A Place for Poetry

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While I do not have the pleasure of teaching you a poetry unit, poetry is one of my favorite areas of English language arts. Poetry comes in all forms. Its purpose is to inspire, to express, to entertain, to stir up, to evoke a response that is reciprocal (between both the reader and the audience). Below I have listed my top twenty-two poems. This page is for your independent reference. You can find ideas for poems here. You can find a catchy title that encourages you to read it on your own time. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

My Favorite poems

1.  “Inspiration” by Henry David Thoreau
2.  “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” by Emily Dickinson
3.  “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Dunbar
4.  “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
5.  “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost
6.  “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg
7.  “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Elliot
8.  “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes
9.  “Musee des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden
10. "Hard to Take" by Luci Tapahonso
11.      “I Will Put Chaos into 14 Lines” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
12.      “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by ee cummings 
13.      “Root Cellar” by Theodore Roethke
14.      “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop
15.      “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats
16.      “When You Are Old” by W.B. Yeats
17.      “This Bridge” by Shel Silverstein
18.      “Crocuses” by Ruth Fainlight
19.      “Motto to ‘The Poet’” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
20.      “Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
21.      “It Couldn’t Be Done” by Edgar Alan Guest
22.      The Book of Proverbs NIV Holy Bible

Found Poems

Found poems are created by refashioning a priorly existing text. Take a page from a book, a magazine, or a newspaper. Then, select words that come together to create a poem. To the left is an example of a found poem. Have fun. Be creative. 

Slam Poetry

Slam poetry is a mixture between poetry and theatre. The words of the poem are accompanied by close detail to pronunciation, intonation, and other gestures in slam poetry. Slam poems usually have a strong message that connects with the audience and amplifies the intensity of the poem. 

Circle poems

Circle poems begin and end with the same word or phrase. When writing a circle poem, write the poem in a circle fashion. This takes some planning, but the end result is worth the effort.

Reverse poems

One of the most difficult poems that I have had to write was a reverse poem. When you write a reverse poem, you have to pay attention to the message that goes both ways. While you always read from left to right or horizontally when reading a reverse poem, you can read the lines from top to bottom and bottom to top, getting two different messages. If you would like some more examples, just ask!