Pick your poem for Poetry Out Loud!

Select a poem from the list below, and memorize the title, author, and first two lines.
Remember, this is the first step in preparing your Poetry Out Loud performance!
Pick a poem that appeals to you - that you understand fairly well upon initial readings and hits you hard in your heart, mind, or soul. This will make it easier and more satisfying to memorize.

After the Disaster by Abigail Deutsch
America by Claude McKay
Another Feeling by Ruth Stone
Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
April Love by Ernest Dowson
Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish
Barter by Sara Teasdale
Beginning by James Wright
Black Boys Play the Classics by Toi Derricotte
Bleeding Heart by Carmen Gimenez smith
The Bloody Sire by Robinson Jeffers
Broken Promises by David Kirby
Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye
​Cabezon by Amy Beeder
​A Certain Kind of Eden by Kay Ryan
The Cities Inside Us by Alberto Rios
​The Consent by Howard Nemerov
​Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams
The Daring One by Edwin Markham
Deliberate by Amy Uyematsu
Discrimination by Kenneth Rexroth
Domestic Situation by Ernest Hilbert
Eating Together by Li-Young Lee
El Olvido by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Fairy-tale Logic by A. E. Stallings
Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye
God's Secretary by R. S. Gwynn
Hedgehog by Paul Muldoon 
Holding Court by Jacob Saenz
"Hope" is the thing with feathers (314) by Emily Dickinson
I am Learning to Abandon the World by Linda Pastan
In Praise of My Bed by Meredith Holmes
It Couldn't Be Done by Edgar Albert Guest
Living Ancients by Matthew Shenoda
Makin' Jump Shots by Michael S. Harper
Momma Said by Calvin Forbes
The Negro Speaks of Heroes by Langston Hughes
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
Not Waving by Drowning by Stevie Smith
​The Obligation to be Happy by Linda Pastan
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
Pity the Beautiful by Dana Gioia
The Promise by Jane Hirshfield
Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Sharks' Teeth by Kay Ryan
Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? by William Shakespeare
"Time does not bring relief; you all have lied" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Testimonial by Rita Dova
Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet
Truth Serum by Naomi Shihab Nye
The Vacuum by Howard Nemerov

*If you cannot find a poem you like in the list above, check out the Poetry Out Loud website for many more options. Just make sure the poem you pick has at least 10 lines!