Classical Poems


 

 

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POETRY NIGHT

HOW DO I CHOOSE A CLASSICAL POEM?

 

Step One:  Find a great poem.  In fact, find two or three possible great poems.  One excellent source of poems is The American Academy of Poets webpage.  If you click right here, you'll be taken to their "themes" page.   This is a great place to start because you can click on an idea that interests you, and then search for poems from there.   Please keep in mind the following guidelines as you search:

 

 

Step Two:  Think "big picture."  What possible themes or ideas could this poem represent?  Try to establish a personal connection.  This will help greatly when choosing a contemporary song to partner with this poem.

 

Step Three:  Fill out the Classical Poem selection form.  Print out a copy of each of your poem choices.  [Yes, you must have two choices!  This is in case someone else chooses your first one in the lottery before you do, or if your choice[s] are unsuitable for some reason.  In fact, we recommend that you have a third choice ... just in case.]

 

Step Four:  Turn in the form and poems to your language arts teacher by Monday, November 15.

 

Below are some poems that other students have done in the past, are part of the traditional poetry canon, or are just poems that I personally love.  Next year many of your choices will be on this list.

 

Poem Poet
 

“Discordants:  Bread and Music” — Section I

 

Conrad Aiken
 

“She Walks in Beauty”

 

 
George Gordon, Lord Byron 
 

“My First Memory (of Librarians)

 

 
Nikki Giovanni 
 

“The Roman Road”

 

 
Thomas Hardy 
 

“Piano”

 

 
D.H. Lawrence 
 

“The Day is Done”   (Stanzas 1—4 )

 

 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
 

Sea Fever”

 

 
John Masefield 
 

Looking Around, Believing”

 

 
Gary Soto 
 

Remember”

 

 
Christina Rossetti
 

“Solitude”

 

 
 Edna Wheeler Wilcox 
 

“Let Evening Come”

 

 
Jane Kenyon 
 

“My Star”

 

 
Robert Browning 
 

"Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" **

 

 
Dylan Thomas 
 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

 

 
Robert Frost 
 

“The Swingset”

 

 
Grace Walton 
 

“When  You Are Old”

 

 
William Butler Yeats 
 

Excerpt from “Song of Myself”

 

 
Walt Whitman 
 

Untitled” [Each Time I Go Outside]”

 

 
Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison 
 

Endymion I [A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever] Lines 1-24

 

 
John Keats 
 

As imperceptibly as Grief”

 

 
Emily Dickinson 
 

“Dream Variations”

 

 
Langston Hughes 
 

“I Hear America Singing”

 

 
Walt Whitman 
 

God’s World”

 

 
Edna St. Vincent Millay 
 

“If —” **

 

 
Rudyard Kipling 
 

“The Bean Eaters”

 

 
Gwendolyn Brooks 
 

“The Odyssey” — Book I, Lines 1— 16 to 20

 

 
Homer 
 

You Begin” **

 

 
Margaret Atwood 
 

Playgrounds”

 

 
Laurence Alma Tadema 
 

maggie and milly and molly and may

 

 
ee cummings 
 

The Partial Explanation”

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/019.html 

 

Charles Simic
 

“Before the World Intruded”

 

Michele Rosenthal
 

"I Taught Myself To Live Simply"

 

Anna Akhmatova
 

"Hurt No Living Thing" and “Who Has Seen the Wind?”

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20036 

http://www.repeatafterus.com/print.php?i=3893 

 

Christina Rossetti
 

Baseball and Writing” — Stanzas I and II

 

Marianne Moore
 

"Sonnet 43 - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways"

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 

"Hope is the thing with feathers" and “I’m Nobody!”

 

Emily Dickinson
 

Motto” and “We Real Cool 

 

 

Langston Hughes; Gwendolyn Brooks

 

 

The Road Not Taken”

 

Robert Frost
 

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/maya_angelou/poems/494 

 

Maya Angelou
 

“Quilts”

 

Nikki Giovanni
 

“Love for This Book” **

 

Pablo Neruda
 

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”

http://www.bartleby.com/103/44.html 

 

William Butler Yeats
 

“O Captain!  My Captain!” **

 

Walt Whitman
 

The Snow Man”

 

Wallace Stevens
 

All Lovely Things”

 

Conrad Aiken
 

Porch Swing in September”

 

Ted Kooser
 

“The Daffodils”  [I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud]

 

William Wordsworth
 

Preface — Leaves of Grass

 

Walt Whitman
 

“Sonnet 18 — Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”

http://www.artofeurope.com/shakespeare/sha3.htm

 

William Shakespeare
 

“The Gladness of Nature”

 

William Cullen Bryant
 

“Of the Many Worlds in This World”

 

Margaret Cavendish
 

Going Down Hill on a Bicycle”

 

Henry Charles Beeching
 

“The Plaid Dress”

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay
 

“Invictus”

 

William Ernest Henley
 

“Ode to the West Wind”  Stanza I, Line 1; all of Stanza 5

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley
 

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly  Speaks”

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15916

 

Jane Kenyon
 

“ A True Poem”

 

Lloyd Schwartz
 

“I Hear an Army”

 

James Joyce
 

Jabberwocky” **

 

Lewis Carroll
 

“The Raven”  - Stanzas 1-3; 6-8 **

http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html 

 

Edgar Allen Poe
 

Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays— I; New Year’s Day; Stanzas 1—4

 

Charles Reznikoff
 

Fat is Not a Fairy Tale”

 

Jane Yolen
 

“This Moment”

 

Eaven Bolen

"Sometimes"

 

Sheenagh Pugh

"The Pick" 

http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/columns/236.html 

 

Cecilia Woloch

"One Art"

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212

Elizabeth Bishop

"The Tyger"

http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/tyger.html

William Blake

"so you want to be a writer?"  (first stanza)

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16549

Charles Bukowski
   

 

 

ANOTHER OPTION

 

English - Spanish Partner Poems

 

How This Works:  You and a friend pick the same poem.  One recites it in Spanish and the other recites it in Inglés.

 

Note:  only a limited number of these performances will be allowed.  Please speak with Mrs. Christianson prior to choosing this as an option.

 

English Version
Spanish Version
"Where I'm From" by Georgia Ella Lyon
"De Donde Yo Soy" by Levi Romero
"Three Trees" translated by Jill Savitt
"Tres Arboles"  by Gabriela Mistral
"Laughing Out Loud, I Fly" by Juan Felipe Herrera
"A carcajadas, yo vuela" by Juane Felipe Herrera
"City of Bridges" by  Francisco X. Alarcón "Cuedad de puentes" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Poor Poets" by Francisco X. Alarcon   (Note: scroll down page until you see it.) "Pobres Poetas" by  Francisco X. Alarcón  (Note: scroll down page until you see it.)
"From the Other Side of Night" by  Francisco X. Alarcón (Note: scroll down page until you see it.)
 "Del otro lado de la noche" by  Francisco X. Alarcón  (Note: scroll down page until you see it.)