Preface: Using A Poet’s Craft
What’s Different About This Book?
Poems Included and Companion Texts
Structure, Organization, and a Note on Free Verse
Introduction: Technology and Inspiration
ANONYMOUS, Seminole, trans. Frances Densmore, Song for Bringing a Child Into the World
Part 1: Creating Poems
1. Inspiration: The Wood between the Worlds
JALAL AD-DIN MUHAMMMED RUMI, Come, Come, Whoever You Are
JUDITH BARRINGTON, The Poem
RAINER MARIA RILKE, trans. Denise Levertov, I Praise
MARINA TSVETAEVA, trans. Elaine Feinstein, from Desk
BRENDA HILLMAN, Before My Pencil
SEAMUS HEANEY, Digging
ANNE BRADSTREET, The Author to Her Book
JOHN BERRYMAN, from Two Organs
The Muse
SAPPHO, No Room for Grief
EDMUND SPENSER, from The Faerie Queene
ANNA AKHMATOVA, trans. Judith Hemschemeyer, Solitude
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, Loving in Truth
LINDA HOGAN, Ravelings
ROBINSON JEFFERS, Shine, Perishing Republic
BERTOLT BRECHT, In Dark Times
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
DAN WABER, Ars Poetica
ELIZABETH TREADWELL, Dinosaur Meat
Quotes
PAUL VALERY, from The Cemetery by the Sea
I.A. RICHARDS, Dismission
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, from The Albatross
Poetry Practices
2. Poetry as Nourishment: How to Read as a Poet
Poets as Readers
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, The Chambered Nautilus
Letting A Poem Read You
MOTHER GOOSE, Little Miss Muffet
BILLY COLLINS, Introduction to Poetry
Memorization
The Poetry Compost-Pile and the Poet’s Notebook
Reading through Writing: Parody, Imitation, and Response
P.K. PAGE, Autumn
RICHARD GRANT WHITE, After Walt Whitman
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love WALTER RALEIGH, The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Quotes
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, from Ode to the West Wind
JONATHAN SWIFT, from Poetry: A Rhapsody
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, from Sonnet 59
Poetry Practices
A Poet’s Bookshelf: For Further Reading
Handbooks and Introductions to Poetry
Inspiration
Modes of Poetry
The Writer’s Notebook
3. Thirty-Nine Ways to Make a Poem: A Generative Resource
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Quotes
Poetry Practices
4. The Raw Material: Words and Their Roots
ANONYMOUS, 20th century
The Many Languages of English
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, from Macbeth
WALLACE STEVENS, The Emperor of Ice Cream
SYLVIA PLATH, Lady Lazarus
WALLACE STEVENS, The Comedian as the Letter C
LORNA DEE CERVANTES, Freeway 280
JOE BALAZ, Da History of Pigeon
Levels of Diction
ROBERT CREELEY, I Know a Man
RUTH FORMAN, Sometime
RAY GONZALEZ, It was a Turtle
Allusion
VERONICA GOLOS, South Carolina
Diction and Difficulty
LEWIS CARROLL, Jabberwocky
HART CRANE, Voyages: IV
KATE SONTAG, Making Step Beautiful in Maine [begins with quote from Thoreau’s The Maine Woods, 3 lines]
DENNIS LEE, history
GERARD MANLY HOPKINS, Hurrahing in Harvest
The Power of Naming
VACHEL LINDSAY, The Flower-Fed Buffaloes
JOHN HOLLANDER, Adam’s Task
Mining Etymology
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
SYLVIA PLATH, from Words
Quotes
ADRIENNE RICH, from The Burning of Paper Instead of Children HORACE, from Ars Poetica
Poetry Practices
5. Three Modes of Poetry: Lyric, Dramatic, and Narrative
The Lyric Poem
LOUISE LABÉ, Sonnet 12
ANONYMOUS, 15th century, O Western Wind
ROBERT BURNS, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, My Candle Burns at Both Ends
PABLO NERUDA, Ode to the Onion
LUCINDA ROY, The Curse
LISA JARNOT, Untitled
Dramatic Poetry
W.B. YEATS, from The Death of Cuchulain
ROBERT FROST, from The Witch of Coos
CARLA HARRYMAN, from Memory Play
ROBERT BROWNING, My Last Duchess
LUCILLE CLIFTON, Holy Night
THOMAS HARDY, The Man He Killed
ADRIAN OKTENBERG, from The Bosnia Elegies
MAHMOUD DARWISH, from Two Strangers in Our Feathers
ANDREW MARVELL, To His Coy Mistress
Narrative Poems
STEPHEN CRANE, from The Back Riders
GARY SOTO, A Red Palm
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, Kubla Khan
EMILY DICKINSON, Poem 520
VIRGIL, The Aeneid
ALEXANDER POPE, The Rape of the Lock
Questions for Meditation and Discussion
GALWAY KINNELL, Hide and Seek, 1933
Quotes
Poetry Practices
Part 2: Making Poems
6. Making Senses: Imagery and Abstraction
What is an Image?
