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Poetry

Trying to define poetry is almost a crime. One of its enduring appeals is that it defies definition, overturns convention, and reinvents words themselves to create meaning out of chaos. Ironically, the best poetry also exemplifies convention, submitting to forms and styles to evoke whatever it is poetry is supposed to evoke.

Pascal spoke of "reasons of which the reason knows nothing," and while he was describing his Christian faith, the statement almost perfectly describes good poetry. Bad poetry is just the opposite: it tells the reader too much, it's ungainly and unmusical, it broods in the corner or waves its arms around for attention. Good poetry communicates directly with the soul, whether or not the mind comprehends.

That's not to say poetry should be meaningless. A lot of contemporary "poets" string words together and call it art, but it's really just pretension, or (worse) obscenity. Some have gone so far as to write anti-poetry, a form specifically devoted to creating "poems" that are inherently unpoetic. None of this is poetry—call it self-aggrandizement, pseudo-intellectualism, or just dumb, if it doesn't look, sound or act like a poem, it probably isn't.

On the other hand, not all poems should look or sound the same. Opponents of free verse need to understand that the language grows and changes, and that free form poems don't abandon, they just reinterpret rhythm and cadence....just as free verse practitioners need to recognize the beauty and requisite skill displayed in more structured forms like sonnets and villanelles.

Typically, a poem uses the natural rhythms of language to conjure meaningful images for the reader. While poets in every age have been attracted to its form as a tool for intellectual or philosophical rhetoric, a truly great poem is one that imparts to individuals an attitude, emotion or idea without seeming to do so. More than writers in any other genre, poets must interest their audience if they're to impact them.

This isn't to suggest a poem means whatever any reader wants it to mean, or that it should merely delight. Far from it: without a definite (or at least, apprehendable) idea in mind, the poet ends up communicating nothing, just as he does if he simply intends to entertain.

What it does mean is that a poem should be universal to the extent that anyone can read it and get something out of it. Obviously, identifiying and understanding allusions, analogies and metaphors will heighten understanding (and enjoyment), but if an initial encounter ends void, the poet has failed to do what he or she set out to do.

Many of the world's greatest writers have been poets. The opportunity for a clever or brilliant turn of phrase in a poem is much higher than in a novel or treatise; poets often sweat for days over a single word, intent on using the language to its absolute potential. This is the paradox of poetry—even in its most primordial form, whispering to our deepest selves, poetry-making requires an active and agile mind.

But don't come to any poem primarily to learn in a cognitive sense; come first to enjoy, and then to learn what it means to love, to be human, to value and respect beauty, even to fear and mourn. Any novel can tell you how other people think, but few of them can unite all readers the way a poem can, to tear down barriers and speak where language is only a vague notion, and words are much more than their definitions.

