Teacher poems
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Learning Geography
© Lesbia Harford
They have a few little hours
To study the world
Its lovely absence of clouds,
Or the thunderbolts hurled
Convict Once - Part First.
© James Brunton Stephens
I.
FREE again! Free again! eastward and westward, before me, behind me,
Wide lies Australia! and free are my feet, as my soul is, to roam!
Oh joy unwonted of space undetermined! No limit assigned me!
Freedom conditioned by nought save the need and desire of a home!
Song of Myself
© Walt Whitman
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle upon the Restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd, to the Estates and Honours of his Ancestors
© André Breton
High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate,
And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song.—
The words of ancient time I thus translate,
A festal strain that hath been silent long:—
The Tables Turned
© André Breton
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The Life of Lincoln West
© Gwendolyn Brooks
Ugliest little boy
that everyone ever saw.
That is what everyone said.
Paradise Lost: Book XII (1674)
© Patrick Kavanagh
AS one who in his journey bates at Noone,
Though bent on speed, so heer the Archangel paus'd
Betwixt the world destroy'd and world restor'd,
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose;
Then with transition sweet new Speech resumes.
Paradise Lost: Book XI (1674)
© Patrick Kavanagh
He added not, for Adam at the newes
Heart-strook with chilling gripe of sorrow stood,
That all his senses bound; Eve, who unseen
Yet all had heard, with audible lament
Discover'd soon the place of her retire.
The Parrot
© William Cowper
In painted plumes superbly dress'd,
A native of the gorgeous east,
By many a billow toss'd;
Poll gains at length the British shore,
Part of the captain's precious store,
A present to his toast.
The Animals are Leaving
© Nick Carbo
One by one, like guests at a late party
They shake our hands and step into the dark:
Arabian ostrich; Long-eared kit fox; Mysterious starling.
Learning to Read
© Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Very soon the Yankee teachers
Came down and set up school;
But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,—
It was agin’ their rule.
Green Tea by Dale Ritterbusch: American Life in Poetry #83 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Poems of simple pleasure, poems of quiet celebration, well, they aren't anything like those poems we were asked to wrestle with in high school, our teachers insisting that we get a headlock on THE MEANING. This one by Dale Ritterbusch of Wisconsin is more my cup of tea.
Well, You Needn’t
© William Matthews
Rather than hold his hands properly
arched off the keys, like cats
with their backs up,
Monk, playing block chords,
hit the keys with his fingertips well
above his wrists,
The Bridal of the Year
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Yes! the Summer is returning,
Warmer, brighter beams are burning
Torment
© Daisy Fried
“I fucked up bad”: Justin cracks his neck,
talking to nobody. Fifteen responsible children,
Ego
© Denise Duhamel
I just didn’t get it—
even with the teacher holding an orange (the earth) in one hand
Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.
Ovid, Fastorum, Lib. vi.
"O Cæsar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.
Ode VII: To The Right Reverend Benjamin Lord Bishop Of Winchester
© Mark Akenside
I. 1.
For toils which patriots have endur'd,
Effort
© Edgar Albert Guest
He brought me his report card from the teacher and he said
He wasn't very proud of it and sadly bowed his head.
