Poems by Others
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 (such as with SoulFood Poetry Night and the Redmond Association of Spokenword, both of which I run). I believe it’s always good to read poems by other poets whenever I give or run a reading, and these are among the poems I like to share the most, sometimes for seasonal or topical relevance. 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 Poems
A Blessing — James Wright
Adam’s Curse — W. B. Yeats
Advice to Young Writers — Ron Padgett
Anagrammer — Peter Pereira
Archaic Torso of Apollo — Rainer Maria Rilke
Ars Poetica [excerpt] — George Amabile
Ars Poetica — Archibald Macleish
Blackberry Eating — Galway Kinnell
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
Che Fece . . . Il Gran Rifiuto — C. P. Cavafy
Cherry Blossoms — Toi Derricotte
Choices — Tess Gallagher
Content — David Ignatow
Cradle — Roberto Ascalon
Credo — Judith Roche
Digging — Seamus Heaney
Dust of Snow — Robert Frost
Eating Poetry — Mark Strand
Even Such Is Time — Sir Walter Raleigh
First Drift — Ron Padgett
The Fish — Elizabeth Bishop
Go to the Limits of Your Longing — Rainer Maria Rilke
Happiness — Raymond Carver
How I Go to the Woods — Mary Oliver
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
if you like my poems — E. E. Cummings
I Long to Hold the Poetry Editor’s Penis in My Hand — Francesca Bell
Ink Bottle Poems — Robert Sund
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
Leah bribed Jacob — Samuel Menashe
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
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota — James Wright
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
Poetry Reading — Anna Swir
Poet’s Work — Lorine Niedecker
Purple — Alexis Rotella
Relax — Ellen Bass
Ring Out, Wild Bells (In Memoriam) — Alfred Lord Tennyson
Silence — William Carlos Williams
Sound and Sense — Alexander Pope
A Story About the Body — Robert Hass
The Summer Day — Mary Oliver
Thank You for Saying Thank You — Charles Bernstein
That Brat — Anna Swir
That Little Beast — Mary Oliver
The Peace of Wild Things — Wendell Berry
The Real Work — Wendell Berry
There Are Poems — Linda Pastan
The Times-Herald that day had good news — Susan Oakes
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird — Wallace Stevens
This Kind of Unknowing — Ok-Koo Kang Grosjean
To Doris Thurston on Her Eightieth Birthday — Sam Hamill
The Use of Trees — Naomi Beth Wakan
This Is Just to Say — William Carlos Williams
[untitled] — Saadi
Wayfarer’s Night Song — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Welcome Morning — Anne Sexton
When I Am Among the Trees — Mary Oliver
Why Are Your Poems So Dark? — Linda Pastan
Why I Am Happy — William Stafford
Young Poets — Nicanor Parra
For Fun and Edification
Candidate 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 +
Thirty-Two Statements About Writing Poetry — Marvin Bell