These are not hyperlinked (sorry) but you can do a search near the bottom of the right-hand column. I have not included the scattered blog posts about poetry in this list, but they are worth reading: Click “about poetry” in the Categories section on the right-hand column for a complete list of entries.
Recent Posts
228. Introduction to Poetry: Billy Collins
227. An American Sunrise: Joy Marjo
226. Flag Salute: Esther Poper
225. April Midnight: Arthur Symons
224. Enough: Suzanne Buffam
223. Meditations on Statistical Method: J.V. Cunningham
222. The Magic of Technology: Aneta Brodski
221. The Art of Making Possible: Nancy Scheibner
220. Good Bones: Maggie Smith
219. Beam 10: Ronald Johnson
218. At the California Institute of Technology: Richard Brautigan
217. A Word on Statistics: Wislawa Szyborska
216. Briggsflatts: Basil Bunting
215. Fire Safety: Joshua Mehigan
214. Grip: Jericho Brown
213. Anecdote of the Jar: Wallace Stevens
212. the genius of the crowd: Charles Bukowski
211. To Be of Use: Marge Piercy
210. I started Early – Took my Dog -: Emily Dickinson
209. Burnt Norton: T.S. Eliot
Shooting an Elephant: George Orwell
208. Knots: R. D. Laing
207. A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London: Dylan Thomas
206: Paradise Lost: Book II: John Milton
205. what your mother tells you now: Mitsuye Yamada
204. Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note: Amiri Baracka
203. Richard Cory: Edwin Arlington Robinson
202. The Glass Essay: Anne Carson
201. western springs zoo: Sonja Yelich
200. You Are Odysseus: Linda Pastan
199. A Dirge: Christina Rossetti
198. Auguries of Innocence: William Blake
197. The Raven: Edgard Allen Poe
196. This Merit hath the worst: Emily Dickinson
195. Preliminary Report from the Committee on Appropriate Postures for the Suffering: Jon Davis
194. TO ANNA D. B. MONTAGU; 18 July 1825 (Excerpt): Thomas Carlyle
193. Remember: Christina Rossetti
192. Self-Pity: D. H. Lawrence
191. Those Winter Sundays: Robert Hayden
190. The Horses: Edwin Muir
189. Your Attention Please: Peter Porter
188. Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining Into the World: Jane Hirschfield
187. Tracks: Tomas Transtromer
186. My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun -: Emily Dickinson
185. Fire and Ice: Robert Frost
184. Dulce et Decorum Est: Wilfred Owen
183. The Crisis: W. H. Auden
182: All the is Gold does not Glitter: J. R. R. Tolkien
181. Language teaching: naming: Jenny Joseph
180. Is Love, then, so Simple: Irene Rutherford Mcleod
179. Edward Field: Three Frankenstein Poems
178. A Psalm of Life: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
177. Rain in Summer: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
176. Touring the Doll Hospital: Amy Gerstler
175. Ode to Marbles: Max Mendelsohn
174. The Scream: Edvard Munch
173. Prayer To Persephone: Edna St. Vincent Millay
172. Alphabet: Catherine French
171. Delight in Disorder: Robert Herrick
170. I am Waiting: Lawrence Ferlinghetti
169: The Child Ballads. Andrew Bartin: Anonymous
168. Stein 100: A Feather Likeness of the Justice Chair: Jackson Mac Low
167. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: Richard Brautigan
166. Now is the Winter of Our Discontent: William Shakespeare
165. Rites of Passage: Sharon Olds
164. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death: Y. B. Yeats
163. Children: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
162. Invisible Hand: Etheridge Knight
161. Regarding Chainsaws: Hayden Carruth
160. Schubertiana: Tomas Tranströmer
159. Spring and Fall: Gerard Manley Hopkins
158: Constitution: Habib Jalib
157: A Litany for Survival: Audre Lorde
156. Our Lady of Perpetual Help: April Lindner
155. Book 7, Epigram: De senectute & iuuentute: Thomas Bastard