ARCHIBALD MACLEISH, Ars Poetica
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, Nantucket
WILDRED OWEN, Dulce et Decorum Est
WENDELL BERRY, The Peace of Wild Things
ANNE CARSON, God’s List of Liquids
Writing With Imagery
Haiku, Focus and Objective Correlative
ISSA, I Look Close and See
BASHO, Inside the Old Pond
TRACIE MORRIS, Prelude to a Kiss
IZUMI SHIKIBU, Lying Alone
ONO NO KOMACHI, This Autumn Night
BASHO, Temple Bells Die Out
COUNTEE CULLEN, from Heritage
SARA TEASDALE, Gramercy Park
LI-YOUNG LEE, Eating Together
ROBERT BLY, The Cat in the Kitchen
KATHRINE VARNES, Sonnet 1
Unreal Imagery
LISA SUHAIR MAJAJ, Jerusalem Song
DEREK WALCOTT, Love After Love
FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA, La guitarra
Trans. Cindy Williams Gutiérrez, The Guitar
Lyric and Narrative Imagery
MAURA DEL SERRA, trans. Michael Palma, Emily Dickinson
VENUS KHOURY-GHATA, trans. Marilyn Hacker, from She Says
MAY SWENSON, Motherhood
LI CHU, trans. Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung, Harvesting Wheat for the Public Share
ROBERT FROST, Design
A Place for Abstraction
EMILY DICKINSON (3 lines)
ROBERT E. HAYDEN, Those Winter Sundays
ADRIENNE RICH, In Those Years
QUINCY TROUPE, Poem for Friends
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Quotes
Poetry Practices
7. Turn, Turn, Turn: Metaphors and Other Tropes
ANDREW HUDGINS, Threats and Lamentations
Simile
ODYSSEUS ELYTIS, from Maria Nefele’s Song
RABINODRATH TAGORE, Gitanjali 95
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, A Birthday
Metaphor, Implied Metaphor, and Double Entendre
MAXINE KUMIN, Morning Swim
WILLIAM BLAKE, Proverb II
W.S. MERWIN, Some Last Questions
ANONYMOUS, I have a gentle cock
Kennings and Formulae
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward
Extended Metaphor, Analogy, Allegory, and Symbol
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, from Finis
JANE HIRSHFIELD, Late Self-Portrait by Rembrandt
JOHN DONNE, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
LISEL MUELLER, Love Like Salt
EDWARD TAYLOR, Huswifery
LANGSTON HUGHES, Island
WALT WHITMAN, A Noiseless Patient Spider
EDMUND SPENSER, from The Faerie Queene
E. A. ROBINSON, New England
WILLIAM BLAKE, A Poison Tree
ADRIENNE RICH, from Waking in the Dark
DUDLEY RANDALL, Black Poet, White Critic
EDUARDO C. CORRAL, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
ZONAS, 1st century B.C., trans. Brooks Haxton, Charon
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, from Correspondences (2 lines)
Synesthesia, Synechdoche, Metonymy, Personification, and Antaclasis
ARTHUR RIMBAUD, Vowels
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, from Leda and the Swan
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, from To the Diaspora
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, from Thanatopsis
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, from Ode to the West Wind
TIM SEIBLES, from After Awhile
LANGSTON HUGHES, from Theme for English B
Writing Tropes
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, from A Musical Instrument
