To print as front and back as cards you must print this page first (can also do all odd

pages at once). Then, feed this page back into the printer this side up with the top of the page going in the printer first. Print the EVEN page that follows this one.

To print as front and back as cards you must print this page first (can also do all odd pages at once). Then, feed this page back into the printer this side up with the top of the page going in the printer first. Print the EVEN page that follows this one.

Edgar Allan Poe

Maya Angelou

W.H. Auden

1809-1849 Married his cousin Inventor of the detective story wrote poems, short stories, and essays wrote mostly in the GOTHIC genre

1928 author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist best known for book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

1907-1973 noted for his ability to write in every verse form also an editor, essayist, and playwright generally considered the greatest English poet of the twentieth century

Shel Silverstein

Langston Hughes

Mark Strand

1930-1999 Popular childrens writer--also a poet, playwright, illustrator, screenwriter, and songwriter Writing is characterized by a blend of serious ness and just plain silliness. Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Giving Tree

1902-1967 Known for insightful, colorful portrayals of African American life from the twenties through the sixties, and influence of Jazz in his writing His work contributed greatly to the Harlem Renaissance

1932Canadian born poet Collection of Poetry won a Pulitzer prize Also publishes prose, books for children, and translations Former Poet Laureate of the US

Pablo Neruda

Robert Frost

Emily Dickinson

1904-1973 Translated poems Wrote many love poems Lived in exile and was a political activitst

1874-1963 the most celebrated poet in the US in the 20s Won four Pulitzer Prizes his work is mostly about life in New England wrote in a spoken language accessible to many, but with deep meditative themes

1830-1886 her poetry reflects loneliness, but also inspirational moments which suggest happinesss she lived an isolated life, rarely socializing she was unknown as a poet while she was alive

Epitaph on a Tyrant Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

The Lesson I keep on dying again. Veins collapse, opening like the Small fists of sleeping Children. Memory of old tombs, Rotting flesh and worms do Not convince me against The challenge. The years And cold defeat live deep in Lines along my face. They dull my eyes, yet I keep on dying, Because I love to live.

Dreams In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past? That holy dream--that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam, A lonely spirit guiding. What though that light, thro storm and night, So trembled from afar-What could there be more purely bright In Truths day star?

Eating Poetry Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad and she walks with her hands in her dress. The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up. Their eyeballs roll, their blond legs burn like brush. The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep. She does not understand. When I get on my knees and lick her hand, she screams. I am a new man. I snarl at her and bark. I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Dream Deferred 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?

Where the Sidewalk Ends There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes well walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And well go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.

Hope is the thing with feathers Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. Ive heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and II took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII) Come with me, I said, and no one knew where, or how my pain throbbed, no carnations or barcaroles for me, only a wound that love had opened. I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying, and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth or the blood that rose into the silence. O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns! That is why when I heard your voice repeat Come with me, it was as if you had let loose the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine the geysers flooding from deep in its vault: in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again, of blood and carnations, of rock and scald.

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning

e.e. cummings

Walt Whitman

1806-1861 English poet of the Romantic Movement Suffered many ailments (lung and spinal) extremely well-read, educated political and social themes are part of her work her tyranical father opposed her marriage to Robert Browning so she eloped and never spoke with her father again

1894-1962 experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques authored twenty-five books of prose, poetry, charcoal and pencil drawings, plays and stories

1819-1892 a self-taught voracious reader spent much of his life helping injured soldiers, caring for his wounded brother and elderly mother. was relatively poor through most of his life famous work Leaves of Grass

William Wordsworth

Sylvia Plath

John Ashbery

1770-1850 The Prelude is shining example of English romanticism wrote lyrical and political poetry Poet Laureate of England

1932 - 1963 attempted suicide several times, succeeding in 1963 married to Ted Hughes her poetry is dark and cynical, uses lots of alliteration

1927-present author of more than 20 books of poetry Won a Pulitzer prize and a multitude of other awards his poetry is often difficult to read and understand --obscure

Kim Addonizio

Matthew Arnold

Conrad Aiken

1954- present her poetry is gritty, street-wise and witty she has also written several novels her poetry often addresses the reader

1822-1888 remembered for his essays as well as poetry the themes of his poetry was often isolation his work also focused on a desire to return to simpler times struggled with the essential truths of Christianity

1889-1973 poetry reflects an intense interest in psycho analysis and the development of identity won many awards including the Pulitzer wrote prose and poetry with lots of symbolism his tombstone in Savannah is the shape of a bench as he wanted people to sit and enjoy a drink--an inscription reads Give my love to the world

A noiseless patient spider

A noiseless patient spider, I markd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Markd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launchd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be formd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds (also, with the churchs protestant blessings daughters, unscented shapeless spirited) they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead, are invariably interested in so many thingsat the present writing one still finds delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles? perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D ....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above Cambridge if sometimes in its box of sky lavender and cornerless, the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

Beloved, my Beloved... (Sonnet 20) Beloved, my Beloved, when I think That thou wast in the world a year ago, What time I sate alone here in the snow And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink No moment at thy voice ... but, link by link, Went counting all my chains, as if that so They never could fall off at any blow Struck by thy possible hand ... why, thus I drink Of lifes great cup of wonder! Wonderful, Never to feel thee thrill the day or night With personal act or speech,nor ever cull Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull, Who cannot guess Gods presence out of sight.

