An assortment of some of the best poems according to...

An assortment of some of the best poems according to Mrs. Garrard
Introduction to Poetry
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.
5
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.
10
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.
15
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
2
Autobiography
Mary Ann Larson
10/19/84
I was the expected
Valentine
before Christmas.
I learned early
that red socks
are warmest.
I’ve held a tarantula
in my hand
and felt the chill,
the tiny hairs.
Panned for gold
at Garnet, Montana,
a ghost town.
No luck.
I’ve heard thunder
in the depth
of a snowstorm.
I lost my
first love
and my pet
canary, Pierre,
all in one day.
I’ve held a stunned
finch
in my hand,
regaining his senses
after flying into
the front window.
A girl,
Natalie,
hated me
for no reason
all through high
school.
My friends
lost brothers
in Viet Nam.
My guardian angel
used to live
across the way,
apartment 305,
really red hair,
a potter,
a teacher.
I’ve had some
excellent teachers.
I tell you sincerely;
Gary, Indiana
is an eyesore
from a charter bus.
And I have
been cruel,
cutting off heads
and feet
with my Instamatic.
I saw Kennedy
shot.
I saw Kennedy shot
over and over
on TV,
in the classroom
in third grade.
I’m still innocent,
though.
I once screamed at
my boss
in anger,
and have been
falling-down drunk
on Irish Mist.
I once kissed
an anarchist.
I once suffered
pneumonia.
And only once
ate a whole
raw onion
on a dare.
Twice, I lost
my baby bracelet,
dainty gold chain,
miniature pearls
and
little heart of gold.
And twice
I’ve driven through
Gilroy, California
the Garlic capitol
of the world.
We hopscotched
until chalk lines
scuffed and faded.
I have landed
more big fish
than most men
can say
got away.
I rolled a Pinto,
walked away
unharmed;
count that
one miracle.
I’ve melted
maple sugar candy
on my tongue
and warmed myself
at morning
campfires
on many
mountainsides.
Once I talked
briefly with
Dennis Banks
on campus
at the U,
I think.
I bought a house
when I was
a single girl
and I’ve often
lost mittens.
He found me;
the husband
I wasn’t looking
for.
Together
we passed through
the Manitou,
the spirit
that roams
the waters of
White Bear Lake
after dark.
Not fog.
Not mist.
More tactile.
I will testify
to Legend based on
Truth.
I have stored
small treasures
in a cigar box,
and flown
kites in April.
The smell of
Coppertone
brings back
Monterey’s sandy
beach,
and I long
to see the Alberta’s
Rockies again.
I’ve felt the
slow, dizzying spin
of a car on ice,
known deaf
frustration,
seen blackbirds
gather.
Just a toddler,
I toddled
toward a cliff
but was saved
by ruffled panties
that Dad grabbed.
Aurora Borealis
has played for me
more often than
I deserve.
I have shopped
at K Mart.
My silver baby cup
is all banged up.
I am
licensed to practice.
I’ve been scared
by bears
in the basement.
3
Book Lice
Paul Fleischman
I was born in a
fine old edition of Schiller
While I started life
in a private eye thriller
5
We’re book lice
who dwell
in these dusty bookshelves
We’re book lice
who dwell
in these dusty bookshelves
Later I lodged in
Scott’s words – volume 50
10
While I passed my youth
in an Agatha Christie
We’re book lice
attached
despite contrasting pasts.
15
We’re book lice
attached
despite contrasting pasts.
One day while in search of
a new place to eat
He fell down seven shelves
where we happened to meet
20
We’re book lice
who chew
on bookbinding glue.
We’re book lice
who chew
on bookbinding glue.
We honeymooned in an
old guide book on Greece
I missed Conan Doyle,
he pined for his Keats
25
We’re book lice
fine mates
despite different tastes.
30
We’re book lice
fine mates
despite different tastes.
So we set up our home
inside Roget’s Thesaurus
Not far from my mysteries
close to his Horace
35
We’re book lice
adoring
despite her loud snoring.
We’re book lice
adoring
despite his loud snoring.
And there we’ve resided
and there we’ll remain,
He nearby his Shakespeare,
I near my Spillane
40
We’re book-loving
book lice
We’re book-loving
book lice
plain proof of the fact
which I’m certain I read
in a book some months back
45
that opposites
often are known
to attract.
that opposites
often are kown
to attract.
4
Parent’s Pantoum
Carolyn Kizer
Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses
5
10
15
20
More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.
They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group--why don't they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
They beg us to be dignified like them
As they ignore our pleas to brighten up.
Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention
Then we won't try to be dignified like them
Nor they to be so gently patronizing.
Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention.
Don't they know that we're supposed to be the stars?
Instead they are so gently patronizing.
It makes us feel like children--second-childish?
Perhaps we're too accustomed to be stars.
The famous flowers glowing in the garden,
So now we pout like children. Second-childish?
Quaint fragments of forgotten history?
25
30
35
Our daughters stroll together in the garden,
Chatting of news we've chosen to ignore,
Pausing to toss us morsels of their history,
Not questions to which only we know answers.
Eyes closed to news we've chosen to ignore,
We'd rather excavate old memories,
Disdaining age, ignoring pain, avoiding mirrors.
