Introduction to Poetry By Billy Collins

Introduction to Poetry By Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field, and the silence of the orchid. The silence of the falling vase before it strikes the ﬂoor, the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child. The stillness of the cup and the water in it, the silence of the moon and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun. The silence when I hold you to my chest, the silence of the window above us, and the silence when you rise and turn away. And there is the silence of this morning which I have broken with my pen, a silence that had piled up all night like snow falling in the darkness of the house— the silence before I wrote a word and the poorer silence now. Silence By Billy Collins

There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away
(1286) By Emily Dickinson There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry – This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll – How frugal is the Chariot That bears the Human Soul –

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - The Stillness in the Room
(591) By Emily Dickinson I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air - Between the Heaves of Storm - The Eyes around - had wrung them dry - And Breaths were gathering firm For that last Onset - when the King Be witnessed - in the Room - I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away What portion of me be Assignable - and then it was There interposed a Fly - With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz - Between the light - and me - And then the Windows failed - and then I could not see to see -

The Conditional By Ada Limon Say tomorrow doesn’t come. Say the moon becomes an icy pit. Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified. Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire. Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks. Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain. Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter. Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse. Say we never get to see it: bright future, stuck like a bum star, never coming close, never dazzling. Say we never meet her. Never him. Say we spend our last moments staring at each other, hands knotted together, clutching the dog, watching the sky burn. Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive, right here, feeling lucky.

Before By Ada Limon No shoes and a glossy red helmet, I rode on the back of my dad’s Harley at seven years old. Before the divorce. Before the new apartment. Before the new marriage. Before the apple tree. Before the ceramics in the garbage. Before the dog’s chain. Before the koi were all eaten by the crane. Before the road between us, there was the road beneath us, and I was just big enough not to let go: Henno Road, creek just below, rough wind, chicken legs, and I never knew survival was like that. If you live, you look back and beg for it again, the hazardous bliss before you know what you would miss.

Welcome to the endless high-school Reunion. Welcome to past friends
The Facebook Sonnet By Sherman Alexie Welcome to the endless high-school Reunion. Welcome to past friends And lovers, however kind or cruel. Let’s undervalue and unmend The present. Why can’t we pretend Every stage of life is the same? Let’s exhume, resume, and extend Childhood. Let’s all play the games That occupy the young. Let fame And shame intertwine. Let one’s search For God become public domain. Let church.com become our church. Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess Here at the altar of loneliness.

Evolution By Sherman Alexie Buffalo Bill opens a pawn shop on the reservation right across the border from the liquor store and he stays open 24 hours a day,7 days a week and the Indians come running in with jewelry television sets, a VCR, a full-length beaded buckskin outfit it took Inez Muse 12 years to finish. Buffalo Bill takes everything the Indians have to offer, keeps it all catalogues and filed in a storage room. The Indians pawn their hands, saving the thumbs for last, they pawn their skeletons, falling endlessly from the skin and when the last Indian has pawned everything but his heart, Buffalo Bill takes that for twenty bucks closes up the pawn shop, paints a new sign over the old calls his venture THE MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES charges the Indians five bucks a head to enter.

This is not fantasy, this is our life. We are the characters
The End of Science Fiction By Lisel Mueller This is not fantasy, this is our life. We are the characters who have invaded the moon, who cannot stop their computers. We are the gods who can unmake the world in seven days. Both hands are stopped at noon. We are beginning to live forever, in lightweight, aluminum bodies with numbers stamped on our backs. We dial our words like Muzak. We hear each other through water.