Uptick
We were sitting there, and I made a joke about how it doesnt dovetail: time, one minute running out faster than the one in front it catches up to. That way, I said, there can be no waste. Waste is virtually eliminated. To come back for a few hours to the present subject, a painting, looking like it was seen, half turning around, slightly apprehensive, but it has to pay attention to whats up ahead: a vision. Therefore poetry dissolves in brilliant moisture and reads us to us. A faint notion. Too many words, but precious.

Morning Song
Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. Im no more your mother Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow Effacement at the winds hand. All night your moth-breath Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my ear. One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral In my Victorian nightgown. Your mouth opens clean as a cats. The window square Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try Your handful of notes; The clear vowels rise like balloons.

The World is Too Much With Us

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! Id 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 wreathd horn.

Summer
Absolute zero: the locust sings: summers caught in eternitys rings: the rock explodes, the planet dies, we shovel up our verities. The razor rasps across the face and in the glass our fleeting race lit by infinitys lightning wink under the thunder tries to think. In this frail gourd the granite pours the timeless howls like all outdoors the sensuous moment builds a wall open as wind, no wall at all: while still obedient to valves and knobs the vascular jukebox throbs and sobs expounding hope propounding yearning proposing love, but never learning or only learning at zeros gate like summers locust the final hate formless ice on a formless plain that was and is and comes again.

Longing
Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For so the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou camst a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes, And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to me! Or, as thou never camst in sooth, Come now, and let me dream it truth, And part my hair, and kiss my brow, And say, My love why sufferest thou? Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For so the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day.

Eating Together I know my friend is going, though she still sits there across from me in the restaurant, and leans over the table to dip her bread in the oil on my plate; I know how thick her hair used to be, and what it takes for her to discard her mans cap partway through our meal, to look straight at the young waiter and smile when he asks how we are liking it. She eats as though starvingchicken, dolmata, the buttery flakes of filo and whats killing her eats, too. I watch her lift a glistening black olive and peel the meat from the pit, watch her fine long fingers, and her face, puffy from medication. She lowers her eyes to the food, pretending not to know what I know. Shes going. And we go on eating.

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Richard Aldington

Margaret Atwood

A.R. Ammons

1892-1962 English poet of the Imagistes group his service in the war greatly influenced his poetry wrote prose as well as poetry was influenced directly by Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle

1939- present spent part of her early years in the bush of North Quebec regarded as one of Canadas best writers won numerous awards for her poetry and prose

1926-2001 Began writing poetry while serving onboard a U.S. Naval destroyer during World War II Famous for the fine abstraction of his poetry

David Baker

Charles Baudelaire

Jimmy Santiago Baca

1954- present Author of three books of criticism as well as books of poetry. Writes with distilled, distinguished attentiveness. currently a Professor of English at Denison University

1821- 1867 One of the greatest French poets of 19th century. Major influence on Western and modern poetry His main theme is the inseparable nature of beauty and corruption

1952- present Was an orphan, homeless, and then in prison for drugs. Taught himself to read and write during 4 years of isolation in prison. A self-styled poet of the people.

Robert Bly

Marvin Bell

John Betjeman

1926- present Translated Norwegian poetry into English. Started a literary magazine for poetry translation in the United States Published books, essays, and translations

1937- present American poet Taught many years at the Iowa Writers Workshop Has written 16 books of poetry

1906- 1984 1969 he was knighted made Poet Laureate in 1972 Prolific writer of essays, poems, and critical reviews

Eyesight
It was May before my attention came to spring and my word I said to the southern slopes Ive missed it, it came and went before I got right to see: dont worry, said the mountain, try the later northern slopes or if you can climb, climb into spring: but said the mountain its not that way with all things, some that go are gone

They eat out In restaurants we argue over which of us will pay for your funeral though the real question is whether or not I will make you immortal. At the moment only I can do it and so I raise the magic fork over the plate of beef fried rice and plunge it into your heart. There is a faint pop, a sizzle and through your own split head you rise up glowing; the ceiling opens a voice sings Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing you hang suspended above the city in blue tights and a red cape, your eyes flashing in unison. The other diners regard you some with awe, some only with bordom: they cannot decide if you are a new weapon or only a new advertisement. As for me, I continue eating; I liked you better the way you were, but you were always ambitious. Be Drunk You have to be always drunk. Thats all there is to itits the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.

