101 Poems, Number 46

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

46: “A Man Said to the Universe," from War Is Kind (1899), by Stephen Crane (1871–1900)

His life was short—just like his verse.

He called them “lines”—as if a curse

Would fall on him if he weren’t terse.

They aren’t too hard to memorize—

So short, succinct, full of surprise—

Importance is not linked to size.

Crane played some baseball—Syracuse.

This never ceases to amuse

Me. And, as well, a bit, confuse:

The man whose lines are like his name—

So edged and simple—sharp but tame—

Could line a triple in a game.

Link to poem. 

101 Poems Number 47

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

47: “The Cross of Snow,” 1879 (not published until after his death), by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82)

On, not with ink but just with tears

Our poet wrote this sonnet. He

Wrote of the time—it was some years

Before—his wife in misery

Had died in accidental flames*

In her own home. The poet saw

Her run into his room. He names

That day of horror, day of awe,

In lines reminding us of pain—

Of loss that cannot be endured.

He will not see his love again—

His suffering can not be cured.

*On July 10, 1861, she accidentally knocked a candle onto her dress, burst into flames, raced to her husband’s study, where he looked up to see … the unimaginable. He struggled to extinguish the fire, but she could not be saved. He suffered facial burns that he subsequently covered with the full beard that we now associate with him. She died a day later. She was 43.

Link to poem. 

101 Poems, Number 48

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

48: “The Little Boy and the Old Man,” from A Light in the Attic (1981), by Shel Silverstein (1930–99)

I used this poem in a speech*

Some years ago. I sought to teach

The notion that we fail to hear

The young, the old—the power of year.

The little boy complains about

How older people have some doubt

In him—because he’s young, you see.

The old man says, “The same with me.”

So, being listened to—a gift

Arriving only with the lift

Of years. But not too many. Then,

In age, we won’t be heard again.

*”Is Anybody Listening?” Western Reserve Academy, April 8, 2016

Link to poem.  

101 Poems, Number 49

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

49: “In Flanders Fields,” 1915, by John McRae (1872–1918)*

“In Flanders Fields the poppies blow”—

This is a poem, as you know,

That deals with soldiers who have died,

Who gave their lives. McRae replied

With this, which honors those who fell,

Whose stories we must ever tell.

Remember poppies, which still grow

In Flanders, where the winds still blow.

*I asked my middle school students to memorize this for a number of years. Near the end of my teaching career in Aurora, Ohio (mid-1990s), I had some students recite this McRae poem at the Memorial Day service at the cemetery in town. In Flanders lie many who died in World War I—as McRae himself did. A physician, he died of pneumonia.

Link to poem. 

101 Poems, Number 50

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

50: “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter,” in Chills and Fever (1924), by John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)

I read this poem in high school first—

Back when I thought that verse was worst

Of all the literary forms we read.

So read a poem? It’s better dead?

But time went on—I grew a bit.

(I know I was surprised at it.)

And grew to love these painful lines—

A child, a death—the natural signs

That those survivors thought about

When hope had faded, then was out.

It seemed so wrong—the death of youth—

A bite from a most vicious tooth.

He taught at Kenyon College, and

He passed away there, understand.

He’s buried by the library,

Near books—appropriate … agree?

Link to poem. 

101 Poems, Number 51

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

51: “Hawk Roosting,” in Lupercal (1960), by Ted Hughes (1930–98)

I had a colleague—brilliant guy*—

Who’d known Ted Hughes so long ago.

He loved this poem—so do I.

I memorized it (as you know).

It deals with rawest nature, and

You almost see old Darwin smile.

The hunter perched above the land—

His simple, brutal killing style.

The basics—that’s what hawks employ.

They see, they want, they soar, they kill.

And Hughes observes this kind of joy—

Then writes about it with his quill.

*Dr. Robert Pryce, teacher of French, Western Reserve Academy

Link to poem.

101 Poems, Number 52

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

52: “Design,” 1922 (and in A Further Range, 1936), by Robert Frost (1874–1963)

A sonnet by our old friend Frost,

Who writes a bit about the cost

And what coincidence can bring

To moths and spiders—anything.

Was it design that merged that moth,

That spider, flower—such a cloth

Of pure implausibility?

You cannot find what you can’t see.

I can’t remember where I came

Across these lines? But, sure, the fame

Of Frost at first had made me pause—

And read—and think about mere Cause.

Link to poem. 

101 Poems, Number 53

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

53: “One Art,” 1976, by Elizabeth Bishop (1911–79)

“The art of losing”—so begins

This poem so concerned with loss—

No clichéd sighs—no violins—

Nor mawkishness. Nor verbal dross.

A speaker tells of losing—how

We lose throughout our lives on earth—

And we must deal with pain—and now

We know that it’s been true since birth.

I love the final line of this—

Inside parentheses, her pain—

The loss of one she’ll dearly miss—

And cannot hope to see again.

Link to poem.

