Preface: About This Book
Brief Contents
Contents
Chronological Contents
About Poets and Poetry
PART I. AN INTRODUCTION TO POETRY
1. The Poem as Life
The Private Life
William Blake, Infant Sorrow
Louise Glück, The School Children
E. E. Cummings, in Just-
NEW Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
Walt Whitman, Hours Continuing Long
Wallace Stevens, The Plain Sense of Things
The Public Life
Michael Harper, American History
Charles Simic, Old Couple
Robert Lowell, Skunk Hour
Nature and Time
Anonymous, The Cuckoo Song
Dave Smith, The Spring Poem
John Keats, The Human Seasons
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 60 (Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore)
In Brief: The Poem as Life
Reading Other Poems
Sir Thomas Wyatt, They Flee from Me
Ben Jonson, On My First Son
John Milton, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
John Keats, When I Have Fears
Emily Dickinson, A narrow Fellow in the grass
Langston Hughes, Theme for English B
Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Sylvia Plath, Daddy
Rita Dove, Flash Cards
Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It
Julia Alvarez, Homecoming
2. The Poem as Arranged Life
The Private Life
William Blake, Infant Joy
William Blake, Infant Sorrow
Louise Glück, The School Children
E. E. Cummings, in Just-
Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
Walt Whitman, Hours Continuing Long
Wallace Stevens, The Plain Sense of Things
The Public Life
Michael S. Harper, American History
Charles Simic, Old Couple
Robert Lowell, Skunk Hour
Nature and Time
Anonymous, The Cuckoo Song
Dave Smith, The Spring Poem
John Keats, The Human Seasons
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 60 (Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore)
In Brief: The Poem as Arranged Life
Reading Other Poems
Anonymous, Lord Randal
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29 (When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes)
Chidiock Tichborne, Tichborne's Elegy
John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Robert Herrick, Upon Julia's Clothes
George Herbert, Love (III)
Walt Whitman, A Noiseless Patient Spider
Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Margaret Atwood, Footnote to the Amnesty Report on Torture
Marilyn Nelson, Live Jazz, Franklin Park Zoo
3. Poems as Pleasure
Rhythm
Rhyme
Ben Jonson, On Gut
Structure
William Carlos Williams, Poem
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool
Images
William Blake, London
Argument
Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Walter Ralegh, The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd
Poignancy
William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
Wisdom
A New Language
Finding Yourself
In Brief: Poems as Pleasure
Reading Other Poems
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130 (My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun)
Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
William Blake, The Sick Rose
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty
Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush
Robert Frost, After Apple-Picking
Robert Frost, Unharvested
D.H. Lawrence, Snake
William Carlos Williams, The Dance
Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz
Derek Walcott, The Season of Phantasmal Peace
Elizabeth Alexander, Nineteen
4. Describing Poems
Poetic Kinds
Narrative versus Lyric; Narrative as Lyric
Adrienne Rich, Necessities of Life
Philip Larkin, Talking in Bed
Classifying Lyric Poems
Content genres
Emily Dickinson, The Heart asks Pleasure--first--
Speech Acts
Carl Sandburg, Grass
Outer Form
Line Width
Rhythm
Poem Length
Combinatorial Form Names
Inner Structural Form
Sentences
Robert Herrick, The Argument of His Book
Person
Agency
Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
Tenses
William Wordsworth, A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
Images, or Sensuous Words
Sylvia Plath, Metaphors
Exploring a Poem
John Keats, Upon First Looking into Chapman's Homer
In Brief: Describing Poems
Reading Other Poems
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 129 (Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame)
George Herbert, Easter Wings
Andrew Marvell, The Garden
John Milton, When I Consider How My Light is Spent
Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband
John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