Goodbye!
Come, thrust your hands in the warm earth And feel her strength through all your veins; Breathe her full odors, taste her mouth, Which laughs away imagined pains; Touch her lifes womb, yet know This substance makes your grave also. Shrink not; your flesh is no more sweet Than flowers which daily blow and die; Nor are your mein and dress so neat, Nor half so pure your lucid eye; And, yet, by flowers and earth I swear Youre neat and pure and sweet and fair.

Like an Animal
Behind the smooth texture Of my eyes, way inside me, A part of me has died: I move my bloody fingernails Across it, hard as a blackboard, Run my fingers along it, The chalk white scars That say I AM SCARED, Scared of what might become Of me, the real me, Behind these prison walls.

Mongrel Heart Up the dog bounds to the window, baying like a basset his doleful, tearing sounds from the belly, as if mourning a dead king, and now hes howling like a beagle yips, brays, gagging growls and scratching the sill paintless, thats how much hes missed you, the two of you, both of you, mother and daughter, my wife and child. All week hes curled at my feet, warming himself and me watching more TV, or wandered the lonely rooms, my dog shadow, who like a poodle now hops, amped-up windup maniac yo-yo with matted curls and snot nose smearing the panes, having heard another car like yours taking its grinding turn down our block, or a school bus, or bird-squawk, thats how much hes missed you, good dog, companion dog, dog-of-all-types, most excellent dog I told you once and for all we should never get.

Guilt

The clock is frozen in the tower, The thickening fog with sooty smell Has blanketed the motor power Which turns the London streets to hell; And footsteps with their lonely sound Intensify the silence round. I havent hope. I havent faith. I live two lives and sometimes three. The lives I live make life a death For those who have to live with me. Knowing the virtues that I lack, I pat myself upon the back. With breastplate of self-righteousness And shoes of smugness on my feet, Before the urge in me grows less I hurry off to make retreat. For somewhere, somewhere, burns a light To lead me out into the night. It glitters icy, thin and plain, And leads me down to WaterlooInto a warm electric train Which travels sorry Surrey through And crystal-hung, the clumps of pine Stand deadly still beside the line.

Veterans of the Seventies

His army jacket bore the white rectangle of one who has torn off his name. He sat mute at the round table where the trip-wire veterans ate breakfast. They were foxhole buddies who went stateside without leaving the war. They had the look of men who held their breath and now their tongues. What is to say beyond that said by the fathers who bent lower and lower as the war went on, spines curving toward the ground on which sons sat sandbagged with ammo belts enough to make fine lace of enemy flesh and blood. Now these who survived, who got back in cargo planes emptied at the front, lived hiddenly in the woods behind fence wires strung through tin cans. Better an alarm than the constant nightmare of something moving on its belly to make your skin crawl with the sensory memory of foxhole living.

Prayer for My Father

Your head is still restless, rolling east and west. That body in you insisting on living is the old hawk for whom the world darkens. If I am not with you when you die, that is just.

It is all right. That part of you cleaned my bones more than once. But I will meet you in the young hawk whom I see inside both you and me; he will guide you to the Lord of Night, who will give you the tenderness you wanted here.

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John Berryman

Anne Bradstreet

Robert Burns

1914-1972 scholar, professor, and confessional poet best-known for The Dream Songs, an intensely personal sequence of 385 poems which brought him the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award scarred by his fathers suicide (in front of him at age 12), he struggled with depression and alcoholism and committed suicide in 1972

1612- 1672 her work reflects the religious and emotional conflicts she experienced as a woman writer Tutored in literature and history in Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, as well as English considered to be one of the most important early American poets. Wrote poetry primarily for herself, her family, and her friends, rather than for publication

1759- 1796 His first love inspired him to try his hand at poetry. He had 8 children with 5 different women. Contributed over 250 songs Became famous after he died

Elizabeth Bishop

Gwendolyn Brooks

Robert Browning

1911- 1979 Independently wealthy and traveled a lot Her poetry is filled with descriptions of her travels and the scenery Her poetry focuses on her impressions of the physical world.