101 Poems, Number 54

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

54: “Miniver Cheevy,” 1910 (in The Town down the River), by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)

Was I assigned this back in school?—

Some homework I “forgot” to do?

(Does that sound plausible to you?)

I was an adolescent fool

Who wasted lots of priceless time—

There are some things that I would change—

If only I could rearrange

The past. Erase each boyhood “crime.”

But Cheevy? It’s the present he

Cannot abide. He’ll sit and think—

And spend a bit of time with … drink—

And weep for vanished history.

Link to poem. 

101 Poems, Halfway!

Halfway

Aboard our pale poetic ship

We’re now halfway on our weird trip.

I’ve told of poems—fifty-five!—

That did, in ways, bring me alive.

I’ve written of some silly ones—

The kind a-clog with jokes and puns.

And classic ones appeared here too—

Upset by what I made them do!

And so, today, we’ll take a breath—

Of air, you creep, not crystal meth!

Tomorrow? More to be explored!

But, please, do not jump overboard!

101 Poems, Number 55

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

55: “Meditation XVII” (“No Man Is an Island”), 1624, by John Donne (1572–1631)

A very famous line from Donne—

And not, of course, the only one.

He wrote a lot ere he was … done.

We are, he wrote, together here—

Not isolated—very near.

What separates us? Too much fear?

We are connected, one and all—

We've been so since that famous Fall—

We need to heed each human’s call.

We cannot live as if alone—

We cannot ignore another’s moan—

We cannot have a heart of stone.

Link to poem.  https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/no-man-is-an-island/

101 Poems, Number 56

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

56: “Fear No More,” from Cymbeline (4.2), by William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

I’d read this song some time ago—

A Shakespeare play called Cymbeline.

But I’d forgotten it (so slow!)

Till Richard Russo, in a scene,

Employed it in a novel, and

He used it in a memoir, too.*

A loved one’s ashes in the sand

Just scattered there—no, nothing new.

The song tells how we need not fear

The problems of our lives and world—

Not when the end is more than near—

And all away our time has whirled.

This is a very simple song—

It shows our unity, at last.

To learn? Why does it take so long?

We’re in the same dramatic cast.

*That Old Cape Magic (2009) and Elsewhere: A Memoir (2012). Russo is one of my great favorites, but for some reason, he referred—in both books—to “Fear No More” as a sonnet, which (if you follow the link) you will see that it clearly is not.

Link to poem.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50428/song-fear-no-more-the-heat-o-the-sun-

101 Poems, Number 57

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

57: “Good Night,” 1820, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1793–1822)

A short and clear one by the guy

Who wasn’t always short and clear—

Its seems a kind of lover’s sigh

When bedtime is, perhaps, so near?

His life was nearly at its end

When Shelley crafted these brief lines.

Some problems without time to mend—

Like wounds resembling Frankenstein’s.*

Not stitches, no—not leaking scars.

Wounds from a life not always right.

And soon he’d drown. And all the stars

Would gather to proclaim, “Good night.”

*Frankenstein's creature, of course! But I love the rhyme!

Link to poem.

101 Poems, Number 58

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

58: “A Little Madness in the Spring,” 1875, by Emily Dickinson (1830–86)

“A little madness in the spring”?

Miss Emily—she knew a thing.

Or two. Or, well, infinity—

Or so it seems at least to me.

And this one—like most others—short,

So I can give a quick report:

The spring belongs to everyone—

Don’t claim the blossoms, warmer sun.

For if you claim them, you’re a “clown”—

Deserving of no fame, renown.

It’s better to be modest, Yo—

Yes, humble for each vernal show!

Link to poem.  

101 Poems, Number 59

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

59: “Mother to Son,” 1922, by Langston Hughes (1902–67)

I met this poem years ago—

And when I read it, seemed to know—

Or learn—some things about the heart—

And motherhood—the teaching part.

For Hughes has captured here the voice

Of hope—and how we make the choice

To climb the stairs that we can see—

Or just surrender—choose to be

What we are now instead of what

We could become—be undercut

By our own failure to pursue

The futures there for me, for you.

Not many climb a crystal stair—

I never saw one rising there—

But many face a daunting climb

And know their dreams may take some time.

The mother here just warns her son:

Oh, do not stop what you’ve begun.

For me, she says, life has been hard—

I’ve reached this landing, weary, scarred.

So keep on moving, my dear son.

A struggle’s there—it must be won.

When you succeed (as you will do),

You’ll hear your mother, cheering you.

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mother-to-son

101 Poems, Number 60

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

60: “April 5, 1974,” 1989 (in New and Collected Poems), by Richard Wilbur (1921–2017)

One of my favorites, Wilbur was—

No problem thinking of “because”:

He had such grace in all his verse—

A heart inside a satin purse.

In this one—such a simple scene—

But complex too (how poems mean).

Some lines about a thaw in spring

Transform to deal with such a thing

As how a human mind can change—

Ideas, thoughts—all rearrange

And help the thinker grow some more—

And that’s, of course, what thinking’s for!

