What are some of your all-time favourite poems?

Some poems that I think are really clear out of the park are:

  • The Negro Speaks of Rivers (Langston Hughes)
  • The Weary Blues (Langston Hughes)
  • The ‘Madam’ Poems (Langston Hughes)
  • I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (William Wordsworth)
  • Mr. Oxford Don (John Agard)
  • Lean Awhile Upon Some Bending Planks (John Keats)
  • Is My Team Plowing (A.E. Housman)
  • My Rival (Rudyard Kipling)
  • The Betrothed (Rudyard Kipling)
  • The Law of the Jungle (Rudyard Kipling)
  • Tomlinson (Rudyard Kipling)
  • On Reading Gaol (Oscar Wilde)
  • The Raven (Edgar Allen Poe) – but a bit too creepy for me
  • Pour Peindre un Oiseau / To Paint a Bird (Jacques Prevert) – French
  • Dejeuner du Matin / Lunch in the Morning (Jacques Prevert) – French
  • Der Erl Konig / The Elf King (Wolfgang) – German
  • Some Japanese haiku which I’ve read in English
  • The exquisite poetry of many Chinese folk songs

Feel free to send me others you think would be worthy of this list!

Posted in: Poetry

Updated on August 31, 2011

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