1917-2000 Her early poetry appeared in a newspaper written primarily for the black community of Chicago First African American to win the Pulitzer Prize Uses mostly free verse, compared to poetic form

1812- 1889 He was published very young just 24 Aside from poetry he also wrote many dramatic plays He has been recognized by the world as one of the most original and intellectual poets

Andre Breton

William Blake

David Bottoms

1896-1966 Main influences on Breton were Jacques Vache and Guillaume Initially trained in medicine Leaders of the surrealist movement and believed it was a revolutionary movement

1757- 1827 He was an artist, an engraver, and a poet. He engraved poems and drawings onto copper plates; his wife colored and bound them His subject was often guided by his views of Christianity A lack of public recognition sent him into a severe depression from 1810-1817

1949- present His poems have appeared in many popular magazines Serves as editor for Five Points literary magazine Sardonic yet compassionate countrymans voice Currently the Poet Laureate of Georgia

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve is like a red, red rose Thats newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody Thats sweetly played in tune. So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a the seas gang dry. Till a the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands o life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only luve! And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my luve, Though it were ten thousand mile.

To My Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the East doth hold. My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Nor ought but love from thee give recompense. Thy love is such I can no way repay; The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love lets so persever, That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Dream Song 14
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) Ever to confess youre bored means you have no Inner Resources. I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as achilles, who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag.

A Face

If one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold, Such as the Tuscans early art prefers! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould Of those two lips, which should be opening soft In the pure profile; not as when she laughs, For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staffs Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss And capture twixt the lips apart for this. Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, How it should waver on the pale gold ground, Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts! I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb: But these are only massed there, I should think, Waiting to see some wonder momently Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky (Thats the pale ground youd see this sweet face by), All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

We Real Cool
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.

One Art
The art of losing isnt hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isnt hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mothers watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isnt hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasnt a disaster. Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shant have lied. Its evident the art of losings not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

My Fathers Left Hand

Sometimes my old mans hand flutters over his knee, flaps in crazy circles, and falls back to his leg. Sometimes it leans for an hour on that bony ledge. And sometimes when my old man tries to speak, his hand waggles in the air, chasing a word, then perches again on the bar of his walker or the arm of a chair. Sometimes when evening closes down his window and rain blackens into ice on the sill, it trembles like a sparrow in a storm. Then full dark falls, and it trembles less, and less, until its still.

A Poison Tree
I was angry with my friend. I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe. I told it not, my wrath did grow; And I waterd it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles; And it grew both day and night Till it bore an apple bright, And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had veild the pole. In the morning glad I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Blotter of ash
The birds will be bored. If id forgotten something. Ring the bell of those last schooldays in the sea. What well call the pensive borage. Well begin by giving the answer to the contest over how many tears can fit in a womans hand. In an average hand while i crumple this starry newspaper and while the eternal flesh which has once and for all come into possession of the mountaintops. I dwell savagely in a little house in the vaucluse. my heart a letter of cachet

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Lousie Bogan

Jonathan Bohrn

Eavan Boland

1897 - 1970 wrote in the group since labled reactionary generation -- more modern language and style a great lyric poet she was well-educated some claim she is the most accomplished female poet of the 20th century.

1957- present an up and rising poet currently living in Southern California

1944- current one of the most popular female voices in Irish literature a noted anthologist and teacher poetry contemplates everyday living as well as the roles of women in history and life noe

Lord Byron

Matsuo Basho

Amiri Baraka

1788-1824 a bizarre character whose sexual exploits were both damaging and productive to his carreer early in his career he received poor reviews, by his second work was an instant celebrity

1644 - 1694 the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan a master of brief and clear haiku

1934 -- present his work is confrontational and addresses political concerns of black Americans authored essays, poetry, prose, drama he started with poetry of the beat generation but during civil rights era, his poetry took on a more political slant

Charles Bukowski

William Cullen Bryant

Emily Bronte

1920 - 1994 a cult poet who wrote about downtrodden people and scourge of society clear, direct, often cynical and violent language

1794-1878 debate about the originality of his work poetic themes were often nature as a metaphor for truth Thanatopsis is his most famous poem

1818-1848 Anne, Emily, Charlotte wrote and created stories to escape their sad childgood known best for Wuthering Heights but had extensive poetry collection landscape, moors, seaside, influenced her writing

Outside History.
These are outsiders, always. These stars these iron inklings of an Irish January, whose light happened thousands of years before our pain did; they are, they have always been outside history. They keep their distance. Under them remains a place where you found you were human, and a landscape in which you know you are mortal. And a time to choose between them. I have chosen: out of myth in history I move to be part of that ordeal who darkness is only now reaching me from those fields, those rivers, those roads clotted as firmaments with the dead. How slowly they die as we kneel beside them, whisper in their ear. And we are too late. We are always too late

instinct
she is so intense in her fear: her nostrils quiver at the scent of societys danger; caught in the glare of each strangers casual glance she turns, no defense except vigilance, gracefully shivering to the rhythm of footsteps that pass and when my eyes ensnared hers I could feel her ask me to speak for my humanness its inborn evil...

