Poetry that sparks excitement is filled with energetic language and lively imagery. These poems pulse with anticipation, exploring moments of thrill, wonder, and joyful surprise.
The poet captures the exhilaration of new experiences, adventures, and discoveries, creating a palpable sense of eagerness and enthusiasm. These verses mirror the rapid heartbeat of excitement, creating a contagious sense of delight and anticipation that captivates the reader and carries them along on a wave of expectation.
‘That Music Always Round Me’ by Walt Whitman is a beautiful poem that melds together the poet’s democratic worldview with a rapt appreciation for individual beauty.
That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
‘Lochinvar’ is a ballad about a young and courageous knight who saves his beloved, the fair lady Ellen, from marrying another man.
O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,
He rode all unarm’d, and he rode all alone`
‘Love Poem’ by Gregory Orr is a short poem about a speaker’s imaginative telling of asking for someone’s phone number.
A black biplane crashes through the window
of the luncheonette. The pilot climbs down,
removing his leather hood.
He hands me my grandmother's jade ring.
‘Golden Retrievals’ is a poignant poem that personifies man’s best-friend in an attempt to remind us that happiness and shelter from life’s woes is best found in the present.
Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then
‘Bards of Passion and of Mirth’ by John Keats is one of the poet’s early odes. In it, Keats confirms that bards, or authors, have two souls, with one rising to heaven, and the other staying on earth.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Doubled-lived in regions new?
‘The Sea and the Hills’ by Rudyard Kipling depicts the ocean, its heaving waves, incredible winds, and ever-present danger. It has evoked longing in men throughout time and will continue to do so, just as one longs to return home.
Who hath desired the Sea? - the sight of salt water unbounded -
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing -
Heaney’s ‘Personal Helicon’ draws inspiration from his rural carefree childhood and intimate connection with nature.
As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
‘For You O Democracy’ by Walt Whitman dedicates itself to the establishment of a land and people worthy of the noble ideals of democracy itself.
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
‘Look, Stranger’ by W. H. Auden captures the beauty of a moment observed by the speaker and reveals the very human desire to commit it to memory.
Look, stranger, on this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
Jeffrey Robin’s ‘Mountain Evening Song’ is a celebration of the campfire. As he looks into its flames, the speaker experiences a profound connection with his companions and the natural world.
Sitting around the campfire
Lo! --- the campfire !
Know --- the campfire is known
‘November Blue’ by Alice Meynell draws attention to the weather in November and what people do to make up for it.
O, Heavenly colour! London town
Has blurred it from her skies;
And hooded in an earthly brown,
Unheaven'd the city lies.
‘Woodchucks’ by Maxine Kumin is a metaphorical poem which uses the conceit of a farmer hunting woodchucks to uncover the murderous tendencies only a position of power can reveal in humans.
The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling
to the feel of the .22, the bullets' neat noses.
I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace
puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing,
‘Macavity: The Mystery Cat’ is a light verse presenting the amusing crimes of the superhuman cat – Macavity.
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw—
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
‘Latin & Soul’ by Victor Hernández Cruz conveys the sublimely affecting power of music on a group of dancers.
some waves
a wave of now
a trombone speaking to you
a piano is trying to break a molecule
‘Mannahatta’ by Walt Whitman is a stunning poem that marvels over a city deeply admired by the poet, encompassing all the wondrous elements of its populace.
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
‘Perfection’ by William Carlos Williams is a poem about finding exquisite appreciation for a decay as a natural part of life in the image of a rotting apple.
O lovely apple!
beautifully and completely
rotten
hardly a contour marred--
‘Steps’ by Frank O’Hara is one of the poet’s many pieces that explores life in New York City. It is written in his characteristic style and is filled with allusions that are sometimes hard to interpret.
How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the left
‘Ithaka’ is a Greek language poem, written by the Greek poet Constantine Peter Cavafy. This piece features Odysseus’s journey to Ithaca, his home island.
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
‘Ode to the West Wind’ was written in Cascine Woods, outside of Florence, Italy, and published in 1820. It focuses on death’s necessary destruction and the possibilities of rebirth.
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
‘Ravenna’ by Oscar Wilde is the poet’s recollection of a trip to the culturally and historically important Italian city of Ravenna.
A year ago I breathed the Italian air,
And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,
These fields made golden with the flower of March,
The throstle singing on the feathered larch,
‘High Flight’ by John Gillespie Maggee Jr. is a powerful WWII poem that was written in the weeks prior to the poet’s death. It explores flying, God, and human mortality.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll is a brilliant nonsense poem. It tells the story of one person’s quest to slay the Jabberwock and the incredible creatures they meet along the way.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
D. H. Lawrence’s ‘The Best of School’ describes a teacher’s growing wonder as he watches his students make discoveries in the course of their studies.
The blinds are drawn because of the sun,
And the boys and the room in a colourless gloom
Of underwater float: bright ripples run
Across the walls as the blinds are blown
‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ by William Carlos Williams depicts, in very simple language, a red wheelbarrow outside in the rain.
so much depends upon a red wheel barrow
‘The Young Housewife’ by William Carlos Williams is a short poem that intimately envisions a few moments in the life of a lonely woman confined to her home.
At ten a.m. the young housewife
moves about in negligee behind
the wooden walls of her husband’s house.
I pass solitary in my car.
‘To a Skylark’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley is an ode. It celebrates the beauty of nature and the bliss of a skylark’s song.
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
‘Evening Hawk’ showcases Warren’s love for rich imagery and metaphysical symbolism. The hawk serves as a powerful vehicle for a series of revelations about our place in the universe.
His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
The crashless fall of stalks of Time.
‘Before The Cask of Wine’ is a beautiful lyric that emphasizes enjoying one’s youthful hours to the fullest. As one can’t savor those moments in old age.
The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes,
Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the golden bowl.
The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads together.
‘City of Orgies’ by Walt Whitman is a poem written by the celebrated American poet Walt Whitman. The poem is a reflection on the city of Manhattan and Whitman’s experiences in the midst of its bustling urban culture.
City of orgies, walks and joys,
City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day
make you illustrious,
Not the pageants of you, not your shifting tableaus, your specta-
cles, repay me,
‘Kubla Khan’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a poem that describes the poet’s dream of visiting the palace of Kubla Khan, a Mongol emperor who ruled over the ancient Chinese Yuan Dynasty.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
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