Twenty Cool Poems
Here is a list of links to cool poems to read. I list the title, author, author’s lifespan, form, and a brief overview of themes. The “themes” part is incomplete! Hopefully you will be able to see more themes than I list. You might disagree with me, and that’s fine!
Here are some ways to use this list:
Read a poem out loud
Find another poem by an author you like
Write a poem in the style of an author you like
Find a poem that confuses you or that you dislike and study it
Talk about a poem with a friend
Identify rhyme scheme, images, meter and sound effects in a poem you like
Make your own list!
We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brookes, 1917-2000.
Rhymed.
Themes: youth, death, coolness.
Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath, 1932-1963.
Villanelle.
Themes: love, madness.
Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892.
Rhymed.
Themes: death, spirituality.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver, 1935-2019.
Free verse.
Themes: humanity, the natural world, belonging.
Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889.
Rhymed.
Themes: nature, beauty, God.
Note: Hopkins’ unusual meter here is called “sprung rhythm,” which he invented. My advice for reading Hopkins is to simply enjoy the sounds and let the meaning come at its own pace.
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, 1809-1849.
Rhymed.
Themes: horror, lost love, death.
The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart by Jack Gilbert, 1925-2012.
Free verse.
Themes: language, love.
I Died for Beauty, but was Scarce by Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886.
Rhymed.
Themes: beauty, truth, death.
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918.
Rhymed (and sort of a double sonnet).
Themes: war (World War I), patriotism, death.
Note: The Latin of the last line, from which the title is taken, reads “It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country.” It is from the Roman poet Horace.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot, 1888-1965.
Rhymed.
Themes: anxiety, self-doubt, modern isolation.
Note: The Italian at the beginning of the poem reads “If I thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement; but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy" which is from Dante’s Inferno.
Sonnet 90 by William Shakespeare, 1564-1616.
Sonnet.
Themes: love, loyalty, misfortune.
Note: In this sonnet, the speaker addresses the lover (usually referred to as the Young Man) and says he’d rather accept the loss of his lover and all that pain NOW, instead of after other misfortunes.
Song in my Heart by Diane Seuss, 1956- now.
Free Verse.
Themes: freedom, God, the self.
If We Must Die by Claude McKay, 1890-1948.
Sonnet.
Themes: human dignity, courage.
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond, by e. e. cummings, 1894-1962.
Free Verse (last stanza rhymed)
Themes: Love, intimacy, mystery.
Whoso List to Hunt, by Thomas Wyatt, 1503-1542.
Sonnet.
Themes: love, desire, danger.
Note: In this sonnet, the speaker compares his love to a deer (“hind”) that he is hunting; he states that although he is exhausted by the chase, he cannot stop. Then he says the hunt is hopeless. Finally, he says that around the deer’s neck is a diamond collar stating that she belongs to the king, and is wild though she appears tame. This poem is often read as being about Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife.
Persimmons, by Li-Young Lee, 1957-now.
Free Verse.
Themes: sensuality, family, age.
The Tyger, by William Blake, 1757-1827.
Rhymed.
Themes: God, beauty, terror.
A Blessing, by James Wright, 1927-1980.
Free Verse.
Themes: beauty, tenderness, friendship.
Summer, by Chen Chen, 1989-now.
Free Verse.
Themes: queerness, youth, parental relationships.
I Knew a Woman, by Theodore Roethke, 1908-1963.
Rhymed.
Themes: love, beauty, passing of time.