Poetry poems
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To A Friend Who Had Declared His Intention Of Writing No More Poetry
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dear Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween
That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount
High Castalie: and (sureties of thy faith)
That Pity and Simplicity stood by.
Rain by Peter Everwine : American Life in Poetry #278 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Peter Everwine is a California poet whose work I have admired for almost as long as I have been writing. Here he beautifully captures a quiet moment of reflection.
Rain
Toward evening, as the light failed
Definition of Poetry
© Boris Pasternak
It's a whistle blown ripe in a trice,
It's the cracking of ice in a gale,
It's a night that turns green leaves to ice,
It's a duel of two nightingales.
Like Coins, November by Elizabeth Klise von Zerneck : American Life in Poetry #241 Ted Kooser, U.S.
© Ted Kooser
I love poems in which the central metaphors are fresh and original, and here’s a marvelous, coiny description of autumn by Elizabeth Klise von Zerneck, who lives in Illinois.
Like Coins, November
We drove past late fall fields as flat and cold
Road Report by Kurt Brown: American Life in Poetry #32 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Descriptions of landscape are common in poetry, but in “Road Report” Kurt Brown adds a twist by writing himself into “cowboy country.” He also energizes the poem by using words we associate with the American West: Mustang, cactus, Brahmas. Even his associations—such as comparing the crackling radio to a shattered rib—evoke a sense of place.
Dressing The Doll
© William Brighty Rands
THIS is the way we dress the Doll:
You may make her a shepherdess, the Doll,
If you give her a crook with a pastoral hook,
But this is the way we dress the Doll.
Chorus
My Journey (With English Translation)
© Ali Sardar Jafri
PHIR IK DIN AISAA AAYEGAA
AAnKHOn KE DIYE BUJH JAAYEInGEY
To Saint-Beuve
© Alfred de Musset
Friend, you have spoken well: in us, such as we are,
There frequently exists a certain flower
That blossoms, fades and from the heart its leaves are shed.
"In three quarters of mankind, you must understand,
A poet has died young who is outlived by the man."
Well said, my friend - and a little too well said.
Under Stars by Tess Gallagher: American Life in Poetry #81 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
I have raised the metal flag
so its shadow under the roadlamp
leaves an imprint on the rain-heavy bushes.
Now I will walk back
thinking of the few lights still on
in the town a mile away.
Found Letter by Joshua Weiner: American Life in Poetry #123 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
There is a type of poem, the Found Poem, that records an author's discovery of the beauty that occasionally occurs in the everyday discourse of others. Such a poem might be words scrawled on a wadded scrap of paper, or buried in the classified ads, or on a billboard by the road. The poet makes it his or her poem by holding it up for us to look at. Here the Washington, D.C., poet Joshua Weiner directs us to the poetry in a letter written not by him but to him.
The Ghost - Book III
© Charles Churchill
It was the hour, when housewife Morn
With pearl and linen hangs each thorn;
Chanukah Lights Tonight by Steven Schneider: American Life in Poetry #140 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laur
© Ted Kooser
The candles flicker in the window.
Outside, ponderosa pines are tied in red bows.
If you squint,
the neighbors' Christmas lights
look like the Omaha skyline.
A Dream Of Venice
© Ada Cambridge
Numb, half asleep, and dazed with whirl of wheels,
And gasp of steam, and measured clank of chains,
Old Woman With Protea Flowers, Kahalui Airport by Kathleen Flenniken: American Life in Poetry #134 T
© Ted Kooser
When ancient people gathered around the fire at nightfall, I like to think that they told stories, about where each of them had been that day, and what that person had seen in the forest. Those were among our first stories, and we still venture into the world and return to tell others what happened. It's part of community. Here Kathleen Flenniken of Washington tells us about a woman she saw at an airport.
Old Woman With Protea Flowers, Kahalui Airport
In My Mother's House by Gloria g. Murray: American Life in Poetry #31 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
© Ted Kooser
All of us have known tyrants, perhaps at the office, on the playground or, as in this poem, within a family. Here Long Island poet Gloria g. Murray portrays an authoritarian mother and her domain. Perhaps you've felt the tension in a scene like this.
Gloves by Jose Angel Araguz: American Life in Poetry #196 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
One of the most effective means for conveying strong emotion is to invest some real object with one's feelings, and then to let the object carry those feelings to the reader. Notice how the gloves in this short poem by Jose´ Angel Araguz of Oregon carry the heavy weight of the speaker's loss.
Gloves
I made up a story for myself once,
That each glove I lost
Was sent to my father in prison
Early in the Morning by Li-Young Lee: American Life in Poetry #77 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 200
© Ted Kooser
She sits at the foot of the bed.
My father watches, listens for
the music of comb
against hair.
Annus Memorabilis : Written in Commemoration of His Majesty's Happy Recovery
© William Cowper
I ransack'd for a theme of song,
Much ancient chronicle, and long;
Driving to Camp Lend-A-Hand by Berwyn Moore: American Life in Poetry #175 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laur
© Ted Kooser
A part of being a parent, it seems, is spending too much time fearing the worst. Here Berwyn Moore, a Pennsylvania poet, expresses that fearâirrational, but exquisitely painful all the same.
Driving to Camp Lend-A-Hand