Why do they never listen to our stories?
Because they hate to excavate old memories
They don't believe our stories have an end.
They don't ask questions because they dread the answers.
They don't see that we've become their mirrors,
We offspring of our enormous children.
5
Hate Poem
Julie Sheehan
5
10
15
20
25
30
I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they
trapped in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.
Look out! Fore! I hate you.
The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging from
under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you
explain your relational databases hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.
A closed window is both a closed
window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you.
My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant “good morning”: hate.
You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row,
brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I
might hate each one
individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity of my hate,
which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.
6
In this poem, disaster strangely invades the ordinary.
Tuesday 9:00 AM
Denver Butson
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
A man standing at the bus stop
reading the newspaper is on fire
Flames are peeking out
from beneath his collar and cuffs
His shoes have begun to melt
The woman next to him
wants to mention it to him
that he is burning
but she is drowning
Water is everywhere
in her mouth and ears
in her eyes
A stream of water runs
steadily from her blouse
Another woman stands at the bus stop
freezing to death
She tries to stand near the man
who is on fire
to try to melt the icicles
that have formed on her eyelashes
and on her nostrils
to stop her teeth long enough
from chattering to say something
to the woman who is drowning
but the woman who is freezing to death
has trouble moving
with blocks of ice on her feet
It takes the three some time
to board the bus
what with the flames
and water and ice
But when they finally climb the stairs
and take their seats
the driver doesn't even notice
that none of them has paid
because he is tortured
by visions and is wondering
if the man who got off at the last stop
was really being mauled to death
by wild dogs.
7
An old pond!
A frog jumps in-the sound of water.
As the wind does blow
Across the trees, I see the
Buds blooming in May
I walk across sand
And find myself blistering
In the hot, hot heat
Falling to the ground,
I watch a leaf settle down
In a bed of brown.
It’s cold—and I wait
For someone to shelter me
And take me from here.
I hear crackling
Crunch, of today’s new found day
And know it won’t last
So I will leave it
At bay; and hope for the best
This bitter new day
*Remember, punctuation and indention is arbitrary (meaning it’s up to you, the author to put it in your poem)
8
Funeral Blues
W.H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
5
10
15
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
9
The Bustle in a House
Emily Dickinson
The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is the solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth –
5
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity.
10
The Death of Santa Claus
Charles Webb
He's had the chest pains for weeks,
but doctors don't make house
calls to the North Pole,
5
he's let his Blue Cross lapse,
blood tests make him faint,
hospital gown always flap
open, waiting rooms upset
his stomach, and it's only
indigestion anyway, he thinks,
10
15
until, feeding the reindeer,
he feels as if a monster fist
has grabbed his heart and won't
stop squeezing. He can't
breathe, and the beautiful white
world he loves goes black,
and he drops on his jelly belly
in the snow and Mrs. Claus
tears out of the toy factory
20
wailing, and the elves wring
their little hands, and Rudolph's
nose blinks like a sad ambulance
light, and in a tract house
in Houston, Texas, I'm 8,
telling my mom that stupid
25
30
kids at school say Santa's a big
fake, and she sits with me
on our purple-flowered couch,
and takes my hand, tears
in her throat, the terrible
news rising in her eyes.
11
Ode to My Socks
20
Pablo Neruda
5
10
15
Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and
goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
25
30
35
40
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.
Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp
temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my
shoes.
The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.
12
Eating Poetry
Mark Strand
5
10
15
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.
13
Sonnet 130
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.
5
I have seen roses damask’d, 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
10
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.
14
The Courage That My Mother Had
Edna St. Vincent Millay
The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.
5
The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she’d left to me
10
The thing she took into the grave!–
The courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.
15
Selecting a Reader
Ted Kooser
5
10
First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.
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[Buffalo Bill’s]
e e cummings
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
5
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons justlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
10
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
17
One Art
Elizabeth Bishop
5
10
15
The art of losing isn’t 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 isn’t 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 mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
18
Fragments
Stephen Dobyns
5
10
15
Now there is a slit in the blue fabric of air.
His house spins faster. He holds down books,
chairs; his life and its objects fly upward:
vanishing black specks in the indifferent sky.
The sky is a torn piece of blue paper.
He tries to repair it, but the memory
of death is like paste on his fingers
and certain days stick like dead flies.
Say the sky goes back to being the sky
and the sun continues as always. Now,
knowing what you know, how can you not see
thin cracks in the fragile blue vaults of air.
My friend, what can I give you or darkness
lift from you but fragments of language,
fragments of blue sky. You had three
beautiful daughters and one has died.
for Donald Murray
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Female Author
Sylvia Plath
5
10
All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world:
Favored (while suddenly the rains begin
Beyond the window) she lies on cushions curled
And nibbles an occasional bonbon of sin.
Prim, pink-breasted, feminine, she nurses
Chocolate fancies in rose-papered rooms
Where polished higboys whisper creaking curses
And hothouse roses shed immortal blooms.
The garnets on her fingers twinkle quick
And blood reflects across the manuscript;
She muses on the odor, sweet and sick,
Of festering gardenias in a crypt,
And lost in subtle metaphor, retreats
From gray child faces crying in the streets.
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