MY TOP 50 FAVORITE POEMS

Here’s the list….Only comment I would make is good poetry rarely comes out of a happy or calm state of mind or remembrance….Death and/or a dislocation from life (and especially other human beings) is a frequent inspiration.

1.) MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD by William Wordsworth
2.) THE HEAVY BEAR THAT GOES WITH ME by Delmore Schwartz
3.) THE SECOND COMING by William Butler Yeats
4.) NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING by Stevie Smith
5.) THIS BE THE VERSE by Philip Larkin
6.) THE HOLLOW MEN by TS Eliot
7.) HER KIND by Anne Sexton
8.) THE EMPEROR OF ICE CREAM by Wallace Stevens
9.) AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM IN A SLUM by Stephen Spender
10.) THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST by Wallace Stevens
11.) YOU WOULD TAKE THE ENTIRE WORLD TO BED WITH YOU by Charles Baudelaire
12.) SUNNY PRESTATYN by Philip Larkin
13.) I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC by Walt Whitman
14.) SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY by Lord Byron
15.) FUNERAL BLUES by WH Auden
16.) OH LOVE SWEET ANIMAL by Delmore Schwartz
17.) DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT by Dylan Thomas
18.) COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE SEPTEMBER 3 1802 by William Wordsworth
19.) MY PARENTS KEPT ME FROM CHILDREN WHO WERE ROUGH by Stephen Spender
20.) THE POISON TREE by William Blake
21.) THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH by Walt Whitman
22.) THE CIRCUS ANIMALS’ DESERTION by William Butler Yeats
23.) ALL MY PRETTY ONES by Anne Sexton
24.) BEREVEMENT by Percy Bysshe Shelley
25.) TIRED AND UNHAPPY, YOU THINK OF HOUSES by Delmore Schwartz
26.) ESSENTIAL BEAUTY by Philip Larkin
27.) THE PYLONS by Stephen Spender
28.) THE PATERSON POEMS by William Carlos Williams
29.) SONG OF MYSELF by Walt Whitman
30.) THE WASTELAND by TS Eliot
31.) SAILING TO BYZANTIUM by William Butler Yeats
32.) THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US by William Wordsworth
33.) DEEPLY MORBID by Stevie Smith
34.) ONE NIGHT I LAY WITH A FRIGHTFUL JEWESS by Charles Baudelaire
35.) ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET by John Keats
36.) THE LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT by Philip Larkin
37.) THE TRUTH THE DEAD KNOW by Anne Sexton
38.) LINCOLN by Delmore Schwartz
39.) ULTIMA RATIO REGUM by Stephen Spender
40.) STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING by Robert Frost
41.) DRUGS MADE PAULINE VAGUE by Stevie Smith
42.) DAFFODILS by William Wordsworth
43.) THE WALL by Anne Sexton
44.) THE VAMPIRE by Charles Baudelaire
45.) SONG by Adrienne Rich
46.) ONE WORD IS TOO OFTEN PROFANED by Percy Bysshe Shelly
47.) ODE ON A GRECIAN URN by John Keats
48.) FIRE AND ICE by Robert Frost
49.) MID-TERM BREAK by Seamus Heaney
50.) KADDISH by Allen Ginsberg