Epitaph for a Romantic Woman

She has attained the permanence She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning. Untended stalks blow over her Even and swift, like young men running. Always in the heart she loved Others had lived,she heard their laughter. She lies where none has lain before, Where certainly none will follow after.

Ka Ba

A closed window looks down on a dirty courtyard, and black people call across or scream or walk across defying physics in the stream of their will Our world is full of sound Our world is more lovely than anyones tho we suffer, and kill each other and sometimes fail to walk the air We are beautiful people with african imaginations full of masks and dances and swelling chants with african eyes, and noses, and arms, though we sprawl in grey chains in a place full of winters, when what we want is sun. We have been captured, brothers. And we labor to make our getaway, into the ancient image, into a new correspondence with ourselves and our black family. We read magic now we need the spells, to rise up return, destroy, and create. What will be the sacred words?

Four Haiku
Spring: A hill without a name Veiled in morning mist. The beginning of autumn: Sea and emerald paddy Both the same green. The winds of autumn Blow: yet still green The chestnut husks. A flash of lightning: Into the gloom Goes the herons cry.

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all thats best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens oer her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek, and oer that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

Fall, leaves, fall

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree. I shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow; I shall sing when nights decay Ushers in a drearier day.

October

Ay, thou art welcome, heavens delicious breath! When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief And the year smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a good old age released from care, Journeying, in long serenity, away. In such a bright, late quiet, would that I Might wear out life like thee, mid bowers and brooks And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks, And music of kind voices ever nigh; And when my last sand twinkled in the glass, Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.

As The Poems Go

as the poems go into the thousands you realize that youve created very little. it comes down to the rain, the sunlight, the traffic, the nights and the days of the years, the faces. leaving this will be easier than living it, typing one more line now as a man plays a piano through the radio, the best writers have said very little and the worst, far too much.

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Charlotte Bronte

Lewis Carroll

Hart Crane

1816 - 1855 only two of her poems are really read today experimented with the poetic forms the author of the popular novel Jane Eyre

1832 - 1898 His best-known works are Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the LookingGlass, And What Alice Found There had a mind for mathematical and critical as well as fancy

1899-1932 writing conveyed historical and spiritual significance of America T.S. Eliot was a huge influence committed suicide in 1932

Marilyn Chin

Judith Ortiz Cofer

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1955- present born up in Hong Kong, grew up in Us writes about Asian/American issues anthologist, translator and educator as well as a poet and novelist

1952- present acclaimed Puerto Rican author she writes poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and Young-adult fiction work oftek revolves aroung Puerto Rican/ American issues.

1772 - 1834 his poems most popular poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan began the Romantic movement

Robert Creeley

Raymond Carver

Stephen Crane

1926 - 2005 associated with the Black Mountain Poets poetry was freely constructed verse, not rigid to form was once noted as one of the most important and influential American poets of the twentieth century--broke from content being romantic or historical and wrote about everyday life.

1938 - 1988 mostly known for his short stories he liked brevity of writing--short stories and poems could be digested in one sitting known as a minimalist wrote about regular people in unusual circum stances

1871 - 1900 Americas foremost realistic writers he started the modern American Naturalism most known for Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage his poetry, although not as well known, was ahead of its time with use of realistic imagery

My Grandmothers Love Letters

Jabberwocky

There are no stars tonight But those of memory. Yet how much room for memory there is In the loose girdle of soft rain. There is even room enough For the letters of my mothers mother, Elizabeth, That have been pressed so long Into a corner of the roof That they are brown and soft, And liable to melt as snow. Over the greatness of such space Steps must be gentle. It is all hung by an invisible white hair. It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air. And I ask myself: Are your fingers long enough to play Old keys that are but echoes: Is the silence strong enough To carry back the music to its source And back to you again As though to her? Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand Through much of what she would not understand; And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch! He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy. Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

On the Death of Anne Bront

THERE s little joy in life for me, And little terror in the grave; I ve lived the parting hour to see Of one I would have died to save. Calmly to watch the failing breath, Wishing each sigh might be the last; Longing to see the shade of death Oer those belovd features cast. The cloud, the stillness that must part The darling of my life from me; And then to thank God from my heart, To thank Him well and fervently; Although I knew that we had lost The hope and glory of our life; And now, benighted, tempest-tossed, Must bear alone the weary strife.

The Good, Great Man

How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains! It sounds like stories from the land of spirits If any man obtain that which he merits Or any merit that which he obtains. REPLY TO THE ABOVE For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain! What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain? Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain? Or throne of corses which his sword had slain? Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends! Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good great man? three treasures, LOVE, and LIGHT, And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infants breath: And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the ANGEL DEATH!