The genre is dead. Invent something new.
Invent a man and a woman naked in a garden, invent a child that will save the world, a man who carries his father out of a burning city. Invent a spool of thread that leads a hero to safety, invent an island on which he abandons the woman who saved his life with no loss of sleep over his betrayal. Invent us as we were before our bodies glittered and we stopped bleeding: invent a shepherd who kills a giant, a girl who grows into a tree, a woman who refuses to turn her back on the past and is changed to salt, a boy who steals his brother’s birthright and becomes the head of a nation. Invent real tears, hard love, slow-spoken, ancient words, difficult as a child’s first steps across a room. The End of Science Fiction By Lisel Mueller

Sometimes, when the light strikes at odd angles
By Lisel Mueller Sometimes, when the light strikes at odd angles and pulls you back into childhood and you are passing a crumbling mansion completely hidden behind old willows or an empty convent guarded by hemlocks and giant firs standing hip to hip, you know again that behind that wall, under the uncut hair of the willows something secret is going on, so marvelous and dangerous that if you crawled through and saw, you would die, or be happy forever.

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
O Me! O Life! By Walt Whitman Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d, Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me, Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined, The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman

Ah, Ah By Jo Harjo Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina. Lands on the crown of the palm tree. Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips. We carry canoes to the edge of the salt. Ah, ah groans the crew with the weight, the winds cutting skin. We claim our seats. Pelicans perch in the draft for fish. Ah, ah beats our lungs and we are racing into the waves. Though there are worlds below us and above us, we are straight ahead. Ah, ah tattoos the engines of your plane against the sky—away from these waters. Each paddle stroke follows the curve from reach to loss. Ah, ah calls the sun from a fishing boat with a pale, yellow sail. We fly by on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars. Ah, ah scrapes the hull of my soul. Ah, ah.

Eagle Poem By Jo Harjo To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon To one whole voice that is you. And know there is more That you can’t see, can’t hear; Can’t know except in moments Steadily growing, and in languages That aren’t always sound but other Circles of motion. Like eagle that Sunday morning Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky In wind, swept our hearts clean With sacred wings. We see you, see ourselves and know That we must take the utmost care And kindness in all things. Breathe in, knowing we are made of All this, and breathe, knowing We are truly blessed because we Were born, and die soon within a True circle of motion, Like eagle rounding out the morning Inside us. We pray that it will be done In beauty. Eagle Poem By Jo Harjo

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which
This is Just to Say By William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water
The Red Wheelbarrow By William Carlos Williams so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens

Oxygen By Mary Oliver Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even, while it calls the earth its home, the soul. So the merciful, noisy machine stands in our house working away in its lung-like voice, I hear it as I kneel before the fire, stirring with a stick of iron, letting the logs lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room, are in your usual position, leaning on your right shoulder which aches all day. You are breathing patiently; it is a

Oxygen By Mary Oliver beautiful sound. It is your life, which is so close to my own that I would not know where to drop the knife of separation. And what does this have to do with love, except everything? Now the fire rises and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red roses of flame. Then it settles to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift: our purist, sweet necessity: the air.

Crossing the Swamp By Mary Oliver Here is the endless wet thick cosmos, the center of everything—the nugget of dense sap, branching vines, the dark burred faintly belching bogs. Here is swamp, here is struggle, closure— pathless, seamless, peerless mud. My bones knock together at the pale joints, trying for foothold, fingerhold, mindhold over such slick crossings, deep hipholes, hummocks that sink silently

Crossing the Swamp By Mary Oliver into the black, slack earthsoup. I feel not wet so much as painted and glittered with the fat grassy mires, the rich and succulent marrows of earth— a poor dry stick given one more chance by the whims of swamp water— a bough that still, after all these years, could take root, sprout, branch out, bud— make of its life a breathing palace of leaves.

In the steamer is the trout seasoned with slivers of ginger,
Eating Together By Li-Young Lee In the steamer is the trout seasoned with slivers of ginger, two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil. We shall eat it with rice for lunch, brothers, sister, my mother who will taste the sweetest meat of the head, holding it between her fingers deftly, the way my father did weeks ago. Then he lay down to sleep like a snow-covered road winding through pines older than him, without any travelers, and lonely for no one.