NINA CASSIAN, trans. Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant, Licentiousness
Cliché
King James translation, 950 B.C., from The Song of Solomon
FRANCESCO PETRARCH, trans. A.S. Kline, Sonnet 292
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 130
JEAN TOOMER, Portrait in Georgia
GABRIELA MISTRAL, trans. Ursula Le Guin, Pineapple
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
MATTHEW ARNOLD, from Dover Beach
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, from To a Skylark
Quotes
Poetry Practices
PAUL MULDOON, The Old Country
8. What if a Much of a Which of a Word-Music? Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance and Onomatopoeia
WALLACE STEVENS, Sunday Morning
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Days
MARY HERBERT, The Dolefull Lay of Clarinda
YONA HARVEY, Going to Hear My Child’s Heartbeat for the First Time—Part 2
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, from Come Down, Oh Maid
JOHN KEATS, from Ode to a Nightingale
JENNY FACTOR, Song Beside a Sippy Cup
THOMAS NASHE, Spring
MARGARET DANNER, The Painted Lady
Word Music as Experimentation
HUGO BALL, Karawane
LANGSTON HUGHES, Nightmare Boogie
MARILYN HACKER, Rune of the Finland Woman
DIANE GLANCY, Indian Chant
Rhyme: Definitions
Kinds of Rhyme
RITA DOVE, from Blown Apart by Loss
JOHN DONNE, from The Calm
WILFRED OWEN, Futility
SANDRA CISNEROS, from The Poet Reflects on her Solitary Life
EMILY DICKINSON, Poem # 1078
KIM ADDONIZIO, Blues for Dante Alighieri
JOSEPH BRODSKY, from December in Florence
DIXON LANIER MERRITT, The Pelican
PHILIP LARKIN, from Churchgoing
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
RANDALL MANN, The Heron
EDGAR ALLAN POE, from The Raven
ANNIE FINCH, Brigid
SYLVIA PLATH, Black Rook in Rainy Weather
JOHN SKELTON, from Colin Cloute
ROBERT FROST, from After Apple-Picking
Rhyme and Emphasis
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
SONIA SANCHEZ, from Song No. 2
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, from Macbeth
Rhyme and Meaning
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 73
LANGSTON HUGHES, Casualty
MOLLY PEACOCK, Of Night
ROBERT FROST, Bereft
PAUL MULDOON, The Outlier
MARGARET DANNER, The Painted Lady
THOM GUNN, The Night-Piece
AARON SHURIN, If the judgement’s cruel
Advice on Rhyming
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, Beverly Hills, Chicago
Questions for Contemplation or Discussion
ROBERT HERRICK, Whenas in Silks My Julia Goes
STANLEY KUNITZ, Touch Me
ROBERT LOWELL, from The Quaker Graveyard Off Nantucket
ROBERT FROST, The Most of It
SEAMUS HEANEY, from History
Quotes
MAJOR JACKSON, from Letter to Brooks
Poetry Practices
9. Syntax: Words in Order and Disorder
Simple and Complex Sentences
ANONYMOUS, The Man of Double Deed
GWENDOLYN B. BENNETT, To a Dark Girl
MAHMOUD DARWISH, trans. Abdullah Al-Udhari, Earth Poem
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 154
ALEXANDER POPE (1 line)
ANNE FINCH, Countess of Winchelsea, (2 lines)
