It was rather difficult getting 10 poems up, made all the harder by my brilliant colleagues (yes, that's you, if you buy me coffee Monday). But I have narrowed my list down to these, hopefully without repeating any poems posted so we have a diverse and useful resource. I've also included picture of these poets so you can decide on their readability based on their looks.
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1. W. H. Auden: Musée des Beaux Arts
There's nothing like a pessimistic, inevitability-of-death poem to start any day of the week.
The poem builds towards one precise moment of bittersweet irony.
7. Lord Alfred Tennyson: Tears, Idle Tears
A beautiful poem about irreversible passage of time, mourning an irretrievable past.
8. Christina Rossetti: In an Artist's Studio
About art gone wrong, and the high cost of living in the moment captured.
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There is a strong tension between the comic and tragic here, and an interesting response to art through art, and in the process exploring the relationship between life and story.
Brueghel's Icarus
Aspects of poetry: tone, imagery
Level: Sec 3-4
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2. Wallace Stevens: The Snow Man
Perhaps one of the greatest poems on perception, interpretation and existence, The Snow Man is, to my mind, also a question: how does poetry relate to reality?
Aspects of poetry: sound mechanics (vowels), imagery
Level: Sec 3-4
3. Wallace Stevens: Anecdote of the Jar
Another poem on the centrality of interpretation in our understanding of the world around us, it is also a critique of the relationship between humankind and the natural environment.
Aspects of poetry: imagery, rhyme, form/function, allegory
Level: Sec 2-4
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4. Philip Larkin: Nothing to be Said
There's nothing like a pessimistic, inevitability-of-death poem to start any day of the week.
Aspects of poetry: imagery, rhythm, the human condition
Level: Sec 3-4
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The poem builds towards one precise moment of bittersweet irony.
Aspects of poetry: irony, symbol
Level: Sec 2-3
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6. Percy Bysshe Shelley: Ozymandias
The intensity of the images and the powerful twist at the end makes this the sonnet I remember best.
Aspects of poetry: imagery, sonnet, volta, rhyme scheme, loose form
Level: Sec 2-3
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7. Lord Alfred Tennyson: Tears, Idle Tears
A beautiful poem about irreversible passage of time, mourning an irretrievable past.
Aspects of poetry: imagery, sound mechanics (vowels), the elegiac, the human condition
Level: Sec 3-4
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8. Christina Rossetti: In an Artist's Studio
About art gone wrong, and the high cost of living in the moment captured.
Aspects of poetry: sonnet, rhyme scheme, volta, tragic hero, representation (silence)
Level: Sec 2-3
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9. Li-Young Lee: From Blossoms
An amazingly uplifting poem without any resemblance to the blind optimism of your local Carebears Convention.
Aspects of poetry: repetition, rhythm, imagery, enjambment
Level: Sec 2-3
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10. William Carlos Williams: Complete Destruction
Intense grief and anger masked by a cold detachment - all in an 8 line, 33 word poem.
Aspects of poetry: imagery, enjambment
Level: Sec 2
+1 Michael Ondaatje: Bearhug
To cover for doubling up on The Snow Man, here's another one.
Aspects of poetry: imagery, form/function
Level: Sec 2
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