Robert Frost, Mending Wall
Ezra Pound, The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter
Mark Strand, Courtship
Seamus Heaney, From the Frontier of Writing
Jorie Graham, San Sepolcro
Sherman Alexie, Evolution
5. The Play of Language
Sound Units
Word Roots
Words
Sentences
Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Emily Dickinson, The Heart asks Pleasure--first--
Implication
The Ordering of Language
George Herbert, Prayer (I)
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 66 (Tired with all these, for restful death I cry)
Michael Drayton, Since there's no help
In Brief: The Play of Language
Reading Other Poems
John Donne, Holy Sonnet 14 (Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You)
John Keats, To Autumn
Robert Browning, My Last Duchess
Henry Reed, Naming of Parts
William Butler Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole
Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream
H.D., Oread
E.E. Cummings, r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
Joy Harjo, Song for Deer and Myself to Return On
Lorna Dee Cervantes, Poema para los Californios Muertos
6. Constructing a Self
Multiple Aspects
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30 (When to the sessions of sweet silent thought)
Change of Discourse
Space and Time
Seamus Heaney, Mid-Term Break
Testimony
Motivations
Typicality
Tone as a Marker of Selfhood
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall
Imagination
Emily Dickinson, I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--
Persona
William Butler Yeats, Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop
In Brief: Constructing a Self
Reading Other Poems
John Dryden, Sylvia the Fair
Walt Whitman, I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
Emily Dickinson, I'm Nobody! Who are you?
William Butler Yeats, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
William Carlos Williams, To Elsie
Countee Cullen, Heritage
Anne Sexton, Her Kind
Charles Wright, Self-Portrait
Jane Kenyon, Otherwise
Carl Phillips, Africa Says
7. Poetry and Social Identity
Adrienne Rich, Mother-in-Law
Adrienne Rich, Prospective Immigrants Please Note
Langston Hughes, Genius Child
Langston Hughes, Me and the Mule
Langston Hughes, High to Low
Seamus Heaney, Terminus
In Brief: Poetry and Social Identity
Reading Other Poems
Robert Southwell, The Burning Babe
Thomas Nashe, A Litany in Time of Plague
Anne Bradstreet, A Letter to Her Husband Absent Upon Public Employment
William Blake, The Little Black Boy
Edward Lear, How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Felix Randal
Sylvia Plath, The Applicant
David Mura, An Argument: On 1942
Rita Dove, Wingfoot Lake
Sheila Ortiz Taylor, The Way Back
8. History and Regionality
History
William Wordsworth, A slumber did my spirit seal
Robert Lowell, The March 1
Langston Hughes, World War II
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est
Regionality
Sherman Alexie, On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City
William Wordsworth, Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
In Brief: History and Regionality
Reading Other Poems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
William Butler Yeats, Easter 1916
Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar
Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead
Robert Hayden, Night, Death, Mississippi
W.S. Merwin, The Asians Dying
Derek Walcott, The Gulf
Simon J. Ortiz, Bend in the River
Jorie Graham, What the End Is For
Gary Soto, History
Silvia Curbelo, Balsero Singing
Dionisio Martinez, History as a Second Language
9. Attitudes, Values, Judgments
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 76 (Why is my verse so barren of new pride?)
Robert Lowell, Epilogue
In Brief: Attitudes, Values, Judgments
Reading Other Poems
John Milton, Lycidas
Ben Jonson, Still to Be Neat
Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta, Going to the Wars
Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee?
Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
William Butler Yeats, Meru
Robert Frost, The Gift Outright
Allen Ginsberg, Sunflower Sutra
Louise Glück, Mock Orange
Rita Dove, Parsley
Heidy Steidlmayer, Knife-Sharpener’s Song

New 10. Poets on Poetry
Poetry as Imagination
Art’s Fiction, Truth’s Claims
Poetry as Song
Poetry as Words
Poetry as an Evolving Structure
Poetry as a Destructive Force
The Idea of Lyric
Why Poetry at All?