JOHN MILTON, from Paradise Lost
ANDREW MARVELL, from The Garden
WANG PING, Syntax
Punctuation
T.S. ELIOT, from Four Quartets (2 lines)
EMILY DICKINSON, from 569 (2 lines)
EDMUND SPENSER, Sonnet 81
D.H. LAWRENCE, Wedlock
e.e. cummings, O sweet spontaneous
MARGARET ROCKWELL FINCH, Last Hill
Rhetorical Devices
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, from Astrophel and Stella: 1
BRENDA HILLMAN, Male Nipples
e.e. cummings, pity this busy monster, manunkind
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, from Othello (2 lines)
ALEXANDER POPE, from The Rape of the Lock
LOUISE ERDRICH, The Butcher’s Wife
DOROTHY PARKER, Verse for a Certain Dog
Stretching and Breaking Language
AUDRE LORDE, Letting Go
TIM SEIBLES (3 lines)
ROBERT DUNCAN, from The Opening of the Field
BARRETT WATTEN, from Plasma
Questions for Meditation and Discussion
Quotes
E.E. CUMMINGS, from Since Feeling is First
Poetry Practices
10. Stop Making Sense: Exploratory Poetics and Poetic Experiments JOHN WILKINSON, from Case in Point
Poetry and Meaning
GERTRUDE STEIN, Dirt and Not Copper
ROSEMARIE WALDROP, Signatures of Doctrine
Procedural Poems
HARRYETTE MULLEN, Dim Lady
JOAN RETALLACK, Aid/i/sappearance
JACKSON MACLOW, Call me Ishmael
DAN ZIMMERMAN, from Isotopes
CHRISTIAN BOK,from Eunoia
Found and Genre Poems
BARBARA J. PULMANO REYES, Notes From a Forum on the Pilipino American Historical Context of Urban Development
JEN BEVINS, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 15
MICHAEL MAGEE, Pledge: 1
CATHY BOWMAN, Wedding Invitation III
Primary Process
MARGO BERDESHEVSKY, Special Tale in 18 Lines
KIMIKO HAHN, from Wellfleet, Midsummer
Questions for Meditation and Discussion
Quotes
Poetry Practices
Part 3: Making as Shaping: The Rhythms of Poems
11. Hearing the Beat: Accent and Accentual Poetry Accent and Emotion
Syllabic Poetry
MARIANNE MOORE, She Trimmed the Candles Like One Who Loves the Beautiful
DYLAN THOMAS, Fern Hill
DONALD JUSTICE, The Thin Man
PETER MEINKE, Zinc Fingers
Accentual Poetry
GILDA RADNER (Rozane Rozana-danna), Jeans
ANONYMOUS, 9th century, trans. Annie Finch, The Seafarer
ELIZABETH BISHOP, The Moose
LANDIS EVERSON, Famine
ELIZABETH WOODY, from The Girlfriends
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, from Easter 1916
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, From a Railway Carriage
Quotes
Poetry Practices
12. Meter: A Language for the Body Prosody and History
THE GAWAIN POET, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, from The Wife of Bath’s Tale
Scansion Marks
The Four Most Common Metrical Patterns
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, from Hiawatha
ANNE BRADSTREET, To My Dearest and Loving Husband
HENRY LIVINGSTON JR., from The Night Before Christmas
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, from Evangeline
The Metrical Foot
Meter in Contemporary Poetry
LISA JARNOT, Hound Pastoral
ALLISON JOSEPH, Parable
RACHEL LODEN, Nineveh Fallen
How to Scan a Poem
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, From Love is not all
Why Bother?