I buried my father in the sky. Since then, the birds clean and comb him every morning and pull the blanket up to his chin every night. I buried my father underground. Since then, my ladders only climb down, and all the earth has become a house whose rooms are the hours, whose doors stand open at evening, receiving guest after guest. Sometimes I see past them to the tables spread for a wedding feast. I buried my father in my heart. Now he grows in me, my strange son, my little root who won’t drink milk, little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night, little clock spring newly wet in the fire, little grape, parent to the future wine, a son the fruit of his own son, little father I ransom with my life. Little Father By Li-Young Lee

1. smoke above the burning bush 2. archnemesis of summer night
alternate names for black boys By Danez Smith 1. smoke above the burning bush 2. archnemesis of summer night 3. first son of soil 4. coal awaiting spark & wind 5. guilty until proven dead 6. oil heavy starlight 7. monster until proven ghost 8. gone 9. phoenix who forgets to un-ash 10. going, going, gone 11. gods of shovels & black veils 12. what once passed for kindling 13. fireworks at dawn 14. brilliant, shadow hued coral 15. (I thought to leave this blank but who am I to name us nothing?) 16. prayer who learned to bite & sprint 17. a mother’s joy & clutched breath

sideshow By Danez Smith Have I spent too much time worrying about the boys killing each other to pray for the ones who do it with their own hands? Is that not black on black violence? Is that not a mother who has to bury her boy? Is it not the same play? The same plot & characters? The curtain rises, then: a womb a boy a night emptied of music a trigger a finger a bullet then: lights.

sideshow By Danez Smith It always drives the crowd to their feet. An encore of boy after boy after sweet boy — their endless, bloody bow. They throw dirt on the actors like roses until the boys are drowned by the earth & the audience doesn’t remember what they’re standing for.

Never More Will the Wind
By H.D. Never more will the wind cherish you again, never more will the rain. Never more shall we find you bright in the snow and wind. The snow is melted, the snow is gone, and you are flown: Like a bird out of our hand, like a light out of our heart, you are gone.

whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks,
Oread By H.D. Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us, cover us with your pools of fir.

Sonnet 18 By William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 130 By William Shakespeare My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red, than her lips red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound: I grant I never saw a goddess go, My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare.

This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song
Siren Song By Margaret Atwood This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see the beached skulls the song nobody knows because anyone who has heard it is dead, and the others can’t remember. Shall I tell you the secret and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit?

squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical
I don’t enjoy it here squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical with these two feathery maniacs, I don’t enjoy singing this trio, fatal and valuable. I will tell the secret to you, to you, only to you. Come closer. This song is a cry for help: Help me! Only you, only you can, you are unique at last. Alas it is a boring song but it works every time. Siren Song By Margaret Atwood

This is a Photograph of Me
By Margaret Atwood It was taken some time ago At first it seems to be a smeared print: blurred lines and grey flecks blended with the paper; then, as you scan it, you can see something in the left-hand corner a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging and, to the right, halfway up what ought to be a gentle slope, a small frame house. In the background there is a lake, and beyond that, some low hills.

This is a Photograph of Me
By Margaret Atwood (The photograph was taken the day after I drowned. I am in the lake, in the center of the picture, just under the surface. It is difficult to say where precisely, or to say how large or how small I am: the effect of water on light is a distortion. but if you look long enough eventually you will see me.)

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on that sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night By Dylan Thomas

Vision and Prayer By Dylan Thomas Who Are you Who is born In the next room So loud to my own That I can hear the womb Opening and the dark run Over the ghost and the dropped son Behind the wall thin as a wren's bone? In the birth bloody room unknown To the burn and turn of time And the heart print of man Bows no baptism But dark alone Blessing on The wild Child.

