“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."
--Robert Frost
Below is a list of famous poems by famous poets that students should know going into a college literary class. Like all poems, these should be reread as once gets older, as the poems will change meaning with the reader.
“Admonition” (Sylvia Plath)
“Always Marry an April Girl” (Ogden Nash)
“And 2morrow” (Tupac Shakur)
“April Rain Song” (Langston Hughes)
“Around the Corner” (Charles Hanson Towne)
“As We Are So Wonderfully Done with Each Other” (Kenneth Patchen)
“Autumn Movement” (Carl Sandburg)
“Because I Could Not Stop For Death” (Emily Dickinson)
“Caged Bird” (Maya Angelou)
“Cinderella” (Sylvia Plath)
“The Cremation of Sam McGee” (Robert William Service)
“The Daffodils” (William Wordsworth)
“Death” (Rabindranath Tagore)
“Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” (Randall Jarrell)
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (Dylan Thomas)
“Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye)
“Dreams” (Langston Hughes)
“A Dream Girl” (Carl Sandburg)
"The Emperor of Ice Cream" (Wallace Stevens)
“Enemy” (Langston Hughes)
“Epitaph on a Tyrant” (W. H. Auden)
“Fire and Ice” (Robert Frost)
“Fog” (Carl Sandburg)
“Funeral Blues” (W. H. Auden)
“The Genius of the Crowd” (Charles Bukowski)
"Grief" (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“Harlem” (Langston Hughes)
“Hope is the Thing with Feathers” (Emily Dickinson)
“How Do I Love Thee?” (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“i carry your heart with me” (e. e. cummings)
“I Cry” (Tupac Shakur)
“If” (Rudyard Kipling)
“If I Can Stop” (Emily Dickinson)
“If I Could Tell You” (W.H. Auden)
“If You Forget Me” (Pablo Neruda)
“In Flanders Fields” (John McCrae)
“Invictus” (William Ernest Henley)
“Jenny Kiss’d Me” (Leigh Hunt)
“Late October” (Maya Angelou)
“The Laughing Heart” (Charles Bukowski)
“Let America Be America Again” (Langston Hughes)
"Lisa" (David Hernandez)
"Love After Love" (Derek Walcott)
"Love Song for Love Songs" (Rafael Campo)
"Mad Girl's Love Song" (Sylvia Plath)
"The Man Who Won't Fit In" (Robert W. Service)
"Mending Wall" (Robert Frost)
“Miracles” (Walt Whitman)
"Monna Innominata" (Christina Rossetti)
“More About People” (Ogden Nash)
“Mother to Son” (Langston Hughes)
“My Papa’s Waltz” (Theodore Roethke)
“No Man Is an Island” (John Donne)
“No Second Troy” (William Butler Yeats)
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” (Robert Frost)
“Now Winter Nights Enlarge” (Thomas Campion)
“O Captain! My Captain!” (Walt Whitman)
"O Me! O Life" (Walt Whitman)
"October" (Robert Frost)
“Old Men” (Ogden Nash)
“One Art” (Elizabeth Bishop)
"The Orange Bottle" (Joshua Mehigan)
“Phenomenal Woman” (Maya Angelou)
“Pioneers! O Pioneers!” (Walt Whitman)
“poem VII” (e. e. cummings)
"A Poison Tree" (William Blake)
“The Poor Ghost” (Christina Rossetti)
“The Red Wheelbarrow” (William Carlos Williams)
“The Road Not Taken” (Robert Frost)
“Richard Cory” (Edwin Arlington Robinson)
“Roll the Dice” (Charles Bukowski)
“The Rose that Grew from Concrete” (Tupac Shakur)
“Safe” (Charles Bukowski)
“The Second Coming” (William Butler Yeats)
“Seeker of Truth” (e. e. cummings)
“Senses of Insecurity” (Maya Angelou)
"She Puts on Her Lipstick in the Dark" (Stuart Dischell)
"She Walks in Beauty" (Lord Byron)
"Sonnet XX" (Pablo Neruda)
“Sonnet XVIII” (William Shakespeare)
“Sonnet LVI” (William Shakespeare)
“Sonnet LXXIII” (William Shakespeare)
“Sonnet CXXX” (William Shakespeare)
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (Robert Frost)
“The Tears in Cupid’s Eyes” (Tupac Shakur)
“Theme for English B” (Langston Hughes)
“Thinking” (Walter D. Wintle)
“This is Just to Say” (William Carlos Williams)
“Those Winter Sundays” (Robert Hayden)
“Though I Chose Death Instead of Pointless Pain” (Nicolas Gordon)
“To Be In Love” (Gwendolyn Brooks)
"To the Virgins, To Make much of Time" (Robert Herrick)
"To You" (Kenneth Koch)
“Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” (Pablo Neruda)
“Unending Love” (Rabindranath Tagore)
"Valentine" (Carol Anne Duffy)
"Valentine" (Elinor Wylie)
“The Village Blacksmith” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
“We Real Cool” (Gwendolyn Brooks)
“When You Are Old” (William Butler Yeats)
