Poetry poems
/ page 12 of 55 /
In the Mushroom Summer by David Mason: American Life in Poetry #74 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 20
© Ted Kooser
Of taking long walks it has been said that a person can walk off anything. Here David Mason hikes a mountain in his home state, Colorado, and steps away from an undisclosed personal loss into another state, one of healing.
In the Mushroom Summer
There Is Another Way by Pat Schneider: American Life in Poetry #58 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 20
© Ted Kooser
In the sweet marrow of a bone,
the maggot does not remember
the wingspread
of the mother, the green
shine of her body, nor even
the last breath of the dying deer.
The Ring And The Book - Chapter V - Count Guido Franceschini
© Robert Browning
That is a way, thou whisperest in my ear!
I doubt, I will decide, then act, said I
Then beckoned my companions: Time is come!
Coming Home
© Augusta Davies Webster
Anyhow
I've poetry and music too to-day
in the very clatter: it goes "Home, home, home."
The Chapel Royal St. Jamess, On The 10th February, 1840
© Caroline Norton
But brightly to the last,
Fair Fortune shine, with calm and steady ray,
Upon the tenor of thy happy way;
A future like the past:
And every prayer by loyal subjects said,
Bring down a separate blessing on thy head!
My Father’s Left Hand by David Bottoms : American Life in Poetry #235 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet La
© Ted Kooser
I tell my writing students that their most important task is to pay attention to what’s going on around them. God is in the details, as we say. Here David Bottoms, the Poet Laureate of Georgia, tells us a great deal about his father by showing us just one of his hands.
My Father’s Left Hand
Sometimes my old man’s hand flutters over his knee, flaps
Hospital by Marianne Boruch: American Life in Poetry #155 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
The American poet Elizabeth Bishop often wrote of how placesâboth familiar and foreignâlooked, how they seemed. Here Marianne Boruch of Indiana begins her poem in this way, too, in a space familiar to us all but made newâmade strangeâby close observation.
Hospital
On Swearing by Gary Dop: American Life in Poetry #189 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
In celebration of Veteran's Day, here is a telling poem by Gary Dop, a Minnesota poet. The veterans of World War II, now old, are dying by the thousands. Here's one still with us, standing at Normandy, remembering.
On Swearing
Enquiry After Peace
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
PEACE! where art thou to be found?
Where, in all the spacious Round,
Discovered by Shirley Buettner: American Life in Poetry #19 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
At the beginning of the famous novel, "Remembrance of Things Past," the mere taste of a biscuit started Marcel Proust on a seven-volume remembrance. Here a bulldozer turns up an old doorknob, and look what happens in Shirley Buettner's imagination.
Discovered
While clearing the west
quarter for more cropland,
the Cat quarried
a porcelain doorknob
Holy Cussing by Robert Morgan: American Life in Poetry #47 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
The poet, novelist and biographer, Robert Morgan, who was raised in North Carolina, has written many intriguing poems that teach his readers about southern folklore. Here's just one example.
Holy Cussing
Peruvian Tales: Aciloe, Tale V
© Helen Maria Williams
Character of ZAMOR , a bard-His passion for ACILOE , daughter of the Cazique who rules the valley-The Peruvian tribe prepare to defend themselves-A battle-The PERUVIANS are vanquished-ACILOE'S father is made a prisoner, and ZAMOR is supposed to have fallen in the engagement-ALPHONSO becomes enamoured of ACILOE -Offers to marry her-She rejects him-In revenge he puts her father to the torture-She appears to consent, in order to save him-Meets ZAMOR in a wood-LAS CASAS joins them-Leads the two lovers to ALPHONSO , and obtains their freedom-ZAMOR conducts ACILOE and her father to Chili-A reflection on the influence of Poetry over the human mind.
Sleep And Poetry
© John Keats
As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete
Was unto me, but why that I ne might
Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight
[As I suppose] had more of hertis ese
Than I, for I n'ad sicknesse nor disese. ~ Chaucer
Applied Geometry by Russell Libby: American Life in Poetry #194 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-
© Ted Kooser
Father and child doing a little math homework together; it's an everyday occurrence, but here, Russell Libby, a poet who writes from Three Sisters Farm in central Maine, presents it in a way that makes it feel deep and magical.
Applied Geometry
Private Property
© Aldous Huxley
Like fauns embossed in our domain,
We look abroad, and our calm eyes
Mark how the goatish gods of pain
Revel; and if by grim surprise
They break into our paradise,
Patient we build its beauty up again.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto III.
© George Gordon Byron
I.
Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
We Are Accused Of Terrorism
© Nizar Qabbani
We are accused of terrorism
If we dare to write about the remains of a homeland
That is scattered in pieces and in decay
In decadence and disarray
About a homeland that is searching for a place
And about a nation that no longer has a face
The Bridal of Pennacook
© John Greenleaf Whittier
No bridge arched thy waters save that where the trees
Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in the breeze:
No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy shores,
The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars.
Empty
© Ada Cambridge
Can this be my poem?-this poor fragment
Of bald thought in meanest language dressed!
Can this string of rhymes be my sweep poem?
All its poetry wholly unexpressed!