Escape from the Old Country By Adrienne Su
I never had to make one, to be able to claim, “I have no sickening weeks by ocean, no culture,” and be believed. no waiting for the aerogrammes Yet the land occupies the person that gradually ceased to come. even as the semblance of freedom Spent the babysitting money invites a kind of recklessness. on novels, shoes, and movies, Tradition, unobserved, unasked, yet the neighborhood stayed empty. hangs on tight; ancestors roam It had nothing to do with a journey into reverie, interfering at the most not undertaken, not with dialect, awkward moments, first flirtations, nor with a land that waited in doorways and dressing rooms— to be rediscovered, then rejected. But of course. Here in America, As acid rain collected no one escapes. In the end, each traveler above the suburban hills, I tried to imagine being nothing, tried returns to the town where, everyone knew, she hadn’t even been born.

Mortals By Adrienne Su Again we’re paying for crimes
we didn’t know we’d committed: being smart or beautiful, able to throw a discus too far. Normally we’re doing the unglamorous— answering mail, hanging clothes to dry— when the thunderbolt splits the workaday sky, high, capricious wrath transforming us into rainclouds, rocks, or squirrels to be chased by our dogs, the orphans we saved from gas or the needle. That morning we’d bought phosphate-free detergent, voted, biked, declined a prescription, but the gods were furious. Was it something cruel we thought, the vagueness of our piety, distant tragic news we didn’t take time to read? The turning point must have been small, that leatherbound journal with acid-free paper, the little black dress, days of clear weather, a glimmer for which we didn’t give thanks, though we’re unsure to whom (it feels like artifice) and it’s never been clear where to leave the sacrifice. Mortals By Adrienne Su

Stone Gullets By May Swenson
Stone gullets among Inrush Feed Backsuck and The borders swallow Outburst Huge engorgements Swallow In gulps the sea Tide crams jagged Smacks snorts chuckups Follow In urgent thirst Jaws the hollow Insurge Hollow Gushing evacuations follow Jetty it must Outpush Greed

The Lowering By May Swenson I will be earth you be the flower You have found my root you are the rain I will be boat and you the rower You rock me you toss me you are the sea How be steady earth that’s now a flood The root is the oar afloat where has blown our bud We will be desert pure salt the seed Burn radiant sex born scorpion need

the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion.
The Rider By Naomi Shihab Nye A boy told me if he roller-skated fast enough his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him, the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion. What I wonder tonight pedaling hard down King William Street is if it translates to bicycles. A victory! To leave your loneliness panting behind you on some street corner while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas, pink petals that have never felt loneliness, no matter how slowly they fell.

Fundamentalism By Naomi Shihab Nye
Because the eye has a short shadow or it is hard to see over heads in the crowd? If everyone else seems smarter but you need your own secret? If mystery was never your friend? If one way could satisfy the infinite heart of the heavens? If you liked the king on his golden throne more than the villagers carrying baskets of lemons? If you wanted to be sure his guards would admit you to the party? The boy with the broken pencil scrapes his little knife against the lead turning and turning it as a point emerges from the wood again If he would believe his life is like that he would not follow his father into war

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
To Sleep By John Keats O soft embalmer of the still midnight, Shutting, with careful fingers and benign, Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine: O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes, Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities. Then save me, or the passed day will shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,— Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
By John Keats When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Mirror By Sylvia Plath I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful ‚ The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
Edge By Sylvia Plath The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty. She has folded
Edge By Sylvia Plath Pitcher of milk, now empty. She has folded Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.

Caged Bird By Maya Angelou The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn and he names the sky his own But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.