Emily Dickinson, This is my letter to the World
Poetry Over Time
The Poet’s Audience
Poetry and Style

PART II. WRITING ABOUT POETRY
11. Writing about Poems
Basic Principles
A Brief Example
Robert Herrick, Divination by a Daffodil
A Longer Example:
William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Getting it Down on Paper
Begin with a Question
Present Your Case
Draw Your Conclusions
Keeping Your Readers in Mind
A Note on Writing about Unrhymed Poems
Organizing Your Paper
A Note on Well-Ordered Paragraphs
Checking Your Work
12. Studying Groups of Poems
Walt Whitman: Poems on Lincoln
Walt Whitman, Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day
Walt Whitman, O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Walt Whitman, This dust was once a man
Emily Dickinson: Poems on Time
Emily Dickinson, I like to see it lap the Miles—
Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death—
Emily Dickinson, The Heart asks Pleasure—first—
Emily Dickinson, I felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson, The first Day's Night had come—
Emily Dickinson, After great pain, a formal feeling comes
Emily Dickinson, There's a certain Slant of light
Emily Dickinson, Pain-expands the Time
Writing Your Paper
PART III. ANTHOLOGY
Sherman Alexie, Reservation Love Song
Paula Gunn Allen, Zen Americana
New Julia Alvarez, from 33
A. R. Ammons, The City Limits
A. R. Ammons, Easter Morning
Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spens
Anonymous, Western Wind
Matthew Arnold, Shakespeare
Matthew Arnold, To Marguerite
John Ashbery, Paradoxes and Oxymorons
John Ashbery, Street Musicians
New Margaret Atwood, Habitation
Margaret Atwood, This is a Photograph of Me
Margaret Atwood, Up
W. H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening
W.H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts
John Berryman, from Dream Songs
4 (Filling her compact & delicious body)
45 (He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back)
384 (The marker slants, flowerless, day's almost done)
New Frank Bidart, An American in Hollywood
New Frank Bidart, If See No End In Is
Frank Bidart, To My Father
Elizabeth Bishop, At the Fishhouses
Elizabeth Bishop, Poem
Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina
William Blake, Ah! Sun-flower
William Blake, The Garden of Love
William Blake, The Lamb
New William Blake, The Mental Traveller
William Blake, The Tyger
Richard Blanco, Letters for Mamá
Michael Blumenthal, A Marriage
New Michael Blumenthal, Early Childhood Education
Anne Bradstreet, Before the Birth of One of Her Children
Lucy Brock-Broido, Carrowmore
Lucy Brock-Broido, Domestic Mysticism
New Lucy Brock-Broido, Self-Deliverance by Lion
Emily Bronte, No Coward Soul Is Mine
Emily Bronte, Remembrance
Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters
New Gwendolyn Brooks, Beverly Hills, Chicago
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Musical Instrument
Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
Robert Burns, O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast
Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose
George Gordon, Lord Byron, When We Two Parted
Lorna Dee Cervantes, Freeway 280
Marilyn Chin, Autumn Leaves
New Victoria Chang, $4.99 All You Can Eat Sunday Brunch
John Clare, Badger
John Clare, First Love
John Clare, I Am
New Lucille Clifton, the lost baby poem
New Henry Cole, Car Wash
Henri Cole, 40 Days and 40 Nights
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
New Eduardo C. Corral, Monologue of a Vulture’s Shadow
William Cowper, The Castaway
William Cowper, Epitaph on a Hare
Hart Crane, The Broken Tower
Hart Crane, To Brooklyn Bridge
New Robert Creeley, When I think
Countee Cullen, Incident
E.E. Cummings, may I feel he said he
New E.E. Cummings, next to of course god america i
Emily Dickinson, The Brain--is wider than the Sky--
Emily Dickinson, I like a look of Agony
Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense--
Emily Dickinson, Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (1859)
Emily Dickinson, Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (1861)
Emily Dickinson, The Soul selects her own Society—
Emily Dickinson, There's a certain Slant of light
Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights--Wild Nights!