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Quotes
ALEXANDER POPE, From Essay on Criticism
DOROTHY PARKER, Fighting Words
Poetry Practices
13. The Many Voices of Iambic Meter
R.S. GWYNN, Approaching a Significant Birthday, He Peruses The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Blank Verse, Enjambment, and Caesura
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, Ulysses
The Five Basic Variations in Iambic Pentameter
Anapests as Variations
CHARLES MARTIN, Breaking Old Ground
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, I Shall Go Back
WILLIAM MEREDITH, The Illiterate
Trochees as Variations
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, from Among School Children
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, from I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Spondees and Pyrrhics as Variations
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, We Real Cool
GEORGE PEELE, Bathsheba’s Song
DYLAN THOMAS, from Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
HART CRANE, from To Brooklyn Bridge
SUZANNE DOYLE, Some Girls
ALEXANDER POPE, from Essay on Criticism
Headless and Extra-Syllable Lines
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ, from To the Desert
ROBERT HAYDEN, from Those Winter Sundays (1 line)
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, from Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (1 line)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, from Hamlet
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, Sonnet 30
MARILYN NELSON, Chosen
ROBERT FROST, from Birches
Expressive Variation and Keeping Your Balance
ANNE FINCH, The Apology
JOHN DONNE, Batter My Heart
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 116
ALEXANDER POPE (2 lines)
Iambic Dimeter, Trimeter, Tetrameter and Fourteeners
THEODORE ROETHKE, from Open House
JOHN KEATS, I Had a Dove
THEODORE ROETHKE, My Papa’s Waltz
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, from Under the Rose
LANGSTON HUGHES, Justice
GEORGE HERBERT, Love (III)
OVID, Trans. By Arthur Golding, from Metamorphoses
Iambic Pentameter in the Twenty-First Century
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
THEODORE ROETHKE, Four for Sir John Davies
Quotes
Poetry Practices
14. The Metrical Palette: Beyond Iambic Pentameter
Trochaic Meter
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, from Macbeth
WILLIAM BLAKE, The Tyger
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, from The Song of Hiawatha
SARAH JOSEPHA HALE, from Iron
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, from The Anniad
W.H. AUDEN, Lullaby
Anapestic Meter
WILLIAM COWPER, from Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk
SAMUEL COLERIDGE, Metrical Fee: A Lesson for a Boy
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, From A Song in Time of Revolution
LORD BYRON, From The Destruction of Sennacharib
SARA TEASDALE, I Would Live in Your Love
LEWIS CARROLL, from The Hunting of the Snark
EMILY BRONTE, from M.A.—Written on the Dungeon Wall—N.C.
HENRY LIVINGSTON JR., from The Night Before Christmas
Dactylic Meter
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, from Evangeline
SYLVIA PLATH, from Mushrooms
A.E. STALLINGS, Arachne Gives Thanks to Athena
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, from Goblin Market
GENEVIEVE TAGGARD, At Last the Women are Moving
RACHEL HADAS, The Slip
R.S. GWYNN, The Denouement
Mixed Meters
GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON, Your World
JUDITH MOFFETT, Mezzo Cammin
JOHN DRYDEN, from A Hymn for St Cecilia’s Day
Amphibrachs, Dipodics, and Hendecasyllabics
ANNA AKHMATOVA, trans. Annie Finch and George Kline, The White Bird
ARIELLE GREENBERG, The Meter of the Night Sky
ALGERNON SWINBURNE, Hendecasyllabics
PATRICIA SMITH, The Reemeregence of the Noose
Meter and Meaning
ANONYMOUS, Dr. Seuss Tech Support
JULIA ALVAREZ, What Could it Be
Questions for Meditations or Discussion
Quotes
Poetry Practices
15. Forms of Free Verse
GEORGE HERBERT, The Collar
Six Types of Free Verse
WALT WHITMAN, Section 8 from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
H.D., Sea Poppies
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, Blood