Phenomenal Woman By Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. Phenomenal Woman By Maya Angelou

Phenomenal Woman By Maya Angelou Phenomenal woman, Now you understand
That’s me. Just why my head’s not bowed. Men themselves have wondered I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. What they see in me. When you see me passing, They try so much It ought to make you proud. But they can’t touch My inner mystery. It’s in the click of my heels, When I try to show them, The bend of my hair, They say they still can’t see. the palm of my hand, I say, The need for my care. It’s in the arch of my back, ’Cause I’m a woman The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman By Maya Angelou

back to the mothering blackness deep in the smothering blackness
By Maya Angelou She came home running back to the mothering blackness deep in the smothering blackness white tears icicle gold plains of her face She came home running She came down creeping here to the black arms waiting now to the warm heart waiting rime of alien dreams befrosts her rich brown face She came down creeping She came home blameless black yet as Hagar’s daughter tall as was Sheba’s daughter threats of northern winds die on the desert’s face She came home blameless

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
Harlem By Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
The Negro Speaks of Rivers By Langston Hughes I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. Ancient, dusky rivers.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
By William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud By William Wordsworth The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

The World Is Too Much with Us; Late and Soon
By William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune, It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

When some people talk about money
The Good Life By Tracy K. Smith When some people talk about money They speak as if it were a mysterious lover Who went out to buy milk and never Came back, and it makes me nostalgic For the years I lived on coffee and bread, Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday Like a woman journeying for water From a village without a well, then living One or two nights like everyone else On roast chicken and red wine.

There will be no edges, but curves. Clean lines pointing only forward.
Sci-Fi By Tracy K. Smith There will be no edges, but curves. Clean lines pointing only forward. History, with its hard spine & dog-eared Corners, will be replaced with nuance, Just like the dinosaurs gave way To mounds and mounds of ice. Women will still be women, but The distinction will be empty. Sex, Having outlived every threat, will gratify Only the mind, which is where it will exist. For kicks, we'll dance for ourselves Before mirrors studded with golden bulbs.

The oldest among us will recognize that glow—
Sci-Fi By Tracy K. Smith The oldest among us will recognize that glow— But the word sun will have been re-assigned To the Standard Uranium-Neutralizing device Found in households and nursing homes. And yes, we'll live to be much older, thanks To popular consensus. Weightless, unhinged, Eons from even our own moon, we'll drift In the haze of space, which will be, once And for all, scrutable and safe.

Mrs. Coley’s three-flat brick Isn’t here any more.
the vacant lot By Gwendolyn Brooks Mrs. Coley’s three-flat brick Isn’t here any more. All done with seeing her fat little form Burst out of the basement door; And with seeing her African son-in-law (Rightful heir to the throne) With his great white strong cold squares of teeth And his little eyes of stone; And with seeing the squat fat daughter Letting in the men When majesty has gone for the day— And letting them out again.

The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel. We real cool. We
By Gwendolyn Brooks The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
Aunt Helen By T.S. Eliot Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt, And lived in a small house near a fashionable square Cared for by servants to the number of four. Now when she died there was silence in heaven And silence at her end of the street. The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet — He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before. The dogs were handsomely provided for, But shortly afterwards the parrot died too. The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece, And the footman sat upon the dining-table Holding the second housemaid on his knees — Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.

Hysteria By T.S. Eliot As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty green iron table, saying: “If the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden ...” I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.

Once I believed in you; I planted a fig tree.
Vespers [“Once I believed in you...”] By Louise Gluck Once I believed in you; I planted a fig tree. Here, in Vermont, country of no summer. It was a test: if the tree lived, it would mean you existed. By this logic, you do not exist. Or you exist exclusively in warmer climates, in fervent Sicily and Mexico and California, where are grown the unimaginable apricot and fragile peach. Perhaps they see your face in Sicily; here we barely see the hem of your garment. I have to discipline myself to share with John and Noah the tomato crop. If there is justice in some other world, those like myself, whom nature forces into lives of abstinence, should get the lion's share of all things, all objects of hunger, greed being praise of you. And no one praises more intensely than I, with more painfully checked desire, or more deserves to sit at your right hand, if it exists, partaking of the perishable, the immortal fig, which does not travel.

Vespers [In your extended absence, you permit me] By Louise Gluck
use of earth, anticipating some return on investment. I must report failure in my assignment, principally regarding the tomato plants. I think I should not be encouraged to grow tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold the heavy rains, the cold nights that come so often here, while other regions get twelve weeks of summer. All this belongs to you: on the other hand, I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly multiplying in the rows. I doubt you have a heart, in our understanding of that term. You who do not discriminate between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence, immune to foreshadowing, you may not know how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf, the red leaves of the maple falling even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible for these vines.

