{"id":2392,"date":"2024-12-12T22:43:35","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T22:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/?p=2392"},"modified":"2025-08-21T19:49:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T19:49:16","slug":"a-months-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/2024\/12\/12\/a-months-worth\/","title":{"rendered":"A Months Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
I can see the light.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the anniversary of the publication of Robert Frost\u2019s iconic poem \u201cStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening<\/a>\u201d came around, it spurred the Literary Hub office into a long conversation about their favorite poems, the most iconic poems written in English, and which poems we should all have already read (or at least be reading next). Turns out, despite frequent (false) claims that poetry is dead and\/or irrelevant and\/or boring, there are plenty of poems that have sunk deep into our collective consciousness as cultural icons. (What makes a poem iconic? For our purposes here, it\u2019s primarily a matter of cultural ubiquity, though unimpeachable excellence helps any case.) So for those of you who were not present for our epic office argument, I have listed some of them here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NB that I limited myself to one poem per poet\u2014which means that the impetus for this list actually gets bumped for the widely quoted (and misunderstood) \u201cThe Road Not Taken,\u201d but so it goes. I also excluded book-length poems, because they\u2019re really a different form. Finally, despite the headline, I\u2019m sure there are many, many iconic poems out there that I\u2019ve missed\u2014so feel free to extend this list in the comments. But for now, happy reading (and re-reading):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

William Carlos Williams, \u201cThe Red Wheelbarrow<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most anthologized poem of the last 25 years<\/a> for a reason. See also: \u201cThis is Just to Say<\/a>,\u201d which, among other things, has spawned a host of memes and parodies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T. S. Eliot, \u201cThe Waste Land<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without a doubt one of the most important poems of the 20th century. \u201cIt has never lost its glamour,\u201d Paul Muldoon observed<\/a>. \u201cIt has never failed to be equal to both the fracture of its own era and what, alas, turned out to be the even greater fracture of the ongoing 20th century and now, it seems, the 21st century.\u201d See also: \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Frost, \u201cThe Road Not Taken<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise known as \u201cthe most misread poem in America<\/a>.\u201d See also: \u201cStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening<\/a>.\u201d And \u201cBirches<\/a>.\u201d All begin in delight and end in wisdom, as Frost taught us great poems should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gwendolyn Brooks, \u201cWe Real Cool<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blew my mind in high school, and I wasn\u2019t the only one<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Bishop, \u201cOne Art<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bishop\u2019s much loved and much discussed<\/a> ode to loss, which Claudia Roth Pierpont called<\/a> \u201ca triumph of control, understatement, wit. Even of self-mockery, in the poetically pushed rhyme word \u201cvaster,\u201d and the ladylike, pinkies-up \u201cshan\u2019t.\u201d An exceedingly rare mention of her mother\u2014as a woman who once owned a watch. A continent standing in for losses larger than itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily Dickinson, \u201cBecause I could not stop for Death \u2013<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, there are lots of equally iconic Dickinson poems<\/a>, so consider this a stand-in for them all. Though, as Jay Parini has noted<\/a>, this poem is perfect, \u201cone of Dickinson\u2019s most compressed and chilling attempts to come to terms with mortality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Langston Hughes, \u201cHarlem<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the defining works of the Harlem Renaissance, by its greatest poet. It also, of course, gave inspiration and lent a title to another literary classic: Lorraine Hansberry\u2019s A Raisin in the Sun<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sylvia Plath, \u201cDaddy<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be quite honest, my favorite Plath poem is \u201cThe Applicant<\/a>.\u201d But \u201cDaddy\u201d is still the most iconic, especially if you\u2019ve ever heard her read it aloud<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Hayden, \u201cMiddle Passage<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most famous poem, and a terribly beautiful one, by our country\u2019s first African-American Poet Laureate (though the position was then called Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress). See also: \u201cThose Winter Sundays<\/a>, which despite what I wrote above may be equally as famous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wallace Stevens, \u201cThirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This one takes the cake for the sheer number of \u201cthirteen ways of looking at x\u201d knockoffs that I\u2019ve seen. But please see also: \u201cThe Emperor of Ice-Cream<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allen Ginsberg, \u201cHowl<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With On the Road<\/em>, the most enduring piece of literature from the mythologized Beat Generation, and of the two, the better one. Even the least literate of your friends would probably recognize the line \u201cI saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maya Angelou, \u201cStill I Rise<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So iconic, it was a Google Doodle<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dylan Thomas, \u201cDo Not Go Gentle into That Good Night<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, have you seen Interstellar<\/em>? (Or Dangerous Minds<\/em> or Independence Day<\/em>?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, \u201cKubla Khan<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or Citizen Kane<\/em>? (See also: \u201cThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Percy Bysshe Shelley, \u201cOzymandias<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

