Poetry poems
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The Zenana
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And fragrant though the flowers are breathing,
From far and near together wreathing,
They are not those she used to wear,
Upon the midnight of her hair.
In the House of the Voice of Maria Callas by Steve Orlen: American Life in Poetry #143 Ted Kooser, U
© Ted Kooser
Here is Arizona poet Steve Orlen's lovely tribute to the great opera singer, Maria Callas. Most of us never saw her perform, or even knew what she looked like, but many of us listened to her on the radio or on our parents' record players, perhaps in a parlor like the one in this poem.
In the House of the Voice of Maria Callas
The Inn of Apollo
© Alfred Noyes
Have you supped at the Inn of Apollo,
While the last light fades from the West?
Has the Lord of the Sun, at the world's end,
Poured you his ripest and best?
O, there's wine in that Inn of Apollo;
Morel Mushrooms by Jane Whitledge: American Life in Poetry #102 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-
© Ted Kooser
Those of us who have hunted morel mushrooms in the early spring have hunted indeed! The morel is among nature's most elusive species. Here Jane Whitledge of Minnesota captures the morel's mysterious ways.
Morel Mushrooms
Softly they come
thumbing up from
firm ground
Aurora Leigh: Book Fifth
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"A flower, a flower," exclaimed
My German student,-his own eyes full-blown
Bent on her. He was twenty, certainly.
Lines Written In A Blank Leaf Of The Prometheus Unbound
© Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Write it in gold - a Spirit of the sun,
An Intellect ablaze with heavenly thoughts,
Apollo And Daphne
© Samuel Boyse
Cease, thou bright God of Poetry and Light,
To urge relentless Daphne's rapid Flight!
Think on th' inconstant Source from whence she came,
Well might she run, whose Parent was a Stream!
The Bethlehem Nursing Home by Rodney Torreson: American Life in Poetry #25 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Lau
© Ted Kooser
Emily Dickinson said that poems come at the truth at a slant. Here a birdbath and some overturned chairs on a nursing home lawn suggest the frailties of old age. Masterful poems choose the very best words and put them in the very best places, and Michigan poet Rodney Torreson has deftly chosen "ministers" for his first verb, an active verb that suggests the good work of the nursing home's chaplain.
Yellowjackets by Yusef Komunyakaa: American Life in Poetry #154 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-
© Ted Kooser
Here, poet Yusef Komunyakaa, who teaches at New York University, shows us a fine portrait of the hard life of a workerâin this case, a horseâand, through metaphor, the terrible, clumsy beauty of his final moments.
Yellowjackets
Peter Bell The Third
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Is it a party in a parlour,
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,
Some sipping punch-some sipping tea;
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent, and all-damned!
Peter Bell, by W. Wordsworth.
Bushwick: Latex Flat by D. Nurkse: American Life in Poetry #179 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-
© Ted Kooser
I've always loved shop talk, with its wonderful language of tools and techniques. This poem by D. Nurkse of Brooklyn, New York, is a perfect example. I especially like the use of the verb, lap, in line seven, because that's exactly the sound a four-inch wall brush makes.
Bushwick: Latex Flat
Griselda: A Society Novel In Verse - Chapter II
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
'Twas thus she comforted her soul. And then,
She had found a friend, a phoenix among men,
Which made it easier to compound with life,
Easier to be a woman and a wife.
Wash Lowry's Reminiscence
© James Whitcomb Riley
And you're the poet of this concern?
I've seed your name in print
Safe by Steven Huff: American Life in Poetry #151 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Thirty, forty years ago, there were lots of hitchhikers, college students, bent old men and old women, and none of them seemed fearful of being out there on the highways at the mercy of strangers. All that's changed, and nobody wants to get in a car with a stranger. Here Steven Huff of New York tells us about a memorable ride.
Safe
The Pleasures of Ordinary Life
© Judith Viorst
I've had my share of necessary losses,
Of dreams I know no longer can come true.
I'm done now with the whys and the becauses.
It's time to make things good, not just make do.
It's time to stop complaining and pursue
The pleasures of an ordinary life.
Recuerdo
© Franklin Pierce Adams
We were very tired, we were very merry-
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable-
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hilltop underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
Rain at the Zoo by Kristen Tracy: American Life in Poetry #177 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
Kristen Tracy is a poet from San Francisco who here captures a moment at a zoo. It's the falling rain, don't you think, that makes the experience of observing the animals seem so perfectly truthful and vivid?
Rain at the Zoo
The Death Of Shelley
© Charles Harpur
Fit winding-sheet for thee
Was the upheaving eternal sea,
Fit dirge the tempests slave-alarming roll
For yokeless as the waves alway
The One I Think of Now by Wesley McNair: American Life in Poetry #100 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
© Ted Kooser
Here the Maine poet, Wesley McNair, offers us a vivid description of a man who has lived beyond himself. I'd guess you won't easily forget this sad old man in his apron with his tray of cheese.
The One I Think of Now
To The Same
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
Töchterchenlein, by whom the least became
The greatest title of dear Daughterhood,