I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
A Lame Beggar By John Donne I am unable, yonder beggar cries, To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
By John Donne Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Between the white river and the road? You are not cold,
A Poplar By William Faulkner Why do you shiver there Between the white river and the road? You are not cold, With the sun light dreaming about you; And yet you lift your pliant supplicating arms as though To draw clouds from the sky to hide your slenderness. You are a young girl Trembling in the throes of ecstatic modesty, A white objective girl Whose clothing has been forcibly taken away from her.

Her house is empty and her heart is old,
After Fifty Years By William Faulkner Her house is empty and her heart is old, And filled with shades and echoes that deceive No one save her, for still she tries to weave With blind bent fingers, nets that cannot hold. Once all men’s arms rose up to her, ‘tis told, And hovered like white birds for her caress: A crown she could have had to bind each tress Of hair, and her sweet arms the Witches’ Gold. Her mirrors know her witnesses, for there She rose in dreams from other dreams that lent Her softness as she stood, crowned with soft hair. And with his bound heart and his young eyes bent And blind, he feels her presence like shed scent, Holding him body and life within its snare.

l(a By E.E. Cummings l(a le af fa ll s) one l iness

since feeling is first By E.E. Cummings since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are better fate than wisdom lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry —the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids' flutter which says we are for each other: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis

When no one else would listen, Saint Anthony
Saint’s Day Triolet: Saint Anthony By Deborah Paredez When no one else would listen, Saint Anthony preached seaward, his words fishnet for the lost souls of the heretics. Caught up in despair, we plea to the one who will listen: Saint Anthony, please return Tía’s teeth or the misplaced key to our bolted hopes. Patron retriever of all we’ve tossed when no one else would. Listen, Saint Anthony, teach us to steward this world, all our netted loss.

Wife’s Disaster Manual
By Deborah Paredez When the forsaken city starts to burn, after the men and children have fled, stand still, silent as prey, and slowly turn back. Behold the curse. Stay and mourn the collapsing doorways, the unbroken bread in the forsaken city starting to burn. Don’t flinch. Don’t join in. Resist the righteous scurry and instead stand still, silent as prey. Slowly turn your thoughts away from escape: the iron gates unlatched, the responsibilities shed. surrender to your calling, show concern for those who remain. Come to a dead standstill. Silent as prey, slowly turn into something essential. Learn the names of the fallen. Refuse to run ahead when the forsaken city starts to burn. Stand still and silent. Pray. Return.

Facing It By Yusef Komunyakaa My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I said I wouldn't I see the booby trap's white flash. dammit: No tears. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse I'm stone. I'm flesh. but when she walks away My clouded reflection eyes me the names stay on the wall. like a bird of prey, the profile of night Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's slanted against morning. I turn wings cutting across my stare. this way—the stone lets me go. The sky. A plane in the sky. I turn that way—I'm inside A white vet's image floats the Vietnam Veterans Memorial closer to me, then his pale eyes again, depending on the light look through mine. I'm a window. to make a difference. He's lost his right arm I go down the 58,022 names, inside the stone. In the black mirror half-expecting to find a woman’s trying to erase names: my own in letters like smoke. No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

He danced with tall grass for a moment, like he was swaying
We Never Know By Yusef Komunyakaa He danced with tall grass for a moment, like he was swaying with a woman. Our gun barrels glowed white-hot. When I got to him, a blue halo of flies had already claimed him. I pulled the crumbled photograph from his fingers. There's no other way to say this: I fell in love. The morning cleared again, except for a distant mortar & somewhere choppers taking off. I slid the wallet into his pocket & turned him over, so he wouldn't be kissing the ground.