The Changeling

As a young girl vying for my fathers attention, I invented a game that made him look up from his reading and shake his head as if both baffled and amused. In my brothers closet, Id change into his dungarees -- the rough material molding me into boy shape; hide my long hair under an army helmet hed been given by Father, and emerge transformed into the legendary Ch of grown-up talk. Strutting around the room, Id tell of life in the mountains, of carnage and rivers of blood, and of manly feasts with rum and music to celebrate victories para la libertad. He would listen with a smile to my tales of battles and brotherhood until Mother called us to dinner. She was not amused by my transformations, sternly forbidding me from sitting down with them as a man. Shed order me back to the dark cubicle that smelled of adventure, to shed my costume, to braid my hair furiously with blind hands, and to return invisible, as myself, to the real world of her kitchen.

The Survivor
Dont tap your chopsticks against your bowl. Dont throw your teacup against the wall in anger. Dont suck on your long black braid and weep. Dont tarry around the big red sign that says danger! All the tempests will render still; seas will calm, horses will retreat, voices to surrender. That you have this way and not that, that your skin is yellow, not white, not black, that you were born not a boychild but a girl, that this world will be forever puce-pink are just as well. Remember, the survivor is not the strongest or most clever; merely, the survivor is almost always the youngest. And you shall have to relinguish that title before long.

I saw a man pursuing the horizon

I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. It is futile, I said, You can never

Your Dog Dies

You lie, he cried, And ran on.

it gets run over by a van. you find it at the side of the road and bury it. you feel bad about it. you feel bad personally, but you feel bad for your daughter because it was her pet, and she loved it so. she used to croon to it and let it sleep in her bed. you write a poem about it. you call it a poem for your daughter, about the dog getting run over by a van and how you looked after it, took it out into the woods and buried it deep, deep, and that poem turns out so good youre almost glad the little dog was run over, or else youd never have written that good poem. then you sit down to write a poem about writing a poem about the death of that dog, but while youre writing you hear a woman scream your name, your first name, both syllables, and your heart stops. after a minute, you continue writing. she screams again. you wonder how long this can go on.

Self-Portrait

He wants to be a brutal old man, an aggressive old man, as dull, as brutal as the emptiness around him, He doesnt want compromise, nor to be ever nice to anyone. Just mean, and final in his brutal, his total, rejection of it all. He tried the sweet, the gentle, the oh, lets hold hands together and it was awful, dull, brutally inconsequential. Now hell stand on his own dwindling legs. His arms, his skin, shrink daily. And he loves, but hates equally.

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G.K.Chesterton

Victor Hernandez Cruz

Stephen Dunn

1874 - 1936 wrote extensively on lots of topic, in every genre, from journalism to plays, poetry to crime novels poems were primarily political and social commentary

1949 - present at seventeen self-published his first book, Papo Got His Gun! And Other Poems poetry is from the view of a traveller influences such as music, hispanic culture, and American integration shape his writing

1939 - present writes poetry that reflects the American middle class lyrical poetry is intelligent plain, common-sense language

Lucille Clifton

Hayden Carruth

William Cowper

1936-2010 won the National Book Award for poetry wrote nonfiction, childrens books, and poetry highly influential in African America womens rights

1921 - 2008 won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for poetry collection: Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey uses personal experience at content many believe his work never got the praise it deserved

1731 - 1800 had the largest readership of any English poet during that time advocated religious and humanitarian ideals style represented first of what would later be the Romantics

Billy Collins

John Ciardi

Toi Derricotte

1941 - present conversational, witty poems one of Americas most popular poets as Poet Laureate, he founded Poetry180, a site dedicated to a poem a day in high school classrooms

1916 - 1986 mostly recognized as a poet but has written everything from juvenile nonsense poetry to scholarly verse translations strongly in favor of exposing poetry to mass audiences and is considered one of the key players in making poetry accessible to all

1941-present co-founded Cave Canem, a workshop retreat for black poets her poetry often features the taboo, the re stricted, and the repressed

Checklist
The housework, the factory work, the work that takes from the body and does not put back. The white-collar work and the dirt of its profits, the terrible politeness of the office worker, the work that robs the viscera to pay the cool surfaces of the brain. All the work that makes love difficult, brings on sleep, drops the body off at the liquor cabinet. All the work that reaches the intestines and sprawls. And the compulsive work after the work is done, those unfillable spaces of the Calvinist, or certain marriage beds.