New John Donne, Breake of day
John Donne, Death, be not proud
John Donne, The Sun Rising
New Timothy Donnelly, Reading of Medieval Life, I Wonder Who I Am
Rita Dove, Adolescence--II
Rita Dove, Dusting
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Robert Gould Shaw
Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask
New Roberto Durán, Protest
T. S. Eliot, Preludes
Thomas Sayers Ellis, View of the Library of Congress from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn
Louise Erdrich, The Strange People
New Rhina Espaillat, Translation
New Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Turning the Times Tables
New Mark Ford, The Long Man
Robert Frost, Birches
Robert Frost, Design
Allen Ginsberg, America
Louise Glück, All Hallows
Louise Glück, The Balcony
New Louise Glück, Midsummer
New Albert Goldbarth, The Novel That Asks to Erase Itself
New Albert Goldbarth, Unforeseeables
Jorie Graham, Of Forced Sightes and Trusty Ferefulness
Jorie Graham, Soul Says
New Jorie Graham, The Strangers
Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Thom Gunn, The Man with Night Sweats
Thom Gunn, My Sad Captains
H.D., Helen
Thomas Hardy, Afterwards
Michael S. Harper, Nightmare Begins Responsibility
Michael S. Harper, We Assume: On the Death of Our Son, Reuben Masai Harper
Robert Hayden, Frederick Douglass
Robert Hayden, Mourning Poem for the Queen of Sunday
New Terrance Hayes, WOOFER (When I Consider the African-American)
New Terrance Hayes, A Small Novel
Seamus Heaney, Bogland
Seamus Heaney, Punishment
George Herbert, The Collar
George Herbert, Redemption
Robert Herrick, Corinna's Going A-Maying
Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins, No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief
New John Hollander, By Nature
A.E. Housman, Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now
A.E. Housman, With Rue My Heart Is Laden
New Langston Hughes, Dream Variation
Langston Hughes, Harlem
Langston Hughes, I, Too
Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues
Ben Jonson, Come, My Celia
New Laura Kasischke, Miss Consolation for Emotional Damages
John Keats, In drear nighted December
John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats, On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again
John Keats, This Living Hand
New Jane Kenyon, Back
New Jane Kenyon, Otherwise
Jane Kenyon, Surprise
Etheridge Knight, A Poem for Myself (Or Blues for a Mississippi Black Boy)
Kenneth Koch, Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
Yusef Komunyakaa, Boat People
Yusef Komunyakaa, My Father's Loveletters
New Yusef Komunyakaa, The Towers
Stanley Kunitz, The Portrait
Philip Larkin, High Windows
Philip Larkin, Reasons for Attendance
Philip Larkin, This Be the Verse
D.H. Lawrence, The English Are So Nice!
New Inada Lawson, XI. Japs
New Li-Young Lee, Mother Deluxe
Denise Levertov, The Ache of Marriage
Harold Littlebird, White-Washing the Walls
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aftermath
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
Audre Lorde, Hanging Fire
Robert Lowell, Sailing Home from Rapallo
Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica
New Victor Martínez, The Ledger
New Andrew Marvell, The Definition of Love
Andrew Marvell, The Mower’s Song
Andrew Marvell, The Mower to the Glowworms
Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
New Shara McCallum, The Incident
Herman Melville, The Berg
Herman Melville, Monody
New James Merrill, The Christmas Tree
W.S. Merwin, For a Coming Extinction
W.S. Merwin, For the Anniversary of My Death
John Milton, L'Allegro
John Milton, Methought I Saw My Late Espousèd Saint
John Milton, On Shakespeare
New Marianne Moore, A Grave
New Marianne Moore, England
Marianne Moore, Poetry
Marianne Moore, The Steeple-Jack
Pat Mora, La Migra
New Pat Mora, Rituals
New Thylias Moss, One for All Newborns
New Harryette Mullen, Omnivore
Frank O'Hara, Ave Maria
Frank O'Hara, Why I Am Not a Painter
Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owen, Disabled
New Grace Paley, from Detour
New Carl Phillips, Blue
Carl Phillips, The Kill
Carl Phillips, Passing
Sylvia Plath, Edge
Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus
Sylvia Plath, Morning Song
Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee
Alexander Pope, from An Essay on Man (Epistle 1)
Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro
New D.A. Powell, [autumn set us heavily to task: unrooted the dahlias]
New D.A. Powell, [cherry elixir: the first medication. so mary poppins]
Sir Walter Ralegh, The Lie
New Srikanth Reddy, Fourth Circle
Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck
New Adrienne Rich, I Am in Danger—Sir--
Adrienne Rich, The Middle-Aged
Alberto Ríos, Teodoro Luna's Two Kisses
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory
Theodore Roethke, Elegy for Jane
Theodore Roethke, The Waking
New Aleida Rodríquez, Lexicon of Exile
New Noelle Brynn Saito, Turkey People
William Shakespeare, Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun
William Shakespeare, Full Fathom Five
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?)
