Good poems
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Elspeth's Ballad
© Sir Walter Scott
The herring loves the merry moon-light,
The mackerel loves the wind,
But the oyster loves the dredging sang,
For they come of a gentle kind.
The New Chinese Fiction
© James Tate
Although the depiction of living forms
was not explicitly forbidden, the only good news
The Author
© Charles Churchill
Accursed the man, whom Fate ordains, in spite,
And cruel parents teach, to read and write!
On Pedigree. From Epicharmus
© William Cowper
My mother! if thou love me, name no more
My noble birth! Sounding at every breath
A Map to the Next World
© Joy Harjo
for Desiray Kierra Chee
In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for
those who would climb through the hole in the sky.
Last Post
© William Ernest Henley
THE day's high work is over and done,
And these no more will need the sun:
To a Wren on Calvary
© Larry Levis
And all later luxuries—the half-dressed neighbor couple
Shouting insults at each other just beyond
Her bra on a cluttered windowsill, then ceasing it when
A door was slammed to emphasize, like trouble,
To a Deaf and Dumb Little Girl
© Victor Segalen
Like a loose island on the wide expanse,
Unconscious floating on the fickle sea,
Turning Forty
© Jonathan Galassi
The barroom mirror lit up with our wives
has faded to a loaded-to-the-gills
Japanese subcompact, little lives
asleep behind us, heading for the hills
Venus Verticordia (For a Picture)
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
SHE hath the apple in her hand for thee,
Yet almost in her heart would hold it back;
The Empty Glass
© Louise Gluck
I asked for much; I received much.
I asked for much; I received little, I received
next to nothing.
Under A Tree
© Edgar Albert Guest
UNDER a tree where the breezes blow,
There is the spot that it's good to go
With the children bronzed by the Summer sun,
Bubbling with laughter and wholesome fun;
And I gather them round all the happy clan,
And forget for a while I'm a grizzled old man.
Abandoned Farmhouse
© Ted Kooser
He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
Here And There: Or This World And The Next: Being Suitable Thoughts For A New Year
© Hannah More
Here bliss is short, imperfect, insincere,
But total, absolute, and perfect there.
Christabel
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak
But moss and rarest misletoe:
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.
Against Lawn by Grace Bauer: American Life in Poetry #50 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
a reminder to avoid too much taming
of what, even here, wants to be wild.
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 the literary journal, Lake Effect, Volume 8, Spring 2004 by permission of the author. Copyright © 2004 by Grace Bauer, whose new book, Beholding Eye, is forthcoming from Wordtech Communications in 2006. 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.
