Poetry poems
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Kissing a Horse by Robert Wrigley: American Life in Poetry #98 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems, published in 2006 by Penguin. Copyright © Robert Wrigley, 2006, and reprinted by permission of the author. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
On The Death Of Mr. Viner
© Thomas Parnell
The liquid Harmony, a tuneful Tide,
Now seem'd to rage, anon wou'd gently glide;
By Turns would ebb and flow, would rise and fall,
Be loudly daring, or be softly small:
While all was blended in one common Name,
Wave push'd on Wave, and all compos'd a Stream.
The Ring And The Book - Chapter I - The Ring And The Book
© Robert Browning
DO you see this Ring?
Tis Rome-work, made to match
A Treatise On Poetry: IV Natura
© Czeslaw Milosz
The garden of Nature opens.
The grass at the threshold is green.
And an almond tree begins to bloom.
Boy and Egg by Naomi Shihab Nye: American Life in Poetry #30 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
Naomi Shihab Nye lives in San Antonio, Texas. Here she perfectly captures a moment in childhood that nearly all of us may remember: being too small for the games the big kids were playing, and fastening tightly upon some little thing of our own.
A Pot of Red Lentils by Peter Pereira: American Life in Poetry #53 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 20
© Ted Kooser
In the yard we plant
rhubarb, cauliflower, and artichokes,
cupping wet earth over tubers,
our labor the germ
of later sustenance and renewal.
Poetry
© Madison Julius Cawein
Who hath beheld the goddess face to face,
Blind with her beauty, all his days shall go
Climbing lone mountains towards her temple's place,
Weighed with song's sweet, inexorable woe.
Satyr I. A Letter To A Friend. On Poets.
© Thomas Parnell
Poets are bound by ye severest rules,
the great ones must be mad, ye little all are fools,
The Poetry Of Shelley
© George Meredith
See'st thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets ascending
Quiver like pulses beneath the melodious dawn?
Deep in the heart-yearning distance of heaven it flutters -
Wisdom and beauty and love are the treasures it brings down at eve.
To ---, Written At Venice
© Richard Monckton Milnes
Not only through the golden haze
Of indistinct surprise,
With which the Ocean--bride displays
Her pomp to stranger eyes;--
Christmas Night by Conrad Hilberry: American Life in Poetry #195 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004
© Ted Kooser
Here is a poem, much like a prayer, in which the Michigan poet Conrad Hilberry asks for no more than a little flare of light, an affirmation, at the end of a long, cold Christmas day.
Christmas Night
Let midnight gather up the wind
and the cry of tires on bitter snow.
Let midnight call the cold dogs home,
sleet in their furâlast one can blow
Alberto by Warren Woessner: American Life in Poetry #118 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Our species has developed monstrous weapons that can kill not only all of us but everything else on the planet, yet when the wind rises we run for cover, as we have done for as long as we've been on this earth. Here's hoping we never have the skill or arrogance to conquer the weather. And weather stories? We tell them in the same way our ancestors related encounters with fearsome dragons. This poem by Minnesota poet Warren Woessner honors the tradition by sharing an experience with a hurricane.
The Gift Of Poetry
© Thomas Parnell
It comes it comes with unaccustomd light,
The tracts of airy Thought grow wondrous bright,
Its notions ancient Memory reviews,
& Young Invention new design pursues,
To some attempt my will & wishes press,
& pleasure raisd in hope forebodes success.
The Weakling
© Arthur Henry Adams
I AM a weakling. God, who made
The still, strong man, made also me.
In The Black Rock Tavern by Judith Slater: American Life in Poetry #36 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
running a crane on an overhead track in the mill.
Eight hours a day moving ingots into rollers.
Sometimes without a break
because of the bother of getting down.
Never had an accident.
Never hurt anyone. He had that much control.
The Education of a Poet by Leslie Monsour: American Life in Poetry #61 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Everywhere I travel I meet people who want to write poetry but worry that what they write won't be "any good." No one can judge the worth of a poem before it's been written, and setting high standards for yourself can keep you from writing. And if you don't write you'll miss out on the pleasure of making something from words, of seeing your thoughts on a page. Here Leslie Monsour offers a concise snapshot of a self-censoring poet.
Summer Downpour on Campus by Juliana Gray: American Life in Poetry #110 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurea
© Ted Kooser
I've talked a lot in this column about poetry as celebration, about the way in which a poem can make an ordinary experience seem quite special. Here's the celebration of a moment on a campus somewhere, anywhere. The poet is Juliana Gray, who lives in New York. I especially like the little comic surprise with which it closes.
Summer Downpour on Campus
When clouds turn heavy, rich
and mottled as an oyster bed,
