So many poems, so little time! Hey, that would make a great T-shirt slogan! Here are a few favourite poems written by other poets. I have printouts of most of these poems in my poetry reading binder, and enjoy reciting them at my poetry readings, or when I’m emcee. I believe it’s always good to read poems by other poets whenever I give a reading, and these are among the poems I like to share the most. See also Poems About Haiku, also mostly by other poets. You can also read selections of my own haiku and senryu as well as longer poems, collaborations, sequences, tanka, and rengay. Enjoy!
Selected Favourite PoemsA Blessing — James Wright Advice to Young Writers — Ron Padgett Anagrammer — Peter Pereira
Ars Poetica [excerpt] — George Amabile Ars Poetica — Archibald Macleish
Blandeur — Kay Ryan
Bloodying August Polito’s Nose — James Bertolino The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered — Clive James
The Book of Questions III — Pablo Neruda
Choices — Tess Gallagher
Content — David Ignatow Cradle — Roberto Ascalon Credo — Judith Roche Digging — Seamus Heaney
Dust of Snow — Robert Frost
Eating Poetry — Mark Strand First Drift — Ron Padgett Happiness — Raymond Carver How to Be a Poet — Wendell Berry How to Be Perfect — Ron Padgett
I Could Take — Hayden Carruth
if everything happens that can’t be done — E. E. Cummings +
If the moon came out only once a month — Cathy Ross In the Workshop After I Read My Poem Aloud — Don Colburn
Introduction to Poetry — Billy Collins I Taught Myself to Live Simply — Anna Akhmatova The Japanese Garden — Ron Padgett
l(a — E. E. Cummings The Lake Isle of Innisfree — W. B. Yeats The Laughing Heart — Charles Bukowski Let Evening Come — Jane Kenyon
let's start a magazine — E. E. Cummings (see the origin of this website’s name)
The Longest Word — Peggy Barnett Losing Private Sutherland — Jerry Kilbride (haibun)
Love Poem — Curtis Dunlap
Maybe Love Is More Like an Onion — Lana Hechtman Ayers
Nantucket — William Carlos Williams The New Poetry Handbook — Mark Strand
New Season — Wendy Cope One Does Not Write — Naomi Beth Wakan On Nothing — Antonio Porchia On the Fishing Fly — Thomas Lynch (haibun)
Ox Cart Man — Donald Hall Poetics — A. R. Ammons Poetry — Marianne Moore Poet’s Work — Lorine Niedecker Poetry Reading — Anna Swir
Purple — Alexis Rotella Ring Out, Wild Bells (In Memoriam) — Alfred Lord Tennyson Silence — William Carlos Williams
A Story About the Body — Robert Hass The Summer Day — Mary Oliver Thank You for Saying Thank You — Charles BernsteinThat Brat — Anna Swir That Little Beast — Mary Oliver
The Peace of Wild Things — Wendell Berry
The Real Work — Wendell Berry The Times-Herald that day had good news — Susan Oakes
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird — Wallace Stevens To Doris Thurston on Her Eightieth Birthday — Sam Hamill Wayfarer’s Night Song — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Welcome Morning — Anne Sexton When I Am Among the Trees — Mary Oliver Why I Am Happy — William Stafford
For FunCandidate for a Pullet Surprise — Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar The English Lesson — Anonymous English Pronunciation — G. Nolst Trenité
maggie and milly and molly and may — E. E. Cummings
Miss Snooks, Poetess — Stevie Smith
Monsieur Joliat — Wilson MacDonald
My Daddy — Ogden Nash
Smart — Shel Silverstein
The Reading — Wendy Cope +
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