Link to poem.  

101 Poems, Number 61

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

61: “The Raven,” 1845, by Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49)

“Once upon a midnight dreary”—

What a start to what a work! So

One day when my eyes were bleary

I resolved to learn this. “I know

Lots of lines,” I told myself then—

But it took a student, who said,

“I know lots of lines of this … when

Will you catch me?” I’m no retread,

So I vowed to learn those lines, man.

Learn them fast and thoroughly so

I could say them to my class—can

You perceive this motive. Too slow!

It was competition—clearly.

But it worked—I learned the poem.

Now those words remain—and dearly!

Words have value when you know ’em!

*Suneil Vallabh, Western Reserve Academy, 2003–04

Link to poem.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48860/the-raven

101 Poems, Number 62

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

62: “Spring,” 1920, by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)

Well, here’s a dark one for the spring—

No buoyant sappy verse for her!

No, she sees grief that spring can bring—

The deaths that still in spring occur.

So hope, it seems, is for the young—

Or so here says a dark Millay.

All optimistic bells have rung,

And all their echoes passed away.

Link to poem.

101 Poems, Number 63

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

63: “A Route of Evanescence,” 1879, by Emily Dickinson (1830–86)

Now this one has, at least for me,

A special relevance.

My mother loved it and in class

She used the first line once

To be the title of her book

On teaching poetry.

She used it in her classes first—

To try it and to see.

That book was never published, and

I’m not so sure just why.

Perhaps no publisher would bite?

Perhaps she didn’t try?

But when I say these lines today—

I say them frequently—

I think of Mom—feel gratitude

For all her poetry. 

Link to poem.  

101 Poems, Number 64

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

64: “Home,” in Another World Instead, 2008, by William Stafford (1914–93) 

“Our father owned a star”—and so 

Begins this poem that I saw 

On Writer’s Almanac.* You know 

Those poems that can swiftly draw 

You in—you recognize them. Fast. 

And, yes, you quickly recognize 

That this is one you want to last— 

It’s one you want to memorize. 

And so I did, and now it stands 

There in my aging brain beside 

Those many others. And their hands 

Are joined, and I feel gratified 

That Stafford stands with Dickinson 

And Shakespeare, Donne, and Cummings and 

Those others who have firmly won 
A place there in my Memory Land.

*March 15, 2017

Link to poem.

101 Poems, Number 65

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

65: “Acquainted with the Night,” 1928 (in West-Running Brook), by Robert Frost (1874–1963)

“Acquainted with the night”—a phrase

That speaks of darkness, which our Frost

Explores in several sorts of ways

In these most famous lines. The cost

Of loneliness—when life is night—

An endless dreary gloom that ends

All hope that there will soon be light—

Or that a fractured life soon mends.

Link to poem.

101 Poems, Number 66

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

66: “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent,” 1655 (?), by John Milton (1608–74)

I did not take a course in him—

I was a bit afraid of him—

Until I read a lot of him.

And then I found how wrong I’d been—

How silly and afraid I’d been—

How self-defeating I had been.

He writes how—now that he is blind—

How can he write (for he is blind)?

He questions God: Why am I blind?

His questioning is much like ours—

His anguish is a lot like ours—

His humanness—oh, just like ours.

Link to poem.  

101 Poems, Number 67

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

67: “The Moon,” 1885 (from A Child’s Garden of Verses), by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94)

“The moon has a face like the clock in the hall”—

I heard these lines come from a stage*

In Stratford, and I heard the call:
“Now learn it!” So I made a page

That held the words and carried it

Around with me for several days

Rehearsing. (So I act when bit

By words I want to learn—a haze

Descends on me, and I rehearse

Until I know the poem well—

Yes, every word and line and verse—

And only then will fade the spell.)

This poem is about the day,

The night—the creatures who prefer

One or the other. I now say

These lines each week—a whisperer

Whose moving lips must puzzle some

As I walk slowly down the walk.

“Is this guy mad? Or merely dumb?

He's old—but he can walk and talk!”

*It was included in a performance of Treasure Island at the Avon Theatre; Stratford, Ontario; we saw it on Thursday night, August 3, 2017.

Link to poem.

101 Poems, Number 68

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

68: “Buffalo Bill’s,” 1922 (in Tulips & Chimneys), by E. E. Cummings (1894–1962)

“Buffalo Bill’s defunct”—and so

Begins another weird one (Cummings-style).

But it was one I had to know—

An Oklahoma boy, a smile

Upon my face as I once read

Of cowboys long ago, I learned

Of William Cody (now long dead)

And then could not have well discerned

The ethical dimensions of

Those Western heroes I adored—

I read and watched with boyhood love—

While hero tales upon me poured.

And Cummings writes of Cody dead—

And asks a question of dark Death

That was enough to roil my head—

The final line? It took my breath.

Link to poem.