Introduction by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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Poetrymagazine.org
The Poetry Archive
Audio files of poets reading their own work.
Poets.org
Online poems, poet bios, etc.
Poetry Foundation
93 Items found Print
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Active Filters: 9th grade (Ages 14-15)
Acts of Light
by Emily Dickinson, illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert, appreciation by Jane Langton
Third Printing from Little, Brown & Company
for 4th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
from Sweetwater Press
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
American History in Verse
by Burton Stevenson
from Bob Jones University Press
Poetry for 3rd-Adult
in American History Reference (Location: HISA-REF)
$11.00
Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry
by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping, eds.
from Anchor Books
for 9th-12th grade
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$17.00 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Anne's Anthology
by Margie Gray
from Cadron Creek Christian Curriculum
Poetry for 7th-10th grade
in Cadron Creek Literature Guides (Location: LITCUR-CAD)
Annotated Hunting of the Snark
by Lewis Carroll
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Best Loved Poems of the American People
by Hazel Felleman (editor)
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Bilbo's Last Song
by J.R.R. Tolkien, Illustrated by Pauline Baynes
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 3rd-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.99
Brownings: Letters and Poetry
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-12th grade
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Canterbury Tales
Penguin Classics
by Geoffrey Chaucer (edited by Nevill Coghill)
from Penguin Classics
Medieval Poetry for 8th-12th grade
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
$11.00
Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by David Wright
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
$8.95
Carver: A Life in Poems
by Marilyn Nelson
from Boyds Mill Press
for 7th-11th grade
2002 Newbery Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Award
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.95
Charge of the Light Brigade & Other Poems
Dover Thrift Editions
by Alfred Tennyson
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$4.00
Chicago Poems
by Carl Sandburg
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$1.50 (1 in stock)
Children of Hurin
by J. R. R. Tolkien
from Houghton Mifflin
Fantasy for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.99
Civil War Poetry
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$1.75 (3 in stock)
Collected Poems of Robert Service
by Robert W. Service
1966 Edition from Dodd, Mead & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Modern Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$25.00
Complete English Poems of John Donne
Penguin Classics
by John Donne
from Penguin Classics
Lyrical Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$21.00
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
by Emily Dickinson
from Little, Brown & Company
for 7th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$23.99
Complete Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Complete Sonnets
Dover Thrift Editions
by William Shakespeare
from Dover Publications
Lyrical Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$4.50 $2.00 (2 in stock)
Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Barnes & Noble
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Diary of an Old Soul
by George MacDonald
from Augsburg Fortress
for 9th-Adult
in Devotionals (Location: XCL-DEV)
Dream Keeper And Other Poems
by Langston Hughes
from Scholastic Inc.
for 5th-9th grade
in Poetry for Children (Location: POET-CHIL)
$2.00 (1 in stock)
Early Moon
by Carl Sandburg, illustrated by James Daugherty
from Harcourt
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
Edgar Allan Poe: Collected Works
CanterburyClassics
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Canterbury Classics
for Nursery
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Elfin Knight
by Edmund Spenser & Toby Sumpter
from Canon Press
for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$20.00
Emily Dickinson On Love
by Emily Dickinson
from Barnes & Noble
for 7th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
English Victorian Poetry
by Paul Negri, ed.
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$6.00
Enjoy the Poems: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
by Emily Dickinson, Sonya Shafer
from Simply Charlotte Mason
for 1st-12th grade
in Poetry Curriculum & Resources (Location: LIR-POET)
Enjoy the Poems: Robert Louis Stevenson (old)
by Emily Dickinson, Sonya Shafer
from Simply Charlotte Mason
for 1st-12th grade
in Poetry Curriculum & Resources (Location: LIR-POET)
Favorite Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$3.00
Favorite Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
International Collectors Library
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from International Collectors Library
for 7th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Four Quartets
by T. S. Eliot
from Harcourt
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.99
Golden Treasury
by Francis Turner Palgrave (editor)
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
Great Short Poems
Dover Thrift Editions
by Paul Negri, editor
from Dover Publications
for 9th-12th grade
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$3.00
Heart to Heart
by Jan Greenberg
from Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
for 7th-12th grade
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$12.00 (2 in stock)
Idylls of the King
by Alfred Tennyson
from Penguin Classics
Epic Poetry for 8th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Illustrated Library of World Poetry
by William Cullen Bryant, editor
from Gramercy Books
Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
John Brown's Body: A Poem
by Stephen Vincent Benet
from Heritage Press
for 9th-Adult
Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers
by Kate Greenaway
from Gramercy Books
for all ages
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
Lady of the Lake
by Sir Walter Scott, edited with notes by William J. Rolfe
from Houghton Mifflin
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Lady of the Lake
The Students' Series of English Classics
by Sir Walter Scott, edited with introduction and notes by James Arthur Tufts
from Leach, Shewell & Sanborn
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Language of Flowers
by Kate Greenaway
from Dover Publications
for all ages
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$6.95
Learning Language Arts Through Literature - British Poetry Anthology
