Poetry poems
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To Arthur Upson
© William Stanley Braithwaite
How placidly this silent river rolls
Under the midnight stars before our feet,
About Tu Fu
© Li Po
I met Tu Fu on a mountaintop
in August when the sun was hot.Under the shade of his big straw hat
his face was sad--in the years since we last parted,
he'd grown wan, exhausted.Poor old Tu Fu, I thought then,
On the Death of Mr. William Hervey
© Abraham Cowley
IT was a dismal and a fearful night:
Scarce could the Morn drive on th' unwilling Light,
Mingus At The Showplace
© William Matthews
I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen
and so I swung into action and wrote a poemand it was miserable, for that was how I thought
poetry worked: you digested experience shatliterature. It was 1960 at The Showplace, long since
defunct, on West 4th st., and I sat at the bar,casting beer money from a reel of ones,
A Poetry Reading At West Point
© William Matthews
I read to the entire plebe class,
in two batches. Twice the hall filled
with bodies dressed alike, each toting
a copy of my book. What would my
shrink say, if I had one, about
such a dream, if it were a dream?
In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen ELIZABETH
© Anne Bradstreet
3.1 Here sleeps T H E Queen, this is the royal bed
3.2 O' th' Damask Rose, sprung from the white and red,
3.3 Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air,
3.4 This Rose is withered, once so lovely fair:
3.5 On neither tree did grow such Rose before,
3.6 The greater was our gain, our loss the more.
Tangerine by Ruth L. Schwartz: American Life in Poetry #54 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Poet Ruth L. Schwartz writes of the glimpse of possibility, of something sweeter than we already have that comes to us, grows in us. The unrealizable part of it causes bitterness; the other opens outward, the cycle complete. This is both a poem about a tangerine and about more than that.
Tangerine
Superhero Pregnant Woman by Jessy Randall: American Life in Poetry #137 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurea
© Ted Kooser
Dill pickles with strawberry jam? Pregnant women are known to go for late night meals like that. And the senses can go haywire. Here Jessy Randall, of Colorado Springs, gives us a look at one such woman.
Superhero Pregnant Woman
Her sense of smell is ten times stronger.
And so her husband smells funny;
she rolls away from him in the bed.
She even smells funny to herself,
but cannot roll away from that.
Long Marriage by Gerald Fleming: American Life in Poetry #208 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20
© Ted Kooser
To have a helpful companion as you travel through life is a marvelous gift. This poem by Gerald Fleming, a long-time teacher in the San Francisco public schools, celebrates just such a relationship.
Long Marriage
I Am a Victim of Telephone
© Allen Ginsberg
When I lie down to sleep dream the Wishing Well it rings
"Have you a new play for the broken down theater?"
Original Preface.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In addition to those portions of Goethe's poetical works which
are given in this complete form, specimens of the different other
classes of them, such as the Epigrams, Elegies, &c., are added,
as well as a collection of the various Songs found in his Plays,
making a total number of about 400 Poems, embraced in the present
volume.
Ode to Marbles by Max Mendelsohn: American Life in Poetry #163 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
I have always enjoyed poems that celebrate the small pleasures of life. Here Max Mendelsohn, age 12, of Weston, Massachusetts, tells us of the joy he finds in playing with marbles.
Ode to Marbles
The Stone
© Peter McArthur
And yesterday the man passed among us unnoted!
Did his deed and went his way without boasting,
Leaving his act to steak, himself silent!
Part of a Legacy by Frank Steele: American Life in Poetry #158 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
Putting bed pillows onto the grass to freshen, it's a pretty humble subject for a poem, but look how Kentucky poet, Frank Steele, deftly uses a sun-warmed pillow to bring back the comfort and security of childhood.
Part of a Legacy
Poetry.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
GOD to his untaught children sentLaw, order, knowledge, art, from high,
And ev'ry heav'nly favour lent,The world's hard lot to qualify.
They knew not how they should behave,For all from Heav'n stark-naked came;
But Poetry their garments gave,And then not one had cause for shame. 1816.
Of Modern Poetry
© Wallace Stevens
The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.
Marginal Note
© James Phillip McAuley
A ray of light, to an oblique observer,
Remains invisible in pure dry air;
But shone into a turbid element
It throws distracting side-gleams everywhere
Yam by Bruce Guernsey : American Life in Poetry #238 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Though some teacher may have made you think that all poetry is deadly serious, chock full of coded meanings and obscure symbols, poems, like other works of art, can be delightfully playful. Here Bruce Guernsey, who divides his time between Illinois and Maine, plays with a common yam.
Yam