154. The Old Clock on the Stairs: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
153. The Angry Man: Phyllis McGinley
152. Hangman: Maurice Ogden
151. Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly: Li Po
150. Chicago: Carl Sandburg
149. The Last Rose of Summer: Thomas Moore
148. Anne: Gerður Kristný
147. What I Would Give: Rafael Campo
146. Memorabilia: Robert Browning
145. Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies: Edna St. Vincent Millay
144. Incident: Countee Cullen
143. Let America Be America Again: Langston Hughes
142. Song of Three Soldiers: Stephen Vincent Benet
141. The Conference of the Birds (excerpt): Farid ud-Din Attar
140. The Masque of Anarchy: Percy Bysshe Shelley
139. Maple Syrup: Donald Hall
138: A Word with You: Elizabeth Bishop
137: Hands: Sarah Kay
136. One With Others (excerpt): C. D. Wright
135. Man Watching a Woman: Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
134. The Bird of Time, #24: Sarojini Naidu
133. First Love: John Clare
132. We’ll go no more a-roving: George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron
131. The Worker and the Tramp: Jack London
130. Goalkeeper Joe: Marriott Edgar
129. The snow is melting: Kobayashi Issa
128. Snow Day: Billy Collins
127. The Second Coming: W. B. Yeats
126. The Hand: Mary Ruefle
125. We Are Made One with What We Touch and See: Oscar Wilde
124. There is Pleasure in the Pathless Woods: Lord George Gordon Byron
123. Do not stand at my grave and weep: Mary Elizabeth Frye
122. “To Those Of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals”–never to look a hot comb in the teeth: Gwendolyn Brooks
121. Chanson Dada: Tristan Tzara
120. Miss Thompson Goes Shopping: Martin Armstrong
119. At the Galleria Shopping Mall: Tony Hoagland
118. The Blue Seuss: Terrance Hayes
117. Boots: Rudyard Kipling
116. Room: Chris Hutchinson
115. Autumn: Alexander S. Pushkin
114. The Witches’ Spell from Macbeth: William Shakespeare
113. The Proverbs of Hell: William Blake
112. Autumn Movement: Carl Sandburg
111. Autumn Love: Li Ching Chao
110. To Autumn: John Keats
109. Autobiography in Five Short Chapters: Portia Nelson
108. The Book-Worms: Robert Burns
107. Dover Beach: Matthew Arnold
106. Starting from Paumanok: Walt Whitman
105. First Day of School: Robert McGough
104. A Summer Wooing: Louise Chandler Moulton
103. Hey, Nonny, Nonny: William Shakespeare
102. Colin: Shepard Tonie
101. So Long: Walt Whitman
100. My Children-Home I See Again: Abraham Lincoln
99. Allegory of the Supermarket: Stephanie Brown
98. yonder deadfromtheneckup graduate: e. e. cummings
97. Knows How to Forget: Emily Dickinson
96. Auguries of Innocence: William Blake
95. The Tyger: William Blake
94. For a War Memorial: G. K. Chesterton
93. The House With Nobody In It: Joyce Kilmer
92. The Houses: Rudyard Kipling
91. The House: Charles Bukowski
90. Bread and Roses: James Oppenheim
89. The Secret Heart: Robert Peter Tristam Coffin
88. Poet’s Work: Lorine Niedecker
87. Slough: John Betjeman
86. 1(a… (a leaf falls on loneliness): e. e. cummings
85. Sound and Sense: Alexander Pope
84. By My New Banana Plant: Matsuo Basho
83. De rerum natura 2.348-51 and 366-370: Lucretius
82. Aeneid 1. 430-37: Vergil
81. Solitude: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
80. Why I Am Not a Painter: Frank O’Hara
79. To a Mouse: Robert Burns
78. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love: Christopher Marlowe
77. Monologue 1: Brother Theodore
76. Typhus: Louis Simpson
75. Advice From A Speedskater: Priscila Uppal
74. We Are More: Shane Koyczan
73. The Olympic Girl: John Betjeman
72. I Write in the Laundrymat: Marcy Sheiner
71. Buffalo Bill: e. e. cummings
70. Auld Lang Syne: Robert Burns
69. Invictus: William Ernest Henley
68. Homage to a Government: Phillip Larkin