"When You Have Forgotten Sunday" (Gwendolyn Brooks)
“Where the Mind Is Without Fear” (Rabindranath Tagore)
“Where the Sidewalk Ends” (Shel Silverstein)
“Always Marry an April Girl” (Ogden Nash)
“And 2morrow” (Tupac Shakur)
“April Rain Song” (Langston Hughes)
“Around the Corner” (Charles Hanson Towne)
“As We Are So Wonderfully Done with Each Other” (Kenneth Patchen)
“Autumn Movement” (Carl Sandburg)
“Because I Could Not Stop For Death” (Emily Dickinson)
“Caged Bird” (Maya Angelou)
“Cinderella” (Sylvia Plath)
“The Cremation of Sam McGee” (Robert William Service)
“The Daffodils” (William Wordsworth)
“Death” (Rabindranath Tagore)
“Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” (Randall Jarrell)
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (Dylan Thomas)
“Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” (Mary Elizabeth Frye)
“Dreams” (Langston Hughes)
“A Dream Girl” (Carl Sandburg)
"The Emperor of Ice Cream" (Wallace Stevens)
“Enemy” (Langston Hughes)
“Epitaph on a Tyrant” (W. H. Auden)
“Fire and Ice” (Robert Frost)
“Fog” (Carl Sandburg)
“Funeral Blues” (W. H. Auden)
“The Genius of the Crowd” (Charles Bukowski)
"Grief" (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“Harlem” (Langston Hughes)
“Hope is the Thing with Feathers” (Emily Dickinson)
“How Do I Love Thee?” (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“i carry your heart with me” (e. e. cummings)
“I Cry” (Tupac Shakur)
“If” (Rudyard Kipling)
“If I Can Stop” (Emily Dickinson)
“If I Could Tell You” (W.H. Auden)
“If You Forget Me” (Pablo Neruda)
“In Flanders Fields” (John McCrae)
“Invictus” (William Ernest Henley)
“Jenny Kiss’d Me” (Leigh Hunt)
“Late October” (Maya Angelou)
“The Laughing Heart” (Charles Bukowski)
“Let America Be America Again” (Langston Hughes)
"Lisa" (David Hernandez)
"Love After Love" (Derek Walcott)
"Love Song for Love Songs" (Rafael Campo)
"Mad Girl's Love Song" (Sylvia Plath)
"The Man Who Won't Fit In" (Robert W. Service)
"Mending Wall" (Robert Frost)
“Miracles” (Walt Whitman)
"Monna Innominata" (Christina Rossetti)
“More About People” (Ogden Nash)
“Mother to Son” (Langston Hughes)
“My Papa’s Waltz” (Theodore Roethke)
“No Man Is an Island” (John Donne)
“No Second Troy” (William Butler Yeats)
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” (Robert Frost)
“Now Winter Nights Enlarge” (Thomas Campion)
“O Captain! My Captain!” (Walt Whitman)
"O Me! O Life" (Walt Whitman)
"October" (Robert Frost)
“Old Men” (Ogden Nash)
“One Art” (Elizabeth Bishop)
"The Orange Bottle" (Joshua Mehigan)
“Phenomenal Woman” (Maya Angelou)
“Pioneers! O Pioneers!” (Walt Whitman)
“poem VII” (e. e. cummings)
"A Poison Tree" (William Blake)
“The Poor Ghost” (Christina Rossetti)
“The Red Wheelbarrow” (William Carlos Williams)
“The Road Not Taken” (Robert Frost)
“Richard Cory” (Edwin Arlington Robinson)
“Roll the Dice” (Charles Bukowski)
“The Rose that Grew from Concrete” (Tupac Shakur)
“Safe” (Charles Bukowski)
“The Second Coming” (William Butler Yeats)
“Seeker of Truth” (e. e. cummings)
“Senses of Insecurity” (Maya Angelou)
"She Puts on Her Lipstick in the Dark" (Stuart Dischell)
"She Walks in Beauty" (Lord Byron)
"Sonnet XX" (Pablo Neruda)
“Sonnet XVIII” (William Shakespeare)
“Sonnet LVI” (William Shakespeare)
“Sonnet LXXIII” (William Shakespeare)
“Sonnet CXXX” (William Shakespeare)
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (Robert Frost)
“The Tears in Cupid’s Eyes” (Tupac Shakur)
“Theme for English B” (Langston Hughes)
“Thinking” (Walter D. Wintle)
“This is Just to Say” (William Carlos Williams)
“Those Winter Sundays” (Robert Hayden)
“Though I Chose Death Instead of Pointless Pain” (Nicolas Gordon)
“To Be In Love” (Gwendolyn Brooks)
"To the Virgins, To Make much of Time" (Robert Herrick)
"To You" (Kenneth Koch)
“Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” (Pablo Neruda)
“Unending Love” (Rabindranath Tagore)
"Valentine" (Carol Anne Duffy)
"Valentine" (Elinor Wylie)
“The Village Blacksmith” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
“We Real Cool” (Gwendolyn Brooks)
“When You Are Old” (William Butler Yeats)
"When You Have Forgotten Sunday" (Gwendolyn Brooks)
“Where the Mind Is Without Fear” (Rabindranath Tagore)
“Where the Sidewalk Ends” (Shel Silverstein)