1. Thou Reader. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 1763 times on American Poems.

THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I, 
Therefore for thee the following chants.(Read full poem)

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader... (Read full poem)

3. Hope - written by Randall Jarrell
Read 3035 times on American Poems.

The spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life.
The week is dealt out like a hand
That children pick up card by card.
One keeps getting the same hand.
One keeps getting the same card.
But twice a day -- except on Saturday --
The wheel stops, there... (Read full poem)

NOW, dearest comrade, lift me to your face, 
We must separate awhile—Here! take from my lips this kiss. 
Whoever you are, I give it especially to you; 
So long!—And I hope we shall meet again.(Read full poem)

5. The Blues - written by Langston Hughes
From The Langston Huges Reader. Read 23494 times on American Poems.

When the shoe strings break
On both your shoes
And you're in a hurry-
That's the blues.

When you go to buy a candy bar
And you've lost the dime you had-
Slipped through a hole in your pocket somewhere-
That's the blues, too, and bad!(Read full poem)

We do not know the time we lose --
The awful moment is
And takes its fundamental place
Among the certainties --

A firm appearance still inflates
The card -- the chance -- the friend --
The spectre of solidities
Whose substances are sand --(Read full poem)

7. Selecting A Reader - written by Ted Kooser
From Sure Signs. Published in 1980. Read 1252 times on American Poems.

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough... (Read full poem)

As you read, a white bear leisurely
pees, dyeing the snow
saffron,

and as you read, many gods
lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian
are watching the generations of leaves,

and as you read
the sea is turning its dark pages,
turning
its dark... (Read full poem)

9. Here - written by Grace Paley
From Best American Poetry 2001. Read 1558 times on American Poems.

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be

at last a woman
in the old style sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt  grandchild sliding
on off... (Read full poem)

I have just spent one-hour-and-a-half
handicapping tomorrow's
card.
when am I going to get at the poems?
well, they'll just have to wait
they'll have to warm their feet in the 
anteroom
where they'll sit gossiping about 
me.
"this Chinaski,... (Read full poem)

11. Named - written by Stephen Dunn
Read 1044 times on American Poems.

He'd spent his life trying to control the names
	   people gave him;
oh the unfair and the accurate equally hurt.

Just recently he'd been a son-of-a-bitch
	  and sweetheart in the same day,
and once again knew what antonyms

love and control are,... (Read full poem)

You know the old story Ann Landers tells
About the houseife in her basement doing the wash?
She's wearing her nightie, and she thinks, "Well, hell,
I might's well put this in as well," and then
Being dripped on by a leaky pipe puts on
Her... (Read full poem)

13. Dream Song 111: I miss him. When I get back to camp - written by John Berryman
From His Toy, His Dream, His Rest. Published in 1968. Read 808 times on American Poems.

I miss him. When I get back to camp
I'll dig him up. Well, he can prop & watch,
can't he, pink or blue,
and I will talk to him. I miss him. Slams,
grand or any, aren't for the tundra much.
One face-card will do.

It's marvellous how four... (Read full poem)

Sweet Love and I had oft communed;
  We were, indeed, great friends,
And oft I sought his office, near
  Where Courtship Alley ends.

I used to sit with him, and smoke,
  And talk of your blue eyes,
And argue how I best might act
  To make... (Read full poem)

15. Morning - written by Frank O\'Hara
Read 2058 times on American Poems.

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on... (Read full poem)

The shades of night was fallin’ slow
As through New York a guy did go
  And nail on ev’ry barroom door
  A card that this here motter bore:
              “No beer, no work.”

His brow was sad, his mouth was dry;
It was the first day of... (Read full poem)

17. Riprap - written by Gary Snyder
From The Portable Beat Reader. Published in 1959. Read 2017 times on American Poems.

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
          placed solid, by hands
In coice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
          in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
          riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,... (Read full poem)

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and... (Read full poem)

19. The Woman in the Ordinary - written by Marge Piercy
Read 2212 times on American Poems.

The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
The woman in the block of ivory soap
has massive thighs that... (Read full poem)

Sometimes I'd spend the whole night coughing up
what I'd been breathing in all day at work.
I'd sleep in a chair or take a good stiff drink,
anything to get a few hours rest.

The doctor called it asthma and suggested
I find a different line of work... (Read full poem)

21. The Bull Of Bendylaw - written by Sylvia Plath
From The Collected Poems. Published in 1959. Read 1462 times on American Poems.

The black bull bellowed before the sea.
The sea, till that day orderly,
Hove up against Bendylaw.

The queen in the mulberry arbor stared
Stiff as a queen on a playing card.
The king fingered his beard.

A blue sea, four horny bull-feet,
A... (Read full poem)

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure
Divine-... (Read full poem)

23. W. Lloyd Garrison Standard - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 339 times on American Poems.

Vegetarian, non-resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian;
Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll.
Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan.
Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain,
Proud, with the pride that makes... (Read full poem)

Papier-mache body; blue-and-black cotton jersey cover. Metal stand.
Instructions included.
-- Sears, Roebuck Catalogue

O my coy darling, still
You wear for me the scent
Of those long afternoons we spent,
The two of us together,
Safe in the attic... (Read full poem)

25. Potomac River Mist - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1430 times on American Poems.

ALL the policemen, saloonkeepers and efficiency experts in Toledo knew Bern Dailey; secretary ten years when Whitlock was mayor.
Pickpockets, yeggs, three card men, he knew them all and how they flit from zone to zone, birds of wind and weather,... (Read full poem)