67. Pioneers! Oh, Pioneers!: Walt Whitman
66. Two Views of a Cadaver Room: Sylvia Plath
65. Mildred’s Umbrella: Gertrude Stein
64. I Sing, the Body Electric: Walt Whitman
63. They Say That Time Assuages: Emily Dickinson
62. My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun: Sonnet 130: William Shakespeare
61. The Owl and the Pussycat: Edward Lear
60. She Walks in Beauty: George Gordon Byron
59. Goodtime Jesus: James Tate
58. This Is Just to Say: Williams Carlos Williams
57. The Blind Men and the Elephant: John Godfrey Saxe
56. America: Walt Whitman
55. What is Success: Ralph Waldo Emerson
54. If: Rudyard Kipling
53. The Red Wheelbarrow: William Carlos Williams
52. Concord Hymn: Ralph Waldo Emerson
51. Frost at Midnight: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
50. The Naming of Cats: T.S. Eliot
49. Walden (excerpt): Henry David Thoreau
48. We Real Cool: Gwendolyn Brooks
47. Warning: Jenny Joseph
46. In a Station of The Metro: Ezra Pound
45. The Ballad of William Bloat: Raymond Calvert
44. The Congo: Vachel Lindsay
43. Defence of Fort McHenry: Francis Scott Key
42. The New Colossus: Emma Lazarus
41. Land of Hope and Glory: Pomp and Circumstances Marches: A.C. Benson
40. The Road Not Taken: Robert Frost
39. This England: from Richard II: William Shakespeare
38. Carving a Name: Horatio Alger, Jr.
37. Ozymandias: Percy Shelley
36. No Man is an Island: John Donne
35. On the Late Massacre in Piedmont: John Milton
34. Big Rock Candy Mountain: Harry McClintock
33. This Land is Your Land: Woody Guthrie
32. The Barefoot Boy: John Greenleaf Whittier
31. Don’t Ask Me What to Wear: Sappho
30. It’s No Use: Sappho
29. Gitanjali: Rabindranath Tagore
28. The Wound Dresser: Walt Whitman
27. Now: Mary Barnard
26. Amazing Grace: John Newton
25. The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
24. I’ll Fly Away: Albert E. Brumley
23. Height of the Ridiculous: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
22. Richard Cory: Edwin Arlington Robinson
21. To a Louse: On Seeing One On A Lady’s Bonnet, At Church: Robert Burns
20. Epitaph for William Nicol, High School, Edinburgh: Robert Burns
19. Song of Myself: Walt Whitman
18. Band of Brothers: St. Crispin Day Speech: Henry V: William Shakespeare
17. The Chimney Sweeper: William Blake
16. the Virgins, to make much of Time: Robert Herrick
15. Death Be Not Proud: John Donne
14. In the Desert: Stephen Crane
13. The Golf Links: Sarah N. Cleghorn
12. My Funeral: Hazim Hickmet
11. Enter Patient: William Ernest Henley
10. A Narrow Fellow in the Grass: Emily Dickinson
9. Because I Could Not Stop for Death: Emily Dickinson
8. A theory of communication: Bob Hicok
7. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud: William Wordsworth
6. Casey at the Bat: Ernest Thayer
5. Jabberwocky: Lewis Carroll
4. The Charge of the Light Brigade: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
3. First Fig: Edna St. Vincent Milay
2. When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer: Walt Whitman
1. The Arrow and the Song: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Middle School Poetry 180 
I’m searching for a poem I thought was called “The Thing About Poetry” that talked about once you got into writing it, you became obsessed. The author mentioned Feningetti. I thought it was by Billy Collins……but I’ve been unsuccessful. Any suggestions?
You were right, it is Billy Collins, but the title is “The Trouble with Poetry” not “Thing”. It took a bit of cross searching, as “The Things About Poetry” gets a lot of hits, and Ferlinghetti even uses the phrase in some interviews (I, too, had to look up the spelling of his name). Here is a PDF file of Collins’ poem, on the same page as a reprint of Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind.”
