Poetry poems
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Grandmother Speaks of the Old Country by Lola Haskins: American Life in Poetry #64 Ted Kooser, U.S.
© Ted Kooser
Storytelling binds the past and present together, and is as essential to community life as are food and shelter. Many of our poets are masters at reshaping family stories as poetry. Here Lola Haskins retells a haunting tale, cast in the voice of an elder. Like the best stories, there are no inessential details. Every word counts toward the effect.
Grandmother Speaks of the Old Country
The Passionate Pilgrim
© William Shakespeare
Her lips to mine how often hath she joined,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me bath she coined,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.
Echo by Robert West: American Life in Poetry #114 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Poetry can be thought of as an act of persuasion: a poem attempts to bring about some kind of change in its reader, perhaps no more than a moment of clarity amidst the disorder of everyday life. And successful poems not only make use of the meanings and sounds of words, as well as the images those words conjure up, but may also take advantage of the arrangement of type on a page. Notice how this little poem by Mississippi poet Robert West makes the very best use of the empty space around it to help convey the nature of its subject.
Echo
The Raspberry Room by Karin Gottshall: American Life in Poetry #126 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
© Ted Kooser
The British writer Virginia Woolf wrote about the pleasures of having a room of one's own. Here the Vermont poet Karin Gottshall shows us her own sort of private place.
Elegy VIII. He Describes His Early Love of Poetry, and Its Consequences
© William Shenstone
Ah me! what envious magic thins my fold?
What mutter'd spell retards their late increase?
Such lessening fleeces must the swain behold,
That e'er with Doric pipe essays to please.
Reason says love says
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Reason says, I will beguile him with the tongue.; Love says,
Be silent. I will beguile him with the soul.
The soul says to the heart, Go, do not laugh at me and yourself.
What is there that is not his, that I may beguile him
Speckled Trout by Ron Rash: American Life in Poetry #28 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Although this poem by North Carolina native Ron Rash may seem to be just about trout fishing, it is the first of several poems Rash has written about his cousin who died years ago. Indirectly, the poet gives us clues about this loss. By the end, we see that in passing from life to death, the fish's colors dull; so, too, may fade the memories of a cherished life long lost.
For My Wife by Wesley McNair : American Life in Poetry #255 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
A honeymoon. How often does one happen according to the dreams that preceded it? In this poem, Wesley McNair, a poet from Maine, describes a first night of marriage in a tawdry place. But all’s well that ends well.
Insomnia by Rynn Williams: American Life in Poetry #145 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
I try floating out along the long O of lone,
to where it flattens to loss, and just stay there
disconnecting the dots of my night sky
as one would take apart a house made of sticks,
carefully, last addition to first,
like sheep leaping backward into their pens.
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. Poem copyright © 2007 by Rynn Williams, whose most recent book of poetry is âAdonis Garage,â? University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Poem reprinted from âColumbia Poetry Review,â? no. 20, Spring 2007, by permission of Rynn Williams. 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.
A Poor Excuse, But Our Own
© Franklin Pierce Adams
My right-hand neighbour hath a child,
A pretty child of five or six,
Not more than other children wild,
Nor fuller than the rest of tricks--
At five he rises, shine or rain,
And noisily plays "fire" or "train."
More Than Enough by Marge Piercy: American Life in Poetry #10 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20
© Ted Kooser
The poet and novelist Marge Piercy has a gift for writing about nature. In this poem, springtime has a nearly overwhelming and contagious energy, capturing the action-filled drama of spring.
More Than Enough
The first lily of June opens its red mouth.
All over the sand road where we walk
multiflora rose climbs trees cascading
white or pink blossoms, simple, intense
the scene drifting like colored mist.
Wax Lips by Cynthia Rylant: American Life in Poetry #101 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Those big cherry flavored wax lips that my friends and I used to buy when I was a boy, well, how could I resist this poem by Cynthia Rylant of Oregon?
Louisiana Line by Betty Adcock: American Life in Poetry #129 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
North Carolina poet, Betty Adcock, has written scores of beautiful poems, almost all of them too long for this space. Here is an example of her shorter work, the telling description of a run-down border town.
Louisiana Line
The wooden scent of wagons,
the sweat of animalsâthese places
keep everythingâbreath of the cotton gin,
black damp floors of the icehouse.
Arise, O Gardener
© Ghulam Ahmad Mahjoor
Arise, O Gardener! And usher in the glory of a new spring.
Create conditions for 'bulbuls' (a type of bird) to
Hover over full-blown roses.
Back Then by Trish Carpo : American Life in Poetry #246 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Childhood is too precious a part of life to lose before we have to, but our popular culture all too often yanks our little people out of their innocence. Here is a poem by Trish Crapo, of Leyden, Massachusetts, that captures a moment of that innocence.
Back Then
Helping My Daughter Move into Her First Apartment by Sue Ellen Thompson : American Life in Poetry #2
© Ted Kooser
This column originates on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and at the beginning of each semester, we see parents helping their children move into their dorm rooms and apartments and looking a little shaken by the process. This wonderful poem by Sue Ellen Thompson of Maryland captures not only a moment like that, but a mother’s feelings as well.
Helping My Daughter Move into Her First Apartment
Common Janthina by Tatiana Ziglar: American Life in Poetry #93 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
Newborns begin life as natural poets, loving the sound of their own gurgles and coos. And, with the encouragement of parents and teachers, children can continue to write and enjoy poetry into their high school years and beyond. A group of elementary students in Detroit, Michigan, wrote poetry on the subject of what seashells might say if they could speak to us. I was especially charmed by Tatiana Ziglar's short poem, which alludes to the way in which poets learn to be attentive to the world. The inhabitants of the Poetry Palace pay attention, and by that earn the stories they receive.
Common Janthina
My shell said she likes the king and queen
of the Poetry Palace because they listen to her.
She tells them all the secrets of the ocean.
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 by permission from âShimmering Stars,â? Vol. IV, Spring, 2006, published by the InsideOut Literary Arts Project. Copyright © 2006 by the InsideOut Literary Arts Project. 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.
The Woodpecker Keeps Returning by Jane Hirshfield: American Life in Poetry #20 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet
© Ted Kooser
In this fascinating poem by the California poet, Jane Hirshfield, the speaker discovers that through paying attention to an event she has become part of it, has indeed become inseparable from the event and its implications. This is more than an act of empathy. It speaks, in my reading of it, to the perception of an order into which all creatures and events are fitted, and are essential.
The Woodpecker Keeps Returning
The woodpecker keeps returning
to drill the house wall.
Put a pie plate over one place, he chooses another.
The Vote of Thanks Debate
© Henry Lawson
THE OTHER NIGHT I got the blues and tried to smile in vain.
I couldnt chuck a chuckle at the foolery of Twain;
