Poetry poems

/ page 28 of 55 /

Order by :

1
. . .
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
. . .
55

To My Old Oak Table

© Robert Bloomfield

Friend of my peaceful days! substantial friend,

Whom wealth can never change, nor int'rest bend,

Marry Me by Veronica Patterson: American Life in Poetry #172 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200

I don't often talk about poetic forms in this column, thinking that most of my readers aren't interested in how the clock works and would rather be given the time. But the following poem by Veronica Patterson of Colorado has a subtitle referring to a form, the senryu, and I thought it might be helpful to mention that the senryu is a Japanese form similar to haiku but dealing with people rather than nature. There; enough said. Now you can forget the form and enjoy the poem, which is a beautiful sketch of a marriage. Marry Me

when I come late to bed
I move your leg flung over my sideâ
that warm gate

The Hill

© Nissim Ezekiel

Do not muse on it
from a distance:
it's not remote
for the view only,
it's for the sport
of climbing.

Against the Dispraisers of Poetry

© Richard Barnfield

Chaucer is dead; and Gower lies in grave;

The Earl of Surrey long ago is gone;

How Is It That the Snow by Robert Haight: American Life in Poetry #193 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurea

© Ted Kooser

The first two lines of this poem pose a question many of us may have thought about: how does snow make silence even more silent? And notice Robert Haight's deft use of color, only those few flecks of red, and the rest of the poem pure white. And silent, so silent. Haight lives in Michigan, where people know about snow. How Is It That the Snow

How is it that the snow
amplifies the silence,
slathers the black bark on limbs,
heaps along the brush rows?

The God Called Poetry

© Robert Graves

Now I begin to know at last,

These nights when I sit down to rhyme,

New Stanzas for Amazing Grace

© Allen Ginsberg

I dreamed I dwelled in a homeless place
Where I was lost alone
Folk looked right through me into space
And passed with eyes of stone

Farewell to Poetry

© Théophile Gautier

Come, fallen angel, and your pink wings close;

Doff your white robe, your rays that gild the skies;

Peacock Display by David Wagoner: American Life in Poetry #11 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20

© Ted Kooser

Here David Wagoner, a distinguished poet living in Washington state, vividly describes a peacock courtship, and though it's a poem about birds, haven't you seen the males of other species, including ours, look every bit as puffed up, and observed the females' hilarious indifference? Peacock Display

He approaches her, trailing his whole fortune,
Perfectly cocksure, and suddenly spreads
The huge fan of his tail for her amazement.

Banana Trees by Joseph Stanton: American Life in Poetry #119 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200

© Ted Kooser

I'm especially attracted to poems that describe places I might not otherwise visit, in the manner of good travel writing. I'm a dedicated stay-at-home and much prefer to read something fascinating about a place than visit it myself. Here the Hawaii poet, Joseph Stanton, describes a tree that few of us have seen but all of us have eaten from.
Banana Trees

They are tall herbs, really, not trees,
though they can shoot up thirty feet
if all goes well for them. Cut in cross

An Offering for Patricia

© Anthony Evan Hecht

The work has been going forward with the greatest difficulty, chiefly because I cannot concentrate. I have no feeling about whether what I am writing is good or bad, and the whole business is totally without excitement and pleasure for me. And I am sure I know the reason. It’s that I can’t stand leaving unresolved my situation with Pat. I hear from her fairly frequently, asking when I plan to come back, and she knows that I am supposed to appear at the poetry reading in the middle of January. It is not mainly loneliness I feel, though I feel it; but I have been lonely before. It is quite frankly the feeling that nothing is really settled between us, and that in the mean time I worry about how things are going to work out. This has made my work more difficult than it has ever been before.

Obituary

© Louis MacNeice

This poem originally appeared in the May 1940 issue of Poetry. See it in its original context.

Denial by Patricia Frolander : American Life in Poetry #275 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006

© Ted Kooser

I recognize the couple who are introduced in this poem by Patricia Frolander, of Sundance, Wyoming, and perhaps you’ll recognize them, too.

Denial

A Renascence

© Robert Graves

White flabbiness goes brown and lean,

Dumpling arms are now brass bars,

Rubber-Stamp Humour

If couples mated but for love;

If women all were perfect cooks;

A Madona Poesia (To My Lady of Poetry)

AQUI a tus pies lanzada, pecadora,
contra tu tierra azul, mi cara oscura,
tú, virgen entre ejércitos de palmas
que no encanecen como los humanos.

Irish Poetry

That morning under a pale hood of sky
I heard the unambiguous scrape of spackling
against the side of our wickered, penitential house.

The Bounty

Between the vision of the Tourist Board and the true
Paradise lies the desert where Isaiah’s elations
force a rose from the sand. The thirty-third canto