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the marriage of true minds)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
Sir Philip Sidney, from Astrophel and Stella
1 (Loving in Truth)
31 (With how sad steps)
Charles Simic, Charon's Cosmology
Charles Simic, Fork
New Charles Simic, A Suitcase Strapped with a Rope
Christopher Smart, From Jubilate Agno
Christopher Smart, On a Bed of Guernsey Lilies
Dave Smith, On a Field Trip at Fredericksburg
New Ron Smith, The Teachers Pass the Popcorn
Stevie Smith, Not Waving But Drowning
New Tracy K. Smith, El Mar
New Tracy K. Smith, Credulity
Gary Snyder, Axe Handles
Gary Snyder, How Poetry Comes to Me
New Edmund Spenser, A Hymne in Honour of Love
Edmund Spenser, Sonnet 75 (One day I wrote her name upon the strand)
Wallace Stevens, The Idea of Order at Key West
Wallace Stevens, The Planet on the Table
Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning
Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Mark Strand, Keeping Things Whole
New Adrienne Su, The English Canon
New May Swenson, Untitled
New May Swenson, I Look at My Hand
New May Swenson, How Everything Happens
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from In Memoriam A.H.H.
7 (Dark house)
99 (Risest thou thus)
106 (Ring out, wild bells)
12 (Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tears, Idle Tears
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill
Dylan Thomas, In My Craft or Sullen Art
New Natasha Trethewey, What is Evidence
Henry Vaughan, They Are All Gone into the World of Light!
Derek Walcott, Blues
Derek Walcott, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
New Derek Walcott, Perhaps it exists….
Rosanna Warren, In Creve Coeur, Missouri
New Joshua Weiner, The Yonder Tree
New James Welch, Getting Things Straight
James Welch, Harlem, Montana: Just Off the Reservation
New Phillis Wheatley, To S.M. a young African Painter, on seeing his Works
Walt Whitman, A Hand-Mirror
Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself
1. (I celebrate myself)
6 (A child said, What is the grass?)
52 (The spotted hawk)
Walt Whitman, Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Richard Wilbur, Cottage Street, 1953
Richard Wilbur, The Writer
William Carlos Williams, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
William Carlos Williams, The Raper from Passenack
William Carlos Williams, Spring and All
William Carlos Williams, This Is Just to Say
William Wordsworth, My Heart Leaps Up
William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality
William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper
James Wright, A Blessing
James Wright, Small Frogs Killed on the Highway
Sir Thomas Wyatt, Forget Not Yet
New John Yau, Autobiography in Red and Yello
William Butler Yeats, Among School Children
New William Butler Yeats, A Dialogue Between Self and Soul
William Butler Yeats, Down by the Salley Gardens
William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree
William Butler Yeats, Leda and the Swan
William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
Appendices
On Prosody
On Grammar
On Speech Acts
On Rhetorical Devices
On Lyric Subgenres
Index of Authors, Titles, and First Lines
Index of Terms [Endpapers]
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