Good poems

Introduction O Lord: Poem in thanks / Thomas Lux How many nights / Galway Kinnell Welcome morning / Anne Sexton Psalm 23 / Bay Psalm Book (from) At least / Raymond Carver Address to the Lord / John Berryman O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie / Philip Appleman Psalm / Reed Whittemore Psalm 121 / Michael Wigglesworth When on has lived a long time alone / Galway Kinnell Home on the range / Anonymous What I want is / C G Hanzlicek Day: Summer Morning / Charles Simic Otherwise / Jane Kenyon Poem about morning / William Meredith Living / Denise Levertov Another spring / Kenneth Rexroth Moring person / Vassar Miller Routine / Arthur Guiterman Life of a day / Tom Hennen For my son, Noah, ten years old / Robert Bly I've known a heaven, like a tent / Emily Dickinson Letter to NY / Elizabeth Bishop Dilemma / David Budbill Song of myself (from) / Walt Whitman New Yorkers / Edward Field Soaking up sun / Tom Hennen Late hours / Lisel Mueller Music: Scrambled eggs and whiskey / Hayden Carruth Mehitabel's song / Don Marquis Nightclub / Billy Collins Alley violinist / Robert Lax Cradle song / Jim Schley Her door / Mary Leader Pupil / Donald Justice Piano / D H Lawrence Instrument of choice / Robert Phillips Homage: doo-wop / Joseph Stroud Persistence of song / Howard Moss Ooly pop a cow / David Huddle Elevator music / Henry Taylor Grain of sound / Robert Morgan I will make you brooches / Robert Louis Stevenson Dance / C K Williams Investment / Robert Frost Dumka / B H Fairchild Green street mortuary Marching band / Lawrence Ferlinghetti Scenes: Poem to be read at 3 AM / Donald Justice Swimming pool / Thomas Lux Dostoevsky / Charles Bukowski After a movie / Henry Taylor Summer storm / Dana Gioia Woolworth's / Mark Irwin Worked late on a Tuesday night / Deborah Garrison Farmhouse / Reed Whittemore Wrist-wrestling father / Orval Lund Yorkshire men in pub gardens / Gavin Ewart Noah / Roy Daniells Lovers: Red, red rose / Robert Burns When I heard at the close of day / Walt Whitman First love / John Clare He wishes for the cloths of heaven / W B Yeats Sonnet / C B Trail Politics / W B Yeats Magellan street, 1974 / Maxine Kumin Animals / Frank O'Hara Lending out books / Hal Sirowitz Changed man / Robert Phillips Constant north / J F Hendry On the strength of all conviction and stamina of love / Jennifer Michael Hecht Loft / Richard Jones This is just to say / William Carlos Williams This is just to say / Erica-Lynn Gambino Venetian air / Thomas Moore Summer morning / Louis Simpson Comin thro' the rye / Robert Burns Topography / Sharon Olds Saturday morning / Hugo Williams Flight / Louis Jenkins At twenty-three weeks she can no longer see anything South of her belly / Thom Ward For the life of him and her / Reed Whittemore Romantics / Lisel Mueller Down in the valley / Anonymous Middle years / Walter McDonald Winter winds cold and blea / John Clare Since feeling is first / e e cummings Vergissmeinnichtps / Keith Douglas Sonnet XLIII: What lips my lips have kissed / Edna St Vincent Millay After the argument / Stephen Dunn Orange / Wendy Cope Susquehanna / Liz Rosenberg Farm wife / R S Thomas After forty years of marriage, she tries a new recipe for hamburger hot dish / Leo Dangel Those who love / Sara Teasdale Quietly / Kenneth Rexroth For CWB / Elizabeth Bishop Shorelines / Howard Moss Prayer for a marriage / Steve Scafidi Master speed / Robert Frost Bonnard's nudes / Raymond Carver Day's Work: Happiness / Raymond Carver Hoeing / John Updike Some details of Hebridean house construction / Thomas A Clark Relations / Philip Booth What I learned from my mother / Julia Kasdorf To be of use / Marge Piercy No tool or rope or pail / Bob Arnold Ox cart man / Donald Hall Girl on a tractor / Joyce Sutphen Soybeans / Thomas Alan Orr Landing pattern / Philip Appleman Mae West / Edward Field Hay for the horses / Gary Snyder Sons And Daughters: Masterworks of Ming / Kay Ryan Bess / Linda Pastan Little tooth / Thomas Lux Sonnet XXXVII / William Shakespeare Egg / C G Hanzlicek Rolls-Royce dreams / Ginger Andrews My life before I knew it / Lawrence Raab After work / Richard Jones I stop writing the poem / Tess Gallagher Franklin Hyde / Hilaire Belloc Manners / Elizabeth Bishop September, the first day of school / Howard Nemerov First lesson / Philip Booth Childhood / Barbara Ras Waving good-bye / Gerald Stern Family reunion / Maxine Kumin Language: Primer of the daily round / Howard Nemerov Possessive case / Lisel Mueller Icelandic language / Bill Holm Fantastic names of Jazz / Hayden Carruth Ode to the Medieval poets / W H Auden Sweater weather / Sharon Bryan

Good Life:

We grow accustomed to the dark / Emily Dickinson

Ritual to read to each other / William Stafford

Courage / Anne Sexton

Sometimes / Sheeagh Pugh

Leisure / W H Davies

Way it is now / Charles Bukowski

Secret life / Stephen Dunn

Lost / David Wagoner

Sonnet XXV / William Shakespeare

Eel in the cave / Robert Bly

Wild geese / Mary Oliver

From the manifesto of the selfish / Stephen Dunn

Hope / Lisel Mueller

Three goals / David Budbill

Vermeer / Howard Nemerov

Repression / C K Williams

Weather / Linda Pastan

Moderation is not a negation of intensity, but helps avoid monotony / John Tagliabue

Tell all the truth but tell it slant / Emily Dickinson

Props assist the house / Emily Dickinson

Beasts:

Little citizen, little survivor / Hayden Carruth

Her first calf / Wendell Berry

Bats / Randal Jarrell

Riding lesson / Henry Taylor

Walking the dog / Howard Nemerov

Excrement poem / Maxine Kumin

Stanza IV from Coming of age / Ursula Leguin

Destruction / Joanne Kyger

How to see deer / Philip Booth

Dog's death / John Updike

Names of horses / Donald Hall

Bison crossing near Mt Rushmore / May Swenson

Failure:

Success is counted sweetest / Emily Dickinson

Solitude / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

First time I remember / Wendell Berry

Our lady of the snows / Robert Hass

British Museum reading room / Louis MacNeice

Bare arms of trees / John Tagliabue

Sailor / Geof Hewitt

Place for everything / Louis Jenkins

Feast / Robert Hass

Nobody knows you / Jimmie Cox

Last song / Charles Bukowski

Complaint:

Forsaken wife / Elizabeth Thomas

Confession / Stephen Dobyns

Living in the body / Joyce Sutphen

Tired as I can be / Bessie Jackson

Iceberg theory / Gerald Locklin

Manifesto: Mad farmer liberation front / Wendell Berry

Bookmark / Tom Disch

Poetry readings / Charles Bukowski

Publication-is the auction / Emily Dickinson

Trips:

Once in the 40s / William Stafford

Moby Dick (lines from) / Herman Melville

Rain travel / W S Merwin

Where we are / Gerald Locklin

Excelsior / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

On a tree fallen across the road / Robert Frost

Walk along the old tracks / Robert Kinsley

Passengers / Billy Collins

Walloping window-blind / Charles Edward Carryl

Vacation / Wendell Berry

Directions / Joseph Stroud

Postscript / Seamus Heaney

Night journey / Theodore Roethke

Waiting / Raymond Carver

Snow:

New Hampshire / Howard Moss

To fight aloud / Emily Dickinson

December moon / May Sarton

Year's end / Richard Wilbur

Snow man / Wallace Stevens

January / Baron Wormser

In celebration of surviving / Chuck Miller

Her long illness / Donald Hall

Requiescat / Oscar Wilde

Sixth of January / David Budbill

Not only the Eskimos / Lisel Mueller

Boy at the window / Richard Wilbur

Winter poem / Frederick Morgan

Lester tells of Wanda and the big snow / Paul Zimmer

Old boards / Robert Bly

March blizzard / John Tagliabue

Yellow:

Elvis kissed me / T S Kerrigan

Stepping out of poetry / Gerald Stern

I shall keep singing! / Emily Dickinson

Songs to onions / Roy Blount, Jr

O luxury / Guy W Longchamps

Coming / Kenneth Rexroth

Light left on / May Sarton

Yellow slicker / Stuart Dischell

First kiss

Music one looks back on / Stephen Dobyns

Lives:

In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day / X J Kennedy

Who's who / W H Auden

Portrait / Stanley Kunitz

Parable of the four-poster / Erica Jong

Ed / Louis Simpson

Memory / Hayden Carruth

Lazy / David Lee

Testimonial / Harry Newman, Jr

Cathedral builders / John Ormond

Village burglar / Anonymous

Scandal / Robert Bly

At last the secret is out / W H Auden

Night light / Kate Barnes

Sir Patrick Spens / Anonymous

Elders:

I go back to May 1937 / Sharon Olds

Those winter Sundays / Robert Hayden

Old liberators / Robert Hedin

To my mother / Wendell Berry

Working in the rain / Robert Morgan

Birthday card to my mother / Philip Appleman

Yesterday / W S Merwin

No map / Stephen Dobyns

My mother / Robert Mezey

When my dead father called / Robert Bly

August third / May Sarton

Terminus / Ralph Waldo Emerson

End:

Authorship / James B(all) Naylor

Young and old / Charles Kingsley

Shifting the sun / Diana Der

Hovanessian

My dad's wallet / Raymond Carver

When I am asked / Lisel Mueller

Dirge without music / Edna St Vincent Millay

My mother said / Donald Hall

Departures / Linda Pastan

As befits a man / Langston Hughes

Sunt Leones / Stevie Smith

Perfection wasted / John Updike

Eleanor's letters / Donald Hall

Death and the turtle / May Sarton

Four poems in one / Anne Porter

Titanic / David R Slavitt

Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna / Charles Wolfe

Kaddish / David Ignatow

Twilight: after haying / Jane Kenyon

For the anniversary of my death / W S Merwin

Old Italians dying (from) / Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Street ballad / George Barker

Let evening come / Jane Kenyon

Resurrection:

Forty-five / Hayden Carruth

Blessing / James Wright

Holy Thursday / William Blake

Walden (lines from) / Henry David Thoreau

Peace of wild things / Wendell Berry

From blossoms / Li-Young Lee

First green of spring / David Budbill

Here / Grace Paley

Lives of the heart / Jane Hirshfield

Spring / Gerard Manley Hopkins

Fishing in the keep of silence / Linda Gregg

Biographies

Name index

Title index.