ANNE CARSON, from Book of Isaiah
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, from Boy Breaking Glass
AUDRE LORDE, from Coal
ROBERT DUNCAN, from the Torso
LINDA GREGERSON, from Sold
Prose Poems
SUSAN SCHULTZ, from Before the Next War
RUSSELL EDSON, You
SAWAKO NAKAYASU, A field of fried umbrellas
The Line in Free Verse
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, To a Poor Old Woman
E. ETHELBERT MILLER, Breakfast with Naomi Ayala
GALWAY KINNELL, Daybreak
DIANE DIPRIMA, And where thou art I am
GLORIA FRYM, from Homeless at Home (2 lines)
LUCINDA ROY, from The Humming Birds (5 lines)
TIM SEIBLES, from Hardie (2 lines)
LORINE NIEDECKER, Margaret Fuller
SUE STANDING, from Waking up in the Swamp (3 lines)
HAYDEN CARRUTH, from Five Short Shorts
ROBERT CREELEY, from The Europeans
HEATHER MCHUGH, from A
KEVIN YOUNG, from Aubade
JUNE JORDAN, from Lullaby
LANGSTON HUGHES, I’ve Known Rivers
W.S. MERWIN, from Native Trees
W.H. AUDEN, from Musee des Beaux Arts
SHARON OLDS, from I Go Back to May 1937
LUCI TAPAHONSO, from Leda and the Cowboy
FARIDEH HASANZADEH, from Isn’t it Enough
ADRIENNE RICH, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, from Easter 1916
H.D., from The Walls Do Not Fall
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Quotes
Poetry Practices
Part 4: Shaping Poems
16. Stanzas: A Poem’s Breathing Rooms
The Stanza in Free Verse, Form, and Shaped Poems
WILLIAM BLAKE, London
ROBERT FROST, To Earthward
MALKA HEIFETZ TUSSMAN, Last Apple
COLE SWENSON, from June 2
GEORGE HERBERT, from Easter Wings
MAY SWENSON, Bleeding
Two and Three-line Stanzas
ALEXANDER POPE, from Essay on Criticism
MARGARET CAVENDISH, Nature’s Cook
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, from A Vision of Poets
DANTE, trans. Michael Palma, from Divina Commedia
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, from Ode to the West Wind
DEREK WALCOTT, from The Bounty
Four-Line Stanzas
MOTHER GOOSE, Three Children
W.H. AUDEN, As I Walked Out One Evening
COUNTEE CULLEN, Incident
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, from The Destruction of Sennacherib
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, from In Memoriam
RICHARD WILBUR, Advice to a Prophet
SAPPHO, Moon and Stars, translated by John Myers O’Hara
ALGERNON SWINBURNE, from Hymn to Aphrodite
WILLIAM MEREDITH, Effort at Speech
MARILYN HACKER, from Dusk: July
MARY SIDNEY, from Psalm 120
WILLIAM BLAKE, from Evening
MARILYN HACKER, from Going Back to the River
Longer Stanzas
PHILIP LARKIN, Home is So Sad
EDMUND SPENSER, from The Faerie Queene
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, from Venus and Adonis
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, from Troilus and Criseyde
MAJOR JACKSON, from Letter to Brooks
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, from Don Juan
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, from Among School Children
EDMUND SPENSER, from The Faerie Queene
JOHN KEATS, from The Eve of St. Agnes
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, from Adonais
GEORGE SANTAYANA, Decima
The Dynamic Stanza
EMILY GALVIN, Light Warning
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Quotes
Poetry Practices
17. Worth Repeating: Poems Based on Repetition
PETE TOWNSHEND, Drifting Blues Poem
OLD TESTAMENT, KING JAMES VERSION, from Song of Solomon
WALT WHITMAN, from Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking
OLENA KALYTIAK DAVIS, O Great Slacker
CHRISTOPHER SMART, from Jubilate Agno
JOY HARJO, Ah, Ah
MURIEL RUKEYSER, Looking at Each Other
The Blues
LANGSTON HUGHES, The Weary Blues
SONIA SANCHEZ, Song No. 2
NATASHA TRETEWEY, Graveyard Blues
Villanelle
THEODORE ROETHKE, from The Waking (2 lines)
DYLAN THOMAS, from Do Not Go Gentle (2 lines)
ELIZABETH BISHOP, from One Art (2 lines)
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON, The House on the Hill
MICHAEL RYAN, Milk the Mouse
ELIZABETH BISHOP, One Art
DYLAN THOMAS, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
MENDI OBADIKE, Contagion
ADRIENNE RICH, Women and Honor
Sestina and Canzone
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, From Ye Gote-heard Gods
RUDYARD KIPLING, From Sestina of the Tramp-Royal
ELIZABETH BISHOP, Sestina
