1. What A Writer - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 2564 times on American Poems.

what i liked about e.e. cummings
was that he cut away from 
the holiness of the
word
and with charm
and gamble
gave us lines
that sliced through the
dung.

how it was needed!
how we were withering 
away
in the old
tired
manner.

of course, then came... (Read full poem)

If one poor burdened toiler o’er life’s road, 
Who meets us by the way, 
Goes on less conscious of his galling load, 
Then life, indeed, does pay.

If we can show the troubled heart the gain
That lies always in loss, 
Why, then, we too are... (Read full poem)

3. Between the form of Life and Life - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3508 times on American Poems.

Between the form of Life and Life
The difference is as big
As Liquor at the Lip between
And Liquor in the Jug
The latter -- excellent to keep --
But for ecstatic need
The corkless is superior --
I know for I have tried(Read full poem)

The cooper should know about tubs. 
But I learned about life as well, 
And you who loiter around these graves 
Think you know life. 
You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps, 
In truth you are only looking around the interior of... (Read full poem)

5. When I read the Book. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 10825 times on American Poems.

WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, 
And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life? 
And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life? 
(As if any man really knew aught of my life; 
Why, even I myself, I... (Read full poem)

Of Life to own --
From Life to draw --
But never tough the reservoir --(Read full poem)

7. One Life of so much Consequence! - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3208 times on American Poems.

One Life of so much Consequence!
Yet I -- for it -- would pay --
My Soul's entire income --
In ceaseless -- salary --

One Pearl -- to me -- so signal --
That I would instant dive --
Although -- I knew -- to take it --
Would cost me -- just a... (Read full poem)

The Life we have is very great.
The Life that we shall see
Surpasses it, we know, because
It is Infinity.
But when all Space has been beheld
And all Dominion shown
The smallest Human Heart's extent
Reduces it to none.(Read full poem)

9. Praise Life - written by Robinson Jeffers
Read 1898 times on American Poems.

This country least, but every inhabited country
Is clotted with human anguish.
Remember that at your feasts.

And this is no new thing but from time out of mind,
No transient thing, but exactly
Conterminous with human life.

Praise life, it... (Read full poem)

This Chasm, Sweet, upon my life
I mention it to you,
When Sunrise through a fissure drop
The Day must follow too.

If we demur, its gaping sides
Disclose as 'twere a Tomb
Ourself am lying straight wherein
The Favorite of Doom.

When it has just... (Read full poem)

11. This Life - written by Grace Paley
From Begin Again, Collected Poems. Published in 2001. Read 2128 times on American Poems.

My friend tells me
a man in my house jumped off the roof
the roof is the eighth floor of this building
the roof door was locked   how did he manage?
his girlfriend had said   goodbye I'm leaving
he was 22
his mother and father were hurrying
at that... (Read full poem)

suppose

Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.

young death sits in a cafe
smiling, a pierce of money held between
his thumb and first finger

(i say "will he buy flowers" to you
and "Death is young
life wears velour... (Read full poem)

13. O Me! O Life! - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 36203 times on American Poems.

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; 
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; 
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more
    faithless?) 
Of eyes... (Read full poem)

The first Day that I was a Life
I recollect it -- How still --
That last Day that I was a Life
I recollect it -- as well --

'Twas stiller -- though the first
Was still --
"Twas empty -- but the first
Was full --

This -- was my finallest Occasion... (Read full poem)

15. Benjamin Fraser - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 945 times on American Poems.

Their spirits beat upon mine
Like the wings of a thousand butterflies.
I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating.
I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes
Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes,
And when they turned their... (Read full poem)

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me --
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked... (Read full poem)

17. A Parody on “A Psalm of Life” - written by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Read 2218 times on American Poems.

Life is real, life is earnest, 
And the shell is not its pen –
“Egg thou art, and egg remainest”
Was not spoken of the hen.

Art is long and Time is fleeting, 
Be our bills then sharpened well, 
And not like muffled drums be beating
On the... (Read full poem)

AS I watch’d the ploughman ploughing, 
Or the sower sowing in the fields—or the harvester harvesting, 
I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies: 
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)(Read full poem)

19. As You Go Through Life - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 1072 times on American Poems.

Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life;
And even when you find them,
It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind
And look for the virtue behind them.
For the cloudiest night has a hint of light
Somewhere in its shadows hiding;
It is... (Read full poem)

There is a fenceless garden overgrown 
With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves; 
And once, among the roses and the sheaves, 
The Gardener and I were there alone. 
He led me to the plot where I had thrown
The fennel of my days on wasted... (Read full poem)

21. I have no Life but this -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2504 times on American Poems.

I have no Life but this --
To lead it here --
Nor any Death -- but lest
Dispelled from there --

Nor tie to Earths to come --
Nor Action new --
Except through this extent --
The Realm of you --(Read full poem)

There was a man who lived a life of fire.
Even upon the fabric of time,
Where purple becomes orange
And orange purple,
This life glowed,
A dire red stain, indelible;
Yet when he was dead,
He saw that he had not lived.(Read full poem)

23. Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord, - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 5041 times on American Poems.

Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord,
Then, I am ready to go!
Just a look at the Horses --
Rapid! That will do!

Put me in on the firmest side --
So I shall never fall --
For we must ride to the Judgment --
And it's partly, down Hill --

But never I... (Read full poem)

They have chiseled on my stone the words:
'His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him
That nature might stand up and say to all the world,
This was a man.'
Those who knew me smile
As they read this empty rhetoric.
My epitaph should have... (Read full poem)

25. Sundown - written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
From In the Harbor. Read 1709 times on American Poems.

The summer sun is sinking low;
Only the tree-tops redden and glow:
Only the weathercock on the spire
Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire;
All is in shadow below.

O beautiful, awful summer day,
What hast thou given, what taken... (Read full poem)