Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Some of My Favorite (Short Lyric) Poems to Teach

So what does my own anthology look like--the list of poems I most like to teach in my own "Reading Poetry" class?

(First of an ongoing series of posts)

Sappho, “Fragment 1: Hymn to Aphrodite, in multiple translations (Jim Powell, Anne Carson, Guy Davenport)

Archilochos, "“Some Saian Mountaineer," in Guy Davenport's translation

The Song of Songs, in Ariel & Chana Bloch's translation

Wyatt, “"They Flee From Me”" and "Whoso List to Hunt”"

Donne, "“The Sun Rising”"

Whitman: "“Noiseless Patient Spider”" and "“As I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer"”

Yeats, "Adam's Curse" and "“Easter, 1916”"

Hughes, "“Theme for English B"

Stevens, "“The Snow Man”"

Hayden, "“Those Winter Sundays”"

Clifton, "“Homage to My Hips”"

Johnson, "“Beam 10"” from ARK

To be continued. So: what are yours?

1 comment:

Norman Finkelstein said...

A few of my short faves:

Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Herbert, Prayer (I)
Herrick, The Vine
Shakespeare, Sonnet XX
Milton, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
Blake, The Lamb and The Tyger
Dickinson, There's a Certain Slant of light, Mine by the right of the white election
Williams, Proletarian Portrait

and lots more...