ANTHONY HECHT, The Book of Yolek
MARILYN HACKER, Untoward Occurrence at an Embassy Poetry Reading
HELEN FROST, my choice………KATIE
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, from Sestina
AGHA SHAHID ALI, Lenox Hill
Rondeau, Triolet, and Tritina
AUSTIN DOBSON, from The Same Imitated
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR, We Wear the Mask
MARILYN HACKER, from Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons
A.E. Stallings, Triolet on a Line Apocryphally Attributed to Martin Luther
MARIE PONSOT, Roundstone Cove
Paradelle
BILLY COLLINS, from Paradelle for Susan
HENRY TAYLOR, Paradelle: Nocturne de la Ville
Ghazal
ROBERT BLY, Call and Answer
JOHN DRURY, Ghazal of the Lagoon
MIMI KHALVATI, Ghazal
Pantoum
NELLIE WONG, Grandmother’s Song
ELAINE EQUI, from A Date with Robbe-Grillet
PAUL MULDOON, The Mountain is Holding Out
Refrain in Free Verse and Form
LUCIA TRENT, Breed, Women, Breed
JANE KENYON, Otherwise
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, from A Boy’s Will
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
WESLI COURT, Sestina
Poetry Practice
Quotes
18. Deep Story: The Ballad
ANONYMOUS, Tiranti, My Son
ANONYMOUS, From Clerk Saunders
ANONYMOUS, The Willow Tree
HELEN ADAM, I Love My Love
LANGSTON HUGHES, Madam and the Census Man
DUDLEY RANDALL, Ballad of Birmingham: On the Bombing of a Church in Alabama, 1963
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, from The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
ELIZABETH BISHOP, from The Burglar of Babylon
LEE ANN BROWN, Ballad of Susan Smith
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Quotes
Poetry Practices
ANONYMOUS, Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight
19. Chaos in Fourteen Lines: The Sonnet WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Nuns Fret Not
CLAUDE MCKAY, If We Must Die
The Italian and English Sonnet
MARK JARMAN, Unholy Sonnet
JOHN BERRYMAN, Sonnet 115
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, I Will Put Chaos Into Fourteen Lines
EMMA LAZARUS, The New Colossus
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet II, 16
ROBERT FROST, The Silken Tent
Writing Sonnets
LOUISE BOGAN, Single Sonnet
RUTH PADEL, Tiger Drinking at Forest Pool
KAREN VOLKMAN, Sonnet
JUNE JORDAN, Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Miracle Wheatley
Sonnets and Sequences
Reclaiming the Sonnet
LOUISE LABE, trans. Annie Finch, Sonnet 18
OWEN DODSON, Midnight Bell
JOHN DONNE, Batter my heart, three person’d God
Variations and Deformations of the Sonnet
GERARD MANLY HOPKINS, Pied Beauty
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, The Sonnet-Ballad
ROBERT LOWELL, History
TED BERRIGAN, from Sonnets
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
JOHN KEATS, If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain’d
Quotes
Poetry Practices
Part 5: Bearing the Gift
20. Revisioning Revision
Revision Tactics and Strategies
Big Changes, Small Changes: Opening Doors
SYLVIA PLATH, from Lady Lazarus
JOHN KEATS, from To Autumn
T.S. ELIOT, from Four Quartets
Focus
Re-Formations
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, The Cap and Bells
Audience and Feedback
Titles
OGDEN NASH, Reflections on a Wicked World
AGHA SHAHID ALI, On Hearing a Lover Not Seen for Twenty Years Has Attempted Suicide
A Checklist for Revision
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Sample Set of Drafts
ANNIE FINCH, Revelry
Quotes
ALEXANDER POPE, from Essay on Criticism
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Poetry Practices
21. Bearing the Gift: Sharing Your Poetry through Publication and Readings JACK SPICER
Where and How to Send Out Your Poems
Rejections
RACHEL LODEN, We are Sorry to Say
KIM ADDONIZIO, from Dear Editor
Taking Things into Your Own Hands
Arranging and Planning a Poetry Reading
Performing Your Work
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
JOHN KEATS, This Living Hand
Quotes
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, The Coat
22. Getting It Together: Creating a Chapbook or Book Arranging Your Book of Poems
How to Edit a Poetry Anthology
Questions for Meditation or Discussion
Quotes
EZRA POUND, from The Cantos
Poetry Practices
A Blessing on the Poets