Here Is an Ear Hear

Is the ocean really inside seashells or is it all in your mind? PICHON DE LA ONCE Behold and soak like a sponge. I have discovered that the island of Puerto Rico is the ears of Saru-Saru, a poet reputed to have lived in Atlantis. On the day that the water kissed and embraced and filled all the holes of that giant missing link, this bards curiosity was the greatest for he kept swimming and listening for causes. He picked up rocks before they sank and blew wind viciously into them. Finally he blew so hard into a rock that he busted his ear drums; angry, he recited poems as he tried turning into a bird to fly to green Brazil. His left ear opened up like a canal and a rock lodged in it. Rock attracts rock and many rocks attached to this rock. It got like a rocket. His ear stayed with it in a horizontal position. Finally after so many generations he got to hear what he most wanted: the sounds made by flowers as they stretched into the light. Behold, I have discovered that the island of Puerto Rico is the ears of Saru-Saru.

The Donkey

When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devils walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still. Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.

Hatred and Vengeance, My Eternal Portion

Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion, Scarce can endure delay of execution, Wait, with impatient readiness, to seize my Soul in a moment.

Graves

Damned below Judas: more abhorred than he was, Who for a few pence sold his holy master. Twice betrayed, Jesus me, the last delinquent, Deems the profanest. Man disavows, and Delty disowns me: Hell might afford my miseries a shelter; Therefore hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all Bolted against me. Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers; Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors, Im called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence Worse than Abirams. Him the vindictive rod of angry justice Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong; I, fed with judgment, in a fleshly tomb, am Buried above ground.

Both of us had been close to Joel, and at Joels death my friend had gone to the wake and the memorial service and more recently he had visited Joels grave, there at the back of the grassy cemetery among the trees, a quiet, gentle place, he said, befitting Joel. And I said, Whats the point of going to look at graves? I went into one of my celebrated tirades. People go to look at the grave of Keats or Hart Crane, they go traveling just to do it, what a waste of time. What do they find there? Hell, I wouldnt go look at the grave of Shakespeare if it was just down the street. I wouldnt look at And I stopped. I was about to say the grave of God until I realized Im looking at it all the time....

jasper texas 1998

for j. byrd i am a mans head hunched in the road. i was chosen to speak by the members of my body. the arm as it pulled away pointed toward me, the hand opened once and was gone. why and why and why should i call a white man brother? who is the human in this place, the thing that is dragged or the dragger? what does my daughter say? the sun is a blister overhead. if i were alive i could not bear it. the townsfolk sing we shall overcome while hope bleeds slowly from my mouth into the dirt that covers us all. i am done with this dust. i am done.

Black Boys Play the Classics

The most popular act in Penn Station is the three black kids in ratty sneakers & T-shirts playing two violins and a celloBrahms. White men in business suits have already dug into their pockets as they pass and they toss in a dollar or two without stopping. Brown men in work-soiled khakis stand with their mouths open, arms crossed on their bellies as if they themselves have always wanted to attempt those bars. One white boy, three, sits cross-legged in front of his idolsin ecstasy their slick, dark faces, their thin, wiry arms, who must begin to look like angels! Why does this trembling pull us? A: Beneath the surface we are one. B: Amazing! I did not think that they could speak this tongue.

Most Like an Arch This Marriage

Most like an archan entrance which upholds and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace. Mass made idea, and idea held in place. A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds. Most like an archtwo weaknesses that lean into a strength. Two fallings become firm. Two joined abeyances become a term naming the fact that teaches fact to mean. Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is, whats strong and separate falters. All I do at piling stone on stone apart from you is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss I am no more than upright and unset. It is by falling in and in we make the all-bearing point, for one anothers sake, in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.

Introduction to Poetry
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 poems room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the authors 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.

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Rita Dove

John Donne

Mark Doty

1952- current was Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995 won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1986 often writes about historical and political events honest, raw, intelligent language

1572- present founder of the Metaphysical Poets, known to coax new perspective through paradoxical images, subtle argument, inventive syntax, and imagery from art, philosophy, and religion using an extended metaphor known as a conceit

1953 elegant, intelligent verse wrote about personal hardships and triumphs won numerous poetry grants and award writes nonfiction and poetry

James Dickey

John Dryden

Robert Duncan

1923 - 1997 historical vision and eccentric poetic style often violent imagery and experiments with style uses split line and free verse forms

1631-1700 Poet Laureate in 1668 wrote extensively in many genres: criticism, essays, poetry, nonfiction, and translations

1919- current taught at Black Mountain College practiced theosophy, a religion that believes in reincarnation, and much of that spiritual influence shows up in his work created a style all his own

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Hilda Doolittle

Stephen Dobyns

1872-1906 one of the first African-American poets to gain national recognition his parents stories of plantation life inspired his writing By the age of fourteen, Dunbar had poems published in the Dayton Herald

