last Ride Together Summary
The Theogony is an epic poem by the archaic Greek poet Hesiod. It is both a theogony—or account of the origins of the gods—and a cosmogony, an explanation of the origins of the universe. At just over a thousand lines in length, the Theogony is among the earliest surviving works of Greek literature, dating to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. It is an epic poem, a genre defined by its meter (dactylic... Read Theogony Summary
“The Rape of Lucrece,” written by William Shakespeare, was originally published in 1594 by Richard Field. This poem comes early in Shakespeare’s canon, with its original publication near the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, shortly after Taming of the Shrew and around the time of A Midsummer Nights’ Dream. As a companion piece to “Venus and Adonis,” Shakespeare dedicates “The Rape of Lucrece” to the Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, his patron. It went... Read The Rape of Lucrece Summary
“The Rape of the Lock” is a mock-epic poem written by Alexander Pope. A mock-epic poem is equal in length to a traditional epic but takes a satirical tone rather than a serious one. The poem was originally published in 1712 and contained only two cantos. Pope, wanting to further expand its epic format, rewrote the poem several times and finally published a five-canto version in 1717. This version is the version we read today... Read The Rape of the Lock Summary
Influenced by the English Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Lord” George Gordon Byron, and Percy Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe represents one of the essential American Romantic poets of the nineteenth century. Romanticism here refers to a literary movement of the late 1700s and 1800s which focused on the emotional life of the individual and curiosity about the self. This movement complemented a larger geopolitical and ideological shift in the United States. As a young nation... Read The Raven Summary
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” first published in 1798, is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and is the first poem in Lyrical Ballads, a collaborative effort of Coleridge and fellow poet William Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads is widely considered to be the first collection of Romantic English poetry, and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a classic example of English Romanticism, with its vivid imagery and inclusion of the supernatural. The poem is... Read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Summary
“The Second Coming” is an allegorical poem that W. B. Yeats penned in 1919 and published in The Dial in 1920. The poem describes a declining, violent present and an impending apocalyptic future, marked by the approach of a sphinxlike monster. The poem is often considered an allegory for the fraught times Yeats was living in—namely, the end of World War I, the midst of the Spanish flu pandemic, and the beginning of the Irish... Read The Second Coming Summary
“The Tradition” by Jericho Brown is written from the perspective of a collective “we.” This group planted colorful perennial flowers, including aster, nasturtium, and delphinium (Line 1); filmed the flowers they planted blooming; then watched this video on fast forward (“Sped the video to see blossoms / brought in seconds,” Lines 11-12). At the end of the poem, the reader discovers that the collective “we” narrating the poem are Black men, and the sped-up video... Read The Tradition Summary
“The Undefeated” (2019) is a free verse children’s poem by poet and novelist Kwame Alexander. The poem, published as a picture book, celebrates Black Americans, highlighting the struggles the Black community has endured and overcome throughout America’s history, with particular attention on great figures from history, including artists, athletes, and civil rights activists. While the poem’s target audience is children, Alexander and the book’s illustrator, Kadir Nelson, address serious topics like slavery and police brutality... Read The Undefeated Summary
By any measure—influence, scope, durability, reputation—T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” published in 1922, stands as the defining English-language poem of the 20th century. No other single poem is more widely read, more widely quoted, more widely imitated, or more widely interpreted. The poem itself—notoriously difficult to read given Eliot’s vast erudition and determination to upend all inherited assumptions about the function and form of a poem—is largely a war poem, or more precisely, a... Read The Waste Land Summary
Wallace Stevens is the author of “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” and he first published the poem in 1917 as a part of the literary anthology Others: An Anthology of New Verse. In 1923, he included the poem in his first collection of poetry, Harmonium, which features many of Stevens’s most well-known poems—poems that continue to appear in anthologies—like “The Snow Man“ and “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.” Stevens was born in Pennsylvania and... Read Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Summary
“To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell was posthumously published in 1681 as part of the collection Miscellaneous Poems. Marvell, a metaphysical poet, wrote this piece in Restoration England, probably after the English Civil War. Marvell’s canonical lyric works are well-known today but were unheard of during his lifetime. Like Emily Dickinson, none of Marvell's poems were published until after his death. However, some of his satirical and other prose works were published during his... Read To His Coy Mistress Summary
“To His Excellency General Washington'' was written in 1775 by Phillis Wheatley. The poem addresses George Washington following the commencement of the American Revolutionary War that year. At the time, Wheatley was writing in popular convention with a Victorian form praising poetry’s inherited forms. A striking dimension of the poem is its fealty to a slave owner, George Washington, by a woman who was still a slave at her time of writing and would remain... Read To His Excellency General Washington Summary
Gwendolyn Brooks stands among the foremost American poets of the 20th century. A master of poetic form and portraiture, she explored black life in Chicago, where she lived for the majority of her life. The poem “We Real Cool,” Brooks’s most famous work, appeared in her 1960 collection The Bean Eaters.As a fledgling writer, Brooks combined early influences from the literary era of modernism, defined by poets like Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, and... Read We Real Cool Summary
“We Wear the Mask” is one of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s most influential works. Appearing in 1895 in his second poetry volume Majors and Minors, the poem reflects an unspecified collective, a “we” hiding behind a “mask,” which is used throughout the poem as an extended metaphor for survival tactics against oppression. “We Wear the Mask” stands as a poem about racism and oppression and the marginalized.Dunbar’s voice as a major American writer is varied and... Read We Wear the Mask Summary
“Works and Days” is a didactic poem by Hesiod dating to approximately the eighth century BCE. Hesiod begins the poem with the traditional invocation to the muses, but he deviates slightly from this tradition by including personal information; the poem is an explanation of a dispute between Hesiod and his brother Perses over a family inheritance. The poem’s thematic concerns, which Hesiod explores by arguing how harmful his brother’s actions are not only to himself... Read Works and Days Summary
Social Distancing
by Juan Felipe Herrera
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