from Common Sense Press
for 9th-12th grade
in Clearance: English & Language Arts (Location: ZCLE-LAN)
$8.00 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Longfellow
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from Heritage Press
for 6th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Love Songs of Childhood
by Eugene Field
1916th edition from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 2nd-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
Lover's Posy
by Celia Haddon
from Michael Joseph
Valentine's Day Poetry for 6th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Major Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$15.95
Major Works of William Wordsworth
by William Wordsworth
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$18.95
Merry Ballads of Robin Hood
by Laurabelle Dietrick, assisted by Joseph Franz-Walsh and illustrated by Edna Reindel
from Macmillan
Songs and Ballads for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
My Symphony
by William Henry Channing, illustrated by Mary Engelbreit
from Andrews McMeel
for 3rd-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Narrative Poems
by C. S. Lewis
Reprint from HarperOne
Narrative Poetry for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$14.99
Ogden Nash Set - 4 Volumes
by Ogden Nash
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Clearance: Fiction (Location: ZCLE-FIC)
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
by T. S. Eliot
from Harcourt
for 7th-Adult
in Poetry for Children (Location: POET-CHIL)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Oxford Book of Friendship
by D.J. Enright & David Rawlison
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Poems
by C. S. Lewis
Reissue from HarperOne
Lyrical Poetry for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$13.99
Poems of Faith
from Dover Publications
for 8th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$2.50
Poems of Rudyard Kipling
by Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by W. Heath Robinson
from Gramercy Books
for 7th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul
by James Mudge, compiler
Wartime Edition from Abingdon-Cokesbury Press
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Poetry of Robert Frost
by Robert Frost
2nd edition from Holt McDougal
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$21.00
Prison Poems
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
from Zondervan
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$11.99
Puck of Pook's Hill
by Rudyard Kipling
from Echo Library
for 4th-9th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Puck of Pook's Hill & Rewards and Fairies
by Rudyard Kipling
from Oxford University
for 4th-9th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Requiem for Love
by Calvin Miller
from Word Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Road Not Taken & Other Poems
Dover Thrift Editions
by Robert Frost
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$3.00
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
by Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward FitzGerald and illustrated by J. Watson Davis
from A. L. Burt Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Selected Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Reprint from Penguin Classics
for 8th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$17.00
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
by Langston Hughes
from Vintage Books
for 4th-12th grade
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Shakespeare's Sonnets
by William Shakespeare
from Barnes & Noble
Lyrical Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
Shelley's Poetry and Prose
Norton Critical Edition
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
2nd edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.50 (1 in stock)
Shropshire Lad
by A. E. Housman
from Franklin Watts
for 7th-12th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Shropshire Lad
The Living Library
by A. E. Housman, Illustrated by Jeanne Edwards
from World Publishing Company
for 7th-12th grade
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight / Pearl / Sir Orfeo
by Anonymous, J. R. R. Tolkien (Translator)
from Ballantine Books
Medieval Fairy Tale/Poetry for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.99
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight / Pearl / Sir Orfeo
by Anonymous, J. R. R. Tolkien (Translator)
from Mariner Books
Medieval Fairy Tale/Poetry for 8th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
$16.99
Six American Poets
by Joel Conarroe, ed.
from Vintage Classics
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Six American Poets
by Joel Conarroe, ed.
from University of Minnesota
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Song
by Calvin Miller
from InterVarsity Press
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$1.50 (1 in stock)
Song of Hiawatha
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Frederic Remington
from Bounty Books
for 7th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Song of Hiawatha
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$2.00 (1 in stock)
Song of Hiawatha
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from Living Book Press
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Song of Hiawatha and Other Poems
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Frederic Remington, Howard Chandler Christy, et al
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
Songs for the Open Road
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$3.00
Spell of the Yukon
by Robert W. Service
from SeaWolf Press
for 9th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$6.95
Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Russell Hoban, afterword by Clifton Fadiman
4th printing, 1967 from Macmillan
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Tales of Suspense
by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Steve Salerno
from Reader's Digest
for Nursery
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
The Poetry of Lewis Carroll
by Lewis Carroll
from Arcturus
for 6th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Translations from the Chinese
by Arthur Waley
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Tristram
by Edwin Arlington Robinson
from Macmillan
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Visit from St. Nicholas
by Clement C. Moore
from International Resourcing Services
for 9th-Adult
in Christmas & Advent (Location: HOLIDAY)
Winged Horse
by Joseph Auslander & Frank Ernest Hill
from Doubleday & Company
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
World War One British Poets: Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, Rosenberg and Others
by Various Authors
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry Anthologies (Location: POET-ANTH)
$3.50
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