Click to access CollinsAndFerlinghettiOnline.pdf
It’s also in several other magazines, sites and books; once you get the title right, internet searchers are easy! Here is bit from Edutopia, as I really like this magazine.
http://www.edutopia.org/trouble-poetry
Enjoy!
Technical Request – Please, please, PLEASE could you hyperlink? Or provide a pdf or word doc with all 180? I tried cut and paste, but the lines combine…
I will try and see how much of a rigmarole the technical piece is for hyperlinking. I’ve been a bit lazy lately in even posting poems, but I’ll try. When I look back on my early entries, I’m amazed at how little I wrote. In the past year, I’ve dropped in links to author’s books and YouTube videos. This might be the next step.
It was unclear if you wanted a PDF list of each poem, or just the list of “The Poems”. Let me know so I can focus on that specific need.
When I tried to cut “The Poems” list it cut and I easily pasted it into a Word document easily enough. As I highlighted the list I wanted and scrolled down, it did pick up the other columns, but when I hovered my cursor over the list again it only blocked the list itself. The same was true when I went to the poems. Again, let me know exactly what you want to do and I’ll see what’s needed on the technical end of things.
For projecting poems, if you use Ctrl and the + keys the screen enlarges and you can go back with Ctrl and the – key. Then it’s large enough for kids to see everywhere in the room.
I’d like to be able to print off all 180 poems at the same time, so that I can use them in different ways, or elicit different types of responses, rather than always displaying whole class. I don’t know if it’s because I’m on a mac (non-computer genius over here), but when I pasted the poems onto a word doc, they pasted as paragraphs rather than keeping the formatting of the lines and stanzas…
Maybe you should publish as a middle school collection like the original high school dude?
I had trouble looking for Shel Silverstein
I had trouble looking for his poem whatif
I have not put Shel Silverstein or other poets often used at the younger grades because teachers already know about them. With Silverstein, I have found that he is the ONLY poet the kids are familiar with. This site was created as a resource for teachers looking for new, appropriate poems that are not familiar with or had forgotten about. So, Silverstein hasn’t appeared.
I did find that Silverstein’s poem for you in a Word Document here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDoQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdese.mo.gov%2Fdivimprove%2Fcurriculum%2FModelCurriculum%2FGrowingUpFacingChange%2Fwhat_if_by_silverstein.doc&ei=eB5_UKqgFcjH0QGVooGIAg&usg=AFQjCNGBXZMR-1UKhMuF5T5Q6m8pbyAt4A&sig2=twDk8OJx2QycYdKm3Xt2nQ
Edgar Allan Poe???
Jeepers! How could I forget Poe?
On the one hand, I am trying to gather poems most teachers don’t know, but then I have Frost and “Casey at the Bat” so that excuse goes out the window (a bit).
I will also add that so many students have already be exposed to “The Raven” that they groan.
That said, they haven’t really “done” that poem except read it and not really get it (and even then, teachers try and make it go down smoothly with that old Simpsons’ reading), so it’s worth doing. And, yes, I know Poe is more than that single poem (although I really enjoy his stories more than his poems).
Let me think on it.
hey i am looking for a poem, it was in a middle school text( Indian here ), it was about how people follow each other like sheep, but the bat who flies at night is called blind. any ideas would be appreciated.
I believe you are looking for William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”.
Here is the post I just did on it. Hope that’s it; thanks for the inspiration: https://middleschoolpoetry180.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/198-auguries-of-innocence-william-blake/
this does not work
Hey I just wanted to know if the poet Ben Johnson is on this site. It would also be nice to know if his poem “Sir Lucious Gray and Sir H. Morrison” is on here.
I do not have Ben Johnson… yet. I will look into the poem as I’m always looking for suggestions.
may i ask why is poetry so hard to understand like they don’t half to rime but what is the reson for poetry then?
this is so true it is so hard to find just one poem