Poetry poems

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Elegy with Surrealist Proverbs as Refrain

© Dana Gioia

“Poetry must lead somewhere,” declared Breton.

He carried a rose inside his coat each day

To my Dear Friend Mr. Congreve on his Comedy Call'd the Double Dealer

© John Dryden

Well then; the promis'd hour is come at last;

The present age of wit obscures the past:

The Foggy, Foggy Blue

© Delmore Schwartz

When I was a young man, I loved to write poems

And I called a spade a spade

The Garden Buddha by Peter Pereira: American Life in Poetry #132 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004

Children at play give personalities to lifeless objects, and we don't need to give up that pleasure as we grow older. Poets are good at discerning life within what otherwise might seem lifeless. Here the poet Peter Pereira, a family physician in the Seattle area, contemplates a smiling statue, and in that moment of contemplation the smile is given by the statue to the man.
The Garden Buddha

Gift of a friend, the stone Buddha sits zazen,
prayer beads clutched in his chubby fingers.
Through snow, icy rain, the riot of spring flowers,
he gazes forward to the city in the distanceâalways

The Ghost

© Richard Harris Barham

There stands a City,- neither large nor small,

Its air and situation sweet and pretty;

The Picture

© Madison Julius Cawein

Above her, pearl and rose the heavens lay:
Around her, flowers flattered earth with gold,
Or down the path in insolence held sway-
Like cavaliers who ride the king's highway-
Scarlet and buff, within a garden old.

Essay on Psychiatrists

© Robert Pinsky

It's crazy to think one could describe them—
Calling on reason, fantasy, memory, eyes and ears—
As though they were all alike any more

Incantation

© Czeslaw Milosz

Human reason is beautiful and invincible.

No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books,

Gramarye

© Madison Julius Cawein

There are some things that entertain me more
Than men or books; and to my knowledge seem
A key of Poetry, made of magic lore
Of childhood, opening many a fabled door
Of superstition, mystery, and dream
Enchantment locked of yore.

The Intruder

© Christopher Morley

AS I sat, to sift my dreaming
To the meet and needed word,
Came a merry Interruption
With insistence to be heard.

Yesterdays

© Robert Creeley

Sixty-two, sixty-three, I most remember

As time W. C. Williams dies and we are

The Kingfisher

© Amy Clampitt

In a year the nightingales were said to be so loud
they drowned out slumber, and peafowl strolled screaming
beside the ruined nunnery, through the long evening
of a dazzled pub crawl, the halcyon color, portholed
by those eye-spots’ stunning tapestry, unsettled
the pastoral nightfall with amazements opening.

Three Teenage Girls: 1956 by Steve Orlen: American Life in Poetry #160 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat

© Ted Kooser

I've mentioned how important close observation is in composing a vivid poem. In this scene by Arizona poet, Steve Orlen, the details not only help us to see the girls clearly, but the last detail is loaded with suggestion. The poem closes with the car door shutting, and we readers are shut out of what will happen, though we can guess. Three Teenage Girls: 1956

Three teenage girls in tight red sleeveless blouses and black Capri pants
And colorful headscarves secured in a knot to their chins
Are walking down the hill, chatting, laughing,
Cupping their cigarettes against the light rain,
The closest to the road with her left thumb stuck out
Not looking at the cars going past.

Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

Angels

Elliot Ray Neiderland, home from college

one winter, hauling a load of Herefords

The Yellow Bowl by Rachel Contreni Flynn : American Life in Poetry #266 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurea

© Ted Kooser

The great American poet William Carlos Williams taught us that if a poem can capture a moment in life, and bathe it in the light of the poet’s close attention, and make it feel fresh and new, that’s enough, that’s adequate, that’s good. Here is a poem like that by Rachel Contreni Flynn, who lives in Illinois.