Table of Contents

Introduction to Poetry.


Writing About Poetry.
Anonymous (1500?) “Bonny Barbara Allan.”Anonymous (1500?) “Sir Patrick Spens.”Wyatt, Thomas (1503-1542) “They Flee from Me.”Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) “When I Was Fair and Young.”Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599) “Amoretti: Sonnet 75.”Sidney, Sir Philip (1554-1584) “Astrophel and Stella: Sonnet 1.”Southwell, Robert (1561-1595) “Burning Babe, The.”Drayton, Michael (1563-1631) “Idea: Sonnet 61.”Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) “Sonnet 18.”Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) “Sonnet 20.”Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) “Sonnet 29.”Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) “Sonnet 30.”Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) “Sonnet 73.”Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) “Sonnet 116.”Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) “Sonnet 130.”Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) “When Daisies Pied (Spring and Winter).”Campion, Thomas (1567-1620) “There Is a Garden in Her Face.”Donne, John (1572-1631) “Canonization, The.”Donne, John (1572-1631) “Flea, The.”Donne, John (1572-1631) “Holy Sonnet 10.”Donne, John (1572-1631) “Holy Sonnet 14.”Donne, John (1572-1631) “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, A.”Wroth, Mary (1587?-1651?) “In this Strange Labyrinth How Small I Turn?”Jonson, Ben (1573-1637) “On My First Son.”Jonson, Ben (1573-1637) “Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount.”Herrick, Robert (1591-1674) “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.”Herbert, George (1593-1633) “Easter Wings.”Herbert, George (1593-1633) “Love III.”Herbert, George (1593-1633) “Pulley, The.”Herbert, George (1593-1633) “Redemption.”Waller, Edmund (1607-1687) “Song.”Milton, John (1608-1674) “How Soon Hath Time.”Milton, John (1608-1674) “On the Late Massacre in Piemont.”Milton, John (1608-1674) “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent.”Milton, John (1608-1674) “Lycidas.”Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) “Author to Her Book, The.”Lovelace, Richard (1618-1658) “To Lucasta, Going to the Wars.”Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678) “To His Coy Mistress.”Dryden, John (1631-1700) “Epigram on Milton.”Dryden, John (1631-1700) “To the Memory of Mr. Oldham.”Taylor, Edward (1642-1729) “Housewifery.”Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745) “Description of a City Shower, A.”Pope, Alexander (1688-1744) “From an Essay on Criticism (selection).”Pope, Alexander (1688-1744) “Ode on Solitude.”Gray, Thomas (1716-1771) “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”Smart, Christopher (1722-1771) “Jubilate Agno (selection).”Freneau, Philip (1752-1832) “Wild Honey Suckle, The.”Blake, William (1757-1827) “Chimney Sweeper, The.”Blake, William (1757-1827) “Poison Tree, A.”Blake, William (1757-1827) “Tyger, The.”Blake, William (1757-1827) “Little Black Boy, The.”Burns, Robert (1759-1796) “Red, Red Rose, A.”Burns, Robert (1759-1796) “John Barleycorn.”Wordsworth, William (1770-1850) “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud.”Wordsworth, William (1770-1850) “It Is a Beauteous Evening.”Wordsworth, William (1770-1850) “Lines (Composes a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey....”Wordsworth, William (1770-1850) “Nuns Fret Not at Their Narrow Convent Room".Wordsworth, William (1770-1850) “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.”Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) “Frost at Midnight.”Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) “Kubla Khan.”Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) “Work Without Hope.”Gordon, George, Lord Byron (1788-1824) “Stanzas.”Gordon, George, Lord Byron (1788-1824) “When We Two Parted.”Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822) “Ode to the West Wind.”Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822) “Ozymandias.”Bryant, William Cullen (1794-1878) “To the Fringed Gentian.”Keats, John (1795-1821) “La Belle Dame sans Merci.”Keats, John (1795-1821) “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”Keats, John (1795-1821) “Ode to a Nightingale.”Keats, John (1795-1821) “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.”Keats, John (1795-1821) “When I Have Fears.”Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861) “Sonnets from the Portuguese, 43.”Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882) “Arsenal at Springfield, The.”Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882) “Cross of Snow, The.”Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849) “Raven, The.”Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849) “The Haunted Palace.”Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849) “To Helen.”Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892) “Eagle, The.”Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892) “In Memoriam A.H.H., 54.”Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892) “Tears, Idle Tears.”Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809-1892) “Ulysses.”Browning, Robert (1812-1889) “My Last Duchess.”Browning, Robert (1812-1889) “Porphyria's Lover.”Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim.”Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.”Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) “Noiseless Patient Spider, A.”Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.”Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) “Song of Myself, 6.”Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) “When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer.”Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888) “Dover Beach.”Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.”Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) “I Died for Beauty -- But Was Scarce.”Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) “I Heard a Fly Buzz -- When I Died.”Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) “My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close.”Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) “Narrow Fellow in the Grass, A.”Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) “Soul Selects Her Own Society, The.”Rossetti, Christina (1830-1894) “Up-Hill.”Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928) “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?.”Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928) “Neutral Tones.”Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928) “The Convergence of the Twain.”Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928) “Ruined Maid, The.”Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1889) “God's Grandeur.”Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1889) “Pied Beauty.”Housman, A.E. (1859-1936) “Eight O'Clock.”Housman, A.E. (1859-1936) “To an Athlete Dying Young.”Housman, A.E. (1859-1936) “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now.”Housman, A.E. (1859-1936) “Stars, I Have Seen Them Fall.”Housman, A.E. (1859-1936) “'Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff . . ..”Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936) “When the Earth's Last Picture is Painted.”Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939) “Lake Isle of Innisfree, The.”Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939) “Leda and the Swan.”Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939) “Sailing to Byzantium.”Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939) “Second Coming, The.”Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939) “Song of Wandering Aengus, The.”Robinson, Edwin Arlington (1869-1935) “Firelight.”Robinson, Edwin Arlington (1869-1935) “Eros Turannos.”Robinson, Edwin Arlington (1869-1935) “Mill, The.”Robinson, Edwin Arlington (1869-1935) “Richard Cory.”Crane, Stephen (1871-1900) “The Black Riders, VI.”Crane, Stephen (1871-1900) “War Is Kind, XXI.”Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906) “We Wear the Mask.”Frost, Robert (1874-1963) “Acquainted with the Night.”Frost, Robert (1874-1963) “After Apple-Picking.”Frost, Robert (1874-1963) “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things.”Frost, Robert (1874-1963) “Design.”Frost, Robert (1874-1963) “Home Burial.”Frost, Robert (1874-1963) “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955) “Anecdote of the Jar.”Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955) “Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock.”Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955) “Snow Man, The.”Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955) “Sunday Morning.”Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963) “Last Words of My English Grandmother, The.”Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963) “Red Wheelbarrow, The.”Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963) “Spring and All.”Pound, Ezra (1885-1972) “In a Station of the Metro.”Pound, Ezra (1885-1972) “River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter, The.”Pound, Ezra (1885-1972) “Portrait d'une Femme.”H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961) “Pear Tree.”H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961) “Sea Rose.”Sassoon, Siegfried (1886-1967) “Dreamers.”Jeffers, Robinson (1887-1962) “Purse-Seine, The.”Moore, Marianne (1887-1972) “The Fish.”Moore, Marianne (1887-1972) “Silence.”Wylie, Elinor (1887-1928) “Let No Charitable Hope.”Eliot, T.S. (1888-1965) “Journey of the Magi.”Eliot, T.S. (1888-1965) “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The.”Ransom, John Crowe (1888-1974) “Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter.”Ransom, John Crowe (1889-1974) “Piazza Piece.”Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950) “Not in a Silver Casket.”Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950) “If I Should Learn, in Some Quite Casual Way.”Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950) “Oh, Oh, You Will be Sorry for That Word!Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950) “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed.”Owen, Wilfred (1893-1918) “Dulce Et Decorum Est.”Parker, Dorothy (1893-1967) “One Perfect Rose.”Parker, Dorothy (1893-1967) “Résumé.”cummings, e.e. (1894-1962) “in Just-.”cummings, e.e. (1894-1962) “pity this busy monster, manunkind.”cummings, e.e. (1894-1962) “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r.”cummings, e.e. (1894-1962) “no body loses all the time.”Toomer, Jean (1894-1967) “Reapers.”Bogan, Louise (1897-1970) “Women.”Crane, Hart (1899-1933) “Chaplinesque.”Hughes, Langston (1902-1967) “Dream Boogie.”Hughes, Langston (1902-1967) “Theme for English B.”Cullen, Countee (1903-1946) “Incident.”Cullen, Countee (1903-1946) “Yet Do I Marvel.”Hope, A.D. (1907-) “Imperial Adam.”Auden, W.H. (1907-1973) “As I Walked Out One Evening.”Auden, W.H. (1907-1973) “Musee des Beaux Arts.”Auden, W.H. (1907-1973) “Unknown Citizen, The.”Roethke, Theodore (1908-1963) “Dolor.”Roethke, Theodore (1908-1963) “My Papa's Waltz.”Roethke, Theodore (1908-1963) “Root Cellar.”Bishop, Elizabeth (1911-1979) “Fish, The.”Bishop, Elizabeth (1911-1979) “One Art.”Sarton, May (1912-1995) “A Guest.”Hayden, Robert (1913-1980) “Those Winter Sundays.”Randall, Dudley (1914-) “Ballad of Birmingham.”Stafford, William (1914-) “Traveling Through the Dark.”Thomas, Dylan (1914-1953) “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”Thomas, Dylan (1914-1953) “Fern Hill.”Kees, Weldon (1914-1955) “For My Daughter.”Jarrell, Randall (1914-1965) “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, The.”Walker, Margaret (1915-) “For Malcolm X.”Brooks, Gwendolyn (1917-) “Mother, The.”Brooks, Gwendolyn (1917-) “We Real Cool.”Lowell, Robert (1917-1977) “For the Union Dead.”Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (1919-) “Coney Island of the Mind, A, 15.”Swenson, May (1919-1989)How Everything Happens.”Nemerov, Howard (1920-1991) “Primer of the Daily Round, A.”Wilbur, Richard (1921-) “Junk.”Wilbur, Richard (1921-) “Playboy.”Wilbur, Richard (1921-) “Writer, The.”Wilbur, Richard (1921-) “Year's End.”Larkin, Philip (1922-1985) “Next, Please.”Larkin, Philip (1922-1985) “Aubade.”Larkin, Philip (1922-1985) “This Be the Verse.”Dickey, James (1923-) “The Heaven of Animals.”Dugan, Alan (1923-) “Love Song: I and Thou.”Hecht, Anthony (1923-) “'More Light! More Light!'”Levertov, Denise (1923-1999) “The Ache of Marriage.”Simpson, Louis (1923-) “American Classic.”Simpson, Louis (1923-) “My Father in the Night Commanding No.”Miller, Vassar (1924-) “Subterfuge.”Justice, Donald (1925-) “Counting the Mad.”Justice, Donald (1925-) “The Heaven of Animals.”Kizer, Carolyn (1925-) “Ungrateful Garden, The.”Kumin, Maxine (1925-) “Noted in The New York Times.”Creeley, Robert (1926-) “I Know a Man.”Creeley, Robert (1926-) “Oh No.”Ginsberg, Allen (1926-) “Supermarket in California, A.”Merrill, James (1926-) “Casual Wear.”Merrill, James (1926-) “Charles