If you can keep your head when all about you
If-- By Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
If-- By Rudyard Kipling If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

For all our children's fate, Stand up and take the war.
For all we have and are, For all our children's fate, Stand up and take the war. The Hun is at the gate! Our world has passed away, In wantonness o'erthrown. There is nothing left to-day But steel and fire and stone! Though all we knew depart, The old Commandments stand:— "In courage kept your heart, In strength lift up your hand." Once more we hear the word That sickened earth of old:— "No law except the Sword Unsheathed and uncontrolled." Once more it knits mankind, Once more the nations go To meet and break and bind A crazed and driven foe. For All We Have And Are By Rudyard Kipling

Comfort, content, delight, The ages' slow-bought gain,
They shrivelled in a night. Only ourselves remain To face the naked days In silent fortitude, Through perils and dismays Renewed and re-renewed. Though all we made depart, The old Commandments stand:— "In patience keep your heart, In strength lift up your hand." No easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goal, But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul. There is but one task for all— One life for each to give. What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live? For All We Have And Are By Rudyard Kipling

The Bishop tells us: “When the boys come back
They By Siegfried Sassoon The Bishop tells us: “When the boys come back They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought In a just cause: they lead the last attack On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought New right to breed an honourable race, They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.” “We’re none of us the same!” the boys reply. “For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind; Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die; And Bert’s gone syphilitic: you’ll not find A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change.” And the Bishop said: ‘The ways of God are strange!’

Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain,
Ancient History By Siegfried Sassoon Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; ‘He was the grandest of them all—was Cain! ‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire; ‘Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain, ‘Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.’ Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair— A lover with disaster in his face, And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair. ‘Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? ... ‘God always hated Cain’ ... He bowed his head— The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead.

Even now I laugh when I see the look on my mother’s face
Swear Words By Aimee Nezhukumatathil Even now I laugh when I see the look on my mother’s face when I swear in Tagalog. I have no idea what these phrases really mean, but they’ve been spattered on me since I was still a fat, bawling baby—and scattered onto my head when I’ve toppled juice glasses on white carpet or come home past curfew. Sometimes even the length of my skirts or driving her through a red light produces ones with a bit of a gasp, a wet sigh of disapproval. Now I catch myself saying them out loud when I knock my knee against the coffee table, slice a bit of my knuckle with paper. When I asked her, she told me one phrase meant ‘God,’ so of course I feel guilty. Another is ‘crazy female lost piglet,’ which doesn’t even

Swear Words By Aimee Nezhukumatathil make sense when I think of the times I’ve heard her use that, and still others, she claims, are untranslatable. But the one I love best is Diablo—devil—pronounced: Jah-blew! She uses it as if to tell me, “I give up! You do what you want but don’t come running to me,” after I tell her I bounced a check or messed up a romance with a boy she finally approved of. Diablo! Diablo! Here comes a little red devil running past the terra-cotta flower pots in my mother’s sunroom, tiny pitchfork in hand. Diablo! Diablo! And still another from behind the kitchen curtains, a bit damp from the day’s splashes of the sink. Today when they meet, they dance a silly jig on the countertop, knock over the canister of flour, leave little footprints all over the place.

If by real you mean as real as a shark tooth stuck
Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real? By Aimee Nezhukumatathil If by real you mean as real as a shark tooth stuck in your heel, the wetness of a finished lollipop stick, the surprise of a thumbtack in your purse— then Yes, every last page is true, every nuance, bit, and bite. Wait. I have made them up—all of them— and when I say I am married, it means I married all of them, a whole neighborhood of past loves. Can you imagine the number of bouquets, how many slices of cake? Even now, my husbands plan a great meal for us—one chops up some parsley, one stirs a bubbling pot on the stove. One changes the baby, and one sleeps in a fat chair. One flips through the newspaper, another whistles while he shaves in the shower, and every single one of them wonders what time I am coming home.

Introduction to Poetry By Billy Collins

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