1886-1961 she befriended Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams became a leader of the Imagist movement poetry uses intense images, economy of language, and classical mythology

1941 poetry has a humorous, witty style long lines of poetry popular poet today and continues to write substantially

The Embrace

You werent well or really ill yet either; just a little tired, your handsomeness tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace. I didnt for a moment doubt you were dead. I knew that to be true still, even in the dream. Youd been out--at work maybe?-having a good day, almost energetic. We seemed to be moving from some old house where wed lived, boxes everywhere, things in disarray: that was the story of my dream, but even asleep I was shocked out of the narrative by your face, the physical fact of your face: inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert. Why so difficult, remembering the actual look of you? Without a photograph, without strain? So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face, your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth and clarity of you--warm brown tea--we held each other for the time the dream allowed. Bless you. You came back, so I could see you once more, plainly, so I could rest against you without thinking this happiness lessened anything, without thinking you were alive again.

The Triple Fool

Testimonial

I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry; But wheres that wiseman, that would not be I, If she would not deny? Then as th earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains Through rhymes vexation, I should them allay. Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce, For he tames it, that fetters it in verse. But when I have done so, Some man, his art and voice to show, Doth set and sing my pain; And, by delighting many, frees again Grief, which verse did restrain. To love and grief tribute of verse belongs, But not of such as pleases when tis read. Both are increased by such songs, For both their triumphs so are published, And I, which was two fools, do so grow three; Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

Back when the earth was new and heaven just a whisper, back when the names of things hadnt had time to stick; back when the smallest breezes melted summer into autumn, when all the poplars quivered sweetly in rank and file . . . the world called, and I answered. Each glance ignited to a gaze. I caught my breath and called that life, swooned between spoonfuls of lemon sorbet. I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didnt know their names? Back when everything was still to come, luck leaked out everywhere. I gave my promise to the world, and the world followed me here.

Childhoods Retreat

Its in the perilous boughs of the tree out of blue sky the wind sings loudest surrounding me. And solitude, a wild solitude s reveald, fearfully, high Id climb into the shaking uncertainties, part out of longing, part daring my self, part to see that widening of the world, part to find my own, my secret hiding sense and place, where from afar all voices and scenes come back the barking of a dog, autumnal burnings, far calls, close calls the boy I was calls out to me here the man where I am Look! Ive been where you most fear to be.

Marriage a-la-Mode

Why should a foolish marriage vow, Which long ago was made, Oblige us to each other now When passion is decayd? We lovd, and we lovd, as long as we could, Till our love was lovd out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: Twas pleasure first made it an oath. If I have pleasures for a friend, And farther love in store, What wrong has he whose joys did end, And who could give no more? Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me, Or that I should bar him of another: For all we can gain is to give our selves pain, When neither can hinder the other.

A Morning

A dog surroundingly howls. Painfully he is changing His voice from a voice for the moon To the voice he has for the sun. I stoop, and my hands are shining; I have picked up a piece of the sea To feel how a tall girl has swum Yesterday in it too deeply, And, below the light, has become More naked than Eve in the garden. I drop her strange body on the cobbles. My hands are shining with fever, And I understand The long, changing word of the dog With the moon dying out in his voice, And the pain when the sun came up For the first time on angel-shut gates, In its rays set closer than teeth.

Loud Music

My stepdaughter and I circle round and round. You see, I like the music loud, the speakers throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so each bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut. But my stepdaughter disagrees. She is four and likes the music decorous, pitched below her own voice-that tenuous projection of self. With music blasting, she feels she disappears, is lost within the blare, which in fact I like. But at four what she wants is self-location and uses her voice as a porpoise uses its sonar: to find herself in all this space. If she had a sort of box with a peephole and looked inside, what shed like to see would be herself standing there in her red pants, jacket, yellow plastic lunch box: a proper subject for serious study. But me, if I raised the same box to my eye, I would wish to find the ocean on one of those days when wind and thick cloud make the water gray and restless as if some creature brooded underneath, a rocky coast with a road along the shore where someone like me was walking and has gone. Loud music does this, it wipes out the ego, leaving turbulent water and winding road, a landscape stripped of people and languagehow clear the air becomes, how sharp the colors.

Heat
O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters. Fruit cannot drop through this thick air-fruit cannot fall into heat that presses up and blunts the points of pears and rounds the grapes. Cut the heat-plough through it, turning it on either side of your path.

The Debt
This is the debt I pay Just for one riotous day, Years of regret and grief, Sorrow without relief. Pay it I will to the end Until the grave, my friend, Gives me a true release Gives me the clasp of peace. Slight was the thing I bought, Small was the debt I thought, Poor was the loan at best God! but the interest!