on Fire.”Snodgrass, W.D. (1926-) “Mementos, I.”O'Hara, Frank (1926-1966) “Day Lady Died, The.”Ashbery, John (1927-) “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape.”Ashbery, John (1927-) “Paradoxes and Oxymorons.”Merwin, W.S. (1927-) “For the Anniversary of My Death.”Merwin, W.S. (1927-) “Last One, The.”Wright, James (1927-1980) “A Blessing.”Wright, James (1927-1980) “Saint Judas.”Levine, Philip (1928-) “Genius.”Sexton, Anne (1928-1974) “Cinderella.”Sexton, Anne (1928-1974) “Truth the Dead Know, The.”Gunn, Thom (1929-) “From the Wave.”Gunn, Thom (1929-) “Terminal.”Hollander, John (1929-) “Adam's Task.”Kennedy, X.J. (1929-) “In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day.”Rich, Adrienne (1929-) “Aunt Jennifer's Tigers.”Rich, Adrienne (1929-) “Diving into the Wreck.”Rich, Adrienne (1929-) “Rape.”Hughes, Ted (1930-) “Pike.”Snyder, Gary (1930-) “Walk, A.”Walcott, Derek (1930-) “Central America.”Williams, Miller (1930-) “Book, The.”Pastan, Linda (1932-) “Crocuses.”Barrat, Gerald (1933-) “Strangers Like Us: Pittsburg, Raleigh, 1945-1985.”Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963) “Daddy.”Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963) “Edge.”Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963) “Metaphors.”Stevenson, Anne (1933-) “Sous-entendu.”Strand, Mark (1934-) “Tunnel, The.”Oliver, Mary (1935-) “Black Walnut Tree, The.”Chappell, Fred (1936-) “Narcissus and Echo.”Clifton, Lucille (1936-) “to my last period.”Piercy, Marge (1936-) “Barbie Doll.”Willard, Nancy (1936-) “Hardware Store As Proof of the Existence of God, A.”Adcock, Betty (1938-) “Digression on the Nuclear Age.”Gildner, Gary (1938-) “First Practice.”Phillips, Robert (1938-) “Compartments.”Simic, Charles (1938-) “Stone.”Stuart, Dabney (1938-) “Discovering My Daughter.”Atwood, Margaret (1939-) “Siren Song.”Dunn, Stephen (1939-) “The Sacred.”Heaney, Seamus (1939-) “Digging.”Heaney, Seamus (1939-) “Punishment.”Heaney, Seamus (1939-) “Bogland.”Disch, Tom (1940-) “Ballade of the New God.”Mayers, Florence Cassen (1940-) “All-American Sestina.”Rogers, Pattiann (1940-) “Foreplay.”Hass, Robert (1941-) “Picking Blackberries with a Friend Who Has Been Reading Jacques Lacan.”Ortiz, Simon J. (1941-) “The Serenity in Stones.”Ruark, Gibbons (1941-) “Visitor, The.”Cardiff, Gladys (1942-) “Combing.”Martin, Charles (1942-) “E.S.L..”Olds, Sharon (1942-) “One Girl at the Boys Party, The.”Sáenz, Benjamin Alire “To the Desert.”Tate, James (1943-) “Teaching the Ape to Write Poems.”Voight, Ellen Bryant (1943-) “Daughter.”Cope, Wendy (1944) “Rondeau Redoublé.”Morgan, Robert (1944-) “Mountain Bride.”Raine, Craig (1944-) “Martian Sends a Postcard Home, A.”Shomer, Enid (1944-) “Women Bathing at Bergen-Belsen.”Walker, Alice (1944-) “Even As I Hold You.”Stokesbury, Leon (1945-) “Evening's End.”Fairchild, B. H. (1945-) “Body and Soul.”Waniek, Marilyn Nelson (1946-) “Ballad of Aunt Geneva, The.”Ai (1947-) “Child Beater.”Hall, Jim (1947-) “Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too.”Komunyakaa, Yusef (1947-) “Facing It.”Gwynn, R. S. (1948-) “Approaching a Significant Birthday He Peruses The Norton Anthology of Poetry.”Steele, Timothy (1948-) “Sapphics Against Anger.”Bottoms, David (1949-) “Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt.”Fenton, James (1949-) “God, a Poem.”Forché, Carolyn (1950-) “Colonel, The.”Cortez, Sarah (1950-) “Tu Negrito.”Gioia, Dana (1950-) “Planting a Sequoia.”Jones, Rodney (1950-) “Winter Retreat: Homage to Martin Luther King, Jr..”Timothy Murphy (1950-) “The Track of a Storm.”Harjo, Joy (1951-) “Song for the Deer and Myself to Return On.”Hongo, Garrett (1951-) “Crossing Ka'u Desert.”Hudgins, Andrew (1951-) “Air View of an Industrial Scene.”Dove, Rita (1952-) “Adolescence -- III.”Nye, Naomi Shihab (1952-) “Traveling Onion, The.”Ros, Alberto (1952-) “Purpose of Altar Boys, The.”Soto, Gary (1952-) “The Skeptics.”Alvarez, Julia (1953-) “Bilingual Sestina.”Mason, David (1954-) “Song of the Powers.”Salter, Mary Jo (1954-) “Welcome to Hiroshima.”Song, Cathy (1955-) “Stamp Collecting.”Holmes, Janet (1956-) “Cinquains for Rocky.”Tufariello, Catherine (1963-) “Useful Advice.”

Appendix 1: “Poems Grouped by Genre, Technique, or Subject”.


Appendix 2: Traditional Stanza, Fixed and Nonce Forms.


Index of Critical Terms.


Index of Poets, Titles, and First Lines.