Poetry poems
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From the Plane by Anne Marie Macari : American Life in Poetry #211 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 20
© Ted Kooser
Some of you are so accustomed to flying that you no longer sit by the windows. But I'd guess that at one time you gazed down, after dark, and looked at the lights below you with innocent wonder. This poem by Anne Marie Macari of New Jersey perfectly captures the gauziness of those lights as well as the loneliness that often accompanies travel.
From the Plane
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry: American Life in Poetry #17 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Nearly all of us spend too much of our lives thinking about what has happened, or worrying about what's coming next. Very little can be done about the past and worry is a waste of time. Here the Kentucky poet Wendell Berry gives himself over to nature.
The Peace of Wild Things
Wreaths
© Geoffrey Hill
This poem originally appeared in the May 1957 issue of Poetry. See it in its original context.
To a Young Poet
© Mahmoud Darwish
Don’t believe our outlines, forget them
and begin from your own words.
As if you are the first to write poetry
or the last poet.
On my First Son
© Benjamin Jonson
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
A Vision of a Wrangler, of a University, of Pedantry, and of Philosophy
© James Clerk Maxwell
Deep St. Mary’s bell had sounded,
And the twelve notes gently rounded
The Paleontologist’s Blind Date by Philip Memmer : American Life in Poetry #240 Ted Kooser, U.
© Ted Kooser
We haven’t shown you many poems in which the poet enters another person and speaks through him or her, but it is, of course, an effective and respected way of writing. Here Philip Memmer of Deansboro, N.Y., enters the persona of a young woman having an unpleasant experience with a blind date.
The Paleontologist’s Blind Date
Prayer for the Dead by Stuart Kestenbaum: American Life in Poetry #181 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Stuart Kestenbaum, the author of this week's poem, lost his brother Howard in the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. We thought it appropriate to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001, by sharing this poem. The poet is the director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine.
Prayer for the Dead
Wild Flowers by Matthew Vetter: American Life in Poetry #206 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
Ah, yes, the mid-life crisis. And there's a lot of mid-life in which it can happen. Jerry Lee Lewis sang of it so well in 'He's thirty-nine and holding, holding everything he can.' And here's a fine poem by Matthew Vetter, portraying just such a man.
Wild Flowers
Science And Poetry
© James Russell Lowell
He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wire
Over the land and through the sea-depths still,
Heaven, 1963 by Kim Noriega: American Life in Poetry #120 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
He's standing in our yard on Porter Road
beneath the old chestnut tree.
He's wearing sunglasses,
a light cotton shirt,
and a dreamy expression.
Sonnet XVIII. The Fireside.
© Christopher Pearse Cranch
WITH what a live intelligence the flame
Glows and leaps up in spires of flickering red,
And turns the coal just now so dull and dead
To a companion not like those who came
How Good Fortune Surprises Us by Jackson Wheeler: American Life in Poetry #144 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet
© Ted Kooser
I'd guess you've heard it said that the reason we laugh when somebody slips on a banana peel is that we're happy that it didn't happen to us. That kind of happiness may be shameful, but many of us have known it. In the following poem, the California poet, Jackson Wheeler, tells us of a similar experience.
How Good Fortune Surprises Us
I was hauling freight
out of the Carolinas
up to the Cumberland Plateau
when, in Tennessee, I saw
from the freeway, at 2 am
a house ablaze.
Old Woman in a Housecoat by Georgiana Cohen: American Life in Poetry #14 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laure
© Ted Kooser
Often everyday experiences provide poets with inspiration. Here Georgiana Cohen observes a woman looking out her window and compares the woman to the sunset. The woman's "slumped" chin, the fence that separates them, and the "beached" cars set the poem's tone; this is clearly not a celebration of the neighborhood. Yet by turning to clouds, sky, and breath, Cohen underscores the scene's fragile grace.
Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.
© Jonathan Swift
Dear honest Ned is in the gout,
Lies rack'd with pain, and you without:
How patiently you hear him groan!
How glad the case is not your own!
My Father Teaches Me to Dream by Jan Beatty: American Life in Poetry #72 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laure
© Ted Kooser
Those who survived the Great Depression of the 1930s have a tough, no-nonsense take on what work is. If when I was young I'd told my father I was looking for fulfilling work, he would have looked at me as if I'd just arrived from Mars. Here the Pennsylvania poet, Jan Beatty, takes on the voice of her father to illustrate the thinking of a generation of Americans.
The Introduction
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
Did I, my lines intend for publick view,
How many censures, wou'd their faults persue,
The Progress Of Refinement. Part I.
© Henry James Pye
Rous'd by those honors cull'd by Glory's hand
To dress the Victor on the Olympic sand,
With active toil each ardent stripling tries
To bind his forehead with the immortal prize;
Hence strength and beauty deck the Grecian race,
And manly labor gives them manly grace.
Sir Thomas Lawrence
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
DIVINEST art, the stars above
Were fated on thy birth to shine;
Oh, born of beauty and of love,
What early poetry was thine!
