Poetrylist.html

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English (AP*) Literature and Composition
Teacher-Written Lesson Plans:
Recommended Poetry List

Click on the name of the poet to find many of the poems that are available online. As a special bonus, poems that have been used on past AP exams are listed below the poet. For your convenience, these include essay prompts. The titles are also linked to the full text.

Margaret Atwood (1939- )

Read "Siren Song" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how Atwood manipulates the language to draw a comparison between the myths and modern life, luring the reader into the folklore.

Read "Of Sirens and Secrets" to see how an analysis can be easily organized organically-around the organiztion of the poem.

W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973 )

Read The Unknown Citizen carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how Auden manipulates the language to identify the limitations implicit in his society.

Read As I Walked Out One Evening by WH Auden carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that contrasts the attitude of the clock with that of the lover. Be sure to analyze how such stylistic devices as imagery and other language choices are selected to illustrate the meaning of the poem.

Read "Law Like Love" carefully. Then write an essay analyzing the differences between the conceptions of "law" in lines 1-34 and those in lines 35-60.

Elizabeth Bishop (1911 - 1979)

Read One Art carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how such devices as verse form and diction are manipulated by Bishop to reveal the speaker's various attitudes toward loss.

William Blake (1757 - 1827)

Eavan Boland (1944- )

Read "It's a Woman's World" carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the poem reveals the speaker's complex conception of a "woman's world."

Read the sample essay on "It's a Woman's World" in the tutorial section. Notice how it has some good ideas but lacks the organic organization of "Of Sirens and Secrets". Write your essay based on the organization of the poem, changing paragraphs where there are shifts in meaning or tone.

Read "The Pomegranate" by Eavan Boland

Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672)

Read "The Author to Her Book" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the poem's controlling metaphor expresses the complex attitude of the speaker.
To get more help with this poem from the College Board Online*, click on EssayPrep.

E. K. Braithwaite

Read "Ogun" carefully. The write an essay in which you discuss how the diction, imagery, and movement of verse in the poem reflect differences in tone and content between the two differing larger sections.
Read an example analysis of "Ogun."

Gwendolyn Brooks (117 - 2000)

Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

Lorna Dee Cervantes (1954 - )

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 - 1400)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)

Billy Collins
Poet Laureate Information
Billy Collins Poems
Poetry 180 A Poem Every Day for American High Schools

(HD) Hilda Doolittle (1886 - 1961)

Read "To Helen" by Poe and "Helen" by HD carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language choices made by each poet reveal the two speakers' differing views of Helen. You might want to consider diction, imagery, form, and tone.

Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

Read "The Last Night That She Lived" carefully. Then write an essay in which analyze how the use of language reveals the speaker's attitude toward the upcoming death.

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

Read "The Broken Heart" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the speaker uses the varied imagery of the poem to convey his attitude toward the nature of love.

Rita Dove (1952- )

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

Read "London, 1802" by William Wordsworth and "Douglass" by Dunbar carefully, noting how they each respond to the conditions of a particular time and place. Then write a well-organized essay that compares and contrasts the two p[oems and the relationships between them.

Bob Dylan

Analysis of Bob Dylan's "Idiot Wind"

Bob Dylan's Original Lyrics -- a tremendous list of all Dylan's works.

Richard Eberhart (1904- )

Read The Groundhog carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language of the poem reveals the changing attitues of the speaker as he considers the metamorphosis of the dead groundhog.

T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

Read "There Was a Boy" by William Wordsworth and "The Most of It" by Frost carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the the stylistic devices in each poem reveal the differing encounters with nature. Distinguish between the attitudes (toward nature, toward the solitary individual, etc.) illustrated in the poems, and analyze how the poets use the language to present these attitudes.

Read "Bright Star" by John Keats and "Choose Something Like a Star" by Frost carefully, noting that Frost makes an allusion to the Keats poem. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes their similarities and differences, especially in theme and style.

John Gardner's Grendal

Louise Gluck (1943 - )

Read Spring and All by Williams andFor Jane Meyers by Louise Gluck carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the the stylistic devices in each poem reveal differing attitudes toward the coming of spring.

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)
Satires of Circumstance: A Collection of Poems

Joy Harjo (1951 - )

Seamus Heaney (1939- )

Read "Blackberry-Picking" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the physical intensity of the language of the poem is used to convey a deeper understanding of the speaker's experience. You may want to consider such elements as diction, imagery, metaphor, rhyme, rhythm, and form.

George Herbert (1593 - 1633)

Garrett Hongo (1951 - )

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889)

Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967)

Ben Johnson (172 - 1637)

John Keats (1795 - 1821)

Read "Bright Star" by Keats and "Choose Something Like a Star" by Robert Frost carefully, noting that Frost makes an allusion to the Keats poem. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes their similarities and differences, especially in theme and style.

Phillip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

Read "Poetry of Departures" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poet's diction reveals his attitude toward the two ways of living mentioned in the poem.

DH Lawrence (1885 - 1930)

Read two versions of The Piano carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the characteristics of the second poem make it better than the first. Use evidence from both poems to support your analysis.

Robert Lowell (1917 - 1977)

Andrew Marvel (1621 - 1678)
"To His Coy Mistress"

John Milton (1608 - 1674)

Marianne Moore (1887 - 1972)

Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)

Read Sow by Sylvia Plath carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language of the poem reflects the neighbor's, the narrator's, and the reader's perceptions of the sow. You might consider such poetical devices as diction, devices of sound, images, and allusions.

Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)

Edgar Allen Poe (1809 - 1849)

Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)

Adrienne Rich (1929- )

Read Storm Warnings carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the organization of the poem and its concrete details reveal both its literal and figurative meanings. Consider how these meaning relate to the title.

Theodore Roethke (1908 - 1963)

Read Elegy for Jane carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language choices made by the poet reveal the speaker's attutide toward his former student, Jane.

Read "Dolor" by Roethke

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Read the following soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II carefully. Then, write a well organized essay that analyzes how the diction, imagery, and syntax help to convey his state of mind--his frustration with his inability to sleep.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

Leslie Marmon Silko (1948 - )

Cathy Song

May Swenson (1919 - 1989)

Read "The Centaur" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the language choices (imagery, structure, point of view) made by the poet convey meaning in the poem.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953)

John Updike (1932 - )

Read "The Great Scarf of Birds" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poem's organization, diction, and figurative language prepare the reader for the speaker's concluding response.

Derek Walcott (1930- )

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

Richard Wilbur (1921- )

Read "The Death of a Toad" carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how formal elements such as syntax, diction, and imagery reveal the speaker's reaction to the death of the toad.

Miller Williams President Clinton's Inaugral (Great poem to re-visit in 2001!)

William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963)

Read Spring and All by Williams and For Jane Meyers by Louise Gluck carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the stylistic devices in each poem reveal differing attitudes toward coming spring.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)

Read "There Was a Boy" by Wordsworth and "The Most of It" by Robert Frost carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the the stylistic devices in each poem reveal the differing encounters with nature. Distinguish between the attitudes (toward nature, toward the solitary individual, etc.) illustrated in the poems, and analyze how the poets use the language to present these attitudes.

The Wondering Minstrels

William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)

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