"Trees" by Joyce Kilmer : Poetry Magazine

On this day in 1913, the poem "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer was first published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. To read that poem, which is good for children, click here.

"The Voice of the Rain" by Walt Whitman

Here is a poem that Walt Whitman wrote about what he called "the Poem of Earth."


THE VOICE OF THE RAIN

And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, and yet the same,
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin and make pure and beautify it;
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.)

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

"Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson and Paul Simon

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, "'Richard Cory'" is a song written by Paul Simon in early 1965, and recorded by Simon and Garfunkel for their second studio album, Sounds of Silence. The song was based on Edwin Arlington Robinson.s 1897 poem of the same title." Here is that poem.


RICHARD CORY
by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich -- yes, richer than a king --
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

American poet,

the author of the poem "Richard Cory"

To listen to the audio recording of Simon and Garfunkel singing Paul Simon's song "Richard Cory," click here.

"the dark tree, the cold sea" by Emily Fragos : Poets.org

"People are curious about the you in 'the dark tree, the cold sea.' It need not be a secret. My beloved sister died young of cancer. It is she to whom I am speaking." So says American poet Emily Fragos. To read her poem "the dark tree, the cold sea" and to listen to an audio recording of her reading that poem, click here.

"Last Night We Saw South Pacific" by James Applewhite : Poets.org

"Last Night We Saw South Pacific" is one of the poems in American poet James Applewhite's book A Diary of Altered Light: Poems, a book that was published in 2006 by Louisiana State University Press. To read that poem, click here.

"The hydrangea blooms

its dry blue, burns a brown lavender."

-- James Applewhite

in his poem "Last Night We Saw South Pacific"

"Buffalo Dusk" by Carl Sandburg

"If it ain't poetry, it's history." So said Carl Sandburg about his poem "Buffalo Dusk." To read that poem and to listen to an audio recording of Carl Sandburg reading that poem of his, click here.

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)