. . . or Breaking Bad<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edgar Allan Poe, \u201cThe Raven<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had some votes for \u201cAnnabel Lee<\/a>,\u201d on account of its earworminess, but among the many appearances<\/a> and references of Poe in pop culture, \u201cThe Raven\u201d is certainly the most common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louise Gl\u00fcck, \u201cMock Orange<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those poems passed hand to hand between undergraduates who will grow up to become writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Laurence Dunbar, \u201cWe Wear the Mask<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunbar\u2019s most famous poem, and arguably his best, which biographer Paul Revell described<\/a> as \u201ca moving cry from the heart of suffering. The poem anticipates, and presents in terms of passionate personal regret, the psychological analysis of the fact of blackness in Frantz Fanon\u2019s Peau Noire, Masques Blancs, <\/em>with a penetrating insight into the reality of the black man\u2019s plight in America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e.e. cummings, \u201ci carry your heart with me<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As quoted at many, many weddings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marianne Moore, \u201cPoetry<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All else aside, the fact that it starts with hating poetry has made it a favorite among schoolchildren of all ages. See also: \u201cThe Fish<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rudyard Kipling, \u201cIf<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to someone in the Literary Hub office who would know, this poem is all over sports stadiums and locker rooms. Serena Williams is into it<\/a>, which is proof enough for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gertrude Stein, \u201cSacred Emily<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Blake, \u201cThe Tyger<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyger, tyger, burning bright . . . Blake famously wrote music to go along with his poems\u2014the originals have been lost, but this verse has been widely interpreted by musicians as well as repeated to many sleepy children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Burns, \u201cTo a Mouse<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As (further) immortalized by John Steinbeck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walt Whitman, \u201cSong of Myself<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most famous poem from Whitman\u2019s celebrated Leaves of Grass<\/em>, and selected by Jay Parini as the best American poem of all time<\/a>. \u201cWhitman reinvents American poetry in this peerless self-performance,\u201d Parini writes, \u201cfinding cadences that seem utterly his own yet somehow keyed to the energy and rhythms of a young nation waking to its own voice and vision. He calls to every poet after him, such as Ezra Pound, who notes in \u201cA Pact\u201d<\/a> that Whitman \u201cbroke the new wood.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip Larkin, \u201cThis Be The Verse<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know, we know, it\u2019s all your parents\u2019 fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Shakespeare, \u201cSonnet 18<\/a>\u201d (\u201cShall I compare thee to a summer\u2019s day?\u201d)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Dickinson, we could have put several of Shakespeare\u2019s sonnets in this slot. Most people only recognize the first couplets anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audre Lorde, \u201cPower<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A uniquely American poem, written in 1978, that should be outdated by now, but still is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank O\u2019Hara, \u201cMeditations in an Emergency<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Courtesy Don Draper, circa season 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John McCrae, \u201cIn Flanders Fields<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably the most iconic\u2014and most quoted\u2014poem from WWI. Particularly popular in Canada, where McCrae is from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis Carroll, \u201cJabberwocky<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still the most iconic nonsense poem ever written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

W. B. Yeats, \u201cThe Second Coming<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise known as \u201cthe most thoroughly pillaged piece of literature in English<\/a>.\u201d Just ask our hero Joan Didion. Joan knows what\u2019s up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One more thing. The above list is too white and male and old, because our literary iconography is still too white and male and old. So, here are some other poems that we here at the Literary Hub office also consider iconic, though they are perhaps not as widely anthologized\/quoted\/referenced\/used to amp up the corny drama in films as some of the above (yet).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adrienne Rich, \u201cDiving into the Wreck<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my very favorites from Rich\u2019s rich (sorry) oeuvre. I read it in college and have been quoting it ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patricia Lockwood, \u201cRape Joke<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem that officially broke the internet in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucille Clifton, \u201cHomage to My Hips<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s just . . . so . . . damn . . . sexy. See also: \u201cTo a Dark Moses<\/a>\u201d and \u201cwon\u2019t you celebrate with me<\/a>,\u201d because Clifton is the greatest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucie Brock-Broido, \u201cAm Moor<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This happens to be my own personal favorite Brock-Broido poem, though almost any would do here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sappho, \u201cThe Anactoria Poem<\/a>\u201d (tr. Jim Powell)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m breaking my rule about the poems being written in English to include Sappho, whose work is uniquely appealing for being almost lost to us. The Anactoria poem is her most famous, though I have to say I also have a major soft spot for this fragment, translated by Anne Carson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

so
]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

]
]
]
]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go                     [
so we may see [
]
lady<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of gold arms     [
]
]
doom
]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And when I say \u201csoft spot\u201d I mean it sends me into ecstatic fits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Young, \u201cErrata<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest wedding poem that no one ever reads at their wedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Leidner, \u201cRomantic Comedies<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who enjoy snorting their coffee while reading poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muriel Rukeyser, \u201cThe Book of the Dead<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long, legendary poem, written in 1938, about the illness of a group of miners in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. \u201cComing hot on the heels of modernist long poem masterpieces like Eliot\u2019s \u201cThe Wasteland\u201d or Stein\u2019s \u201cTender Buttons,\u201d the poem\u2019s deliberate lucidity isn\u2019t just an aesthetic choice\u2014it\u2019s a political one,\u201d Colleen Abel wrote in Ploughshares<\/em><\/a>. \u201cRukeyser, from the beginning of \u201cBook of the Dead,\u201d seeks the reader\u2019s participation in the journey to Gauley Bridge. The reader is implicated from the first section, \u201cThe Road,\u201d in which Rukeyser calls outward to her audience: \u201cThese are roads you take when you think of your country.\u201d The disaster Rukeyser is about to explore is a part of \u201cour country\u201d and the reader will have no choice but to confront it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carolyn Forch\u00e9, \u201cThe Colonel<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you have heard is true. This poem is unforgettable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rita Dove, \u201cAfter Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen<\/em> for the Third Time Before Bed<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, a thousand poems by Rita Dove would do; this is the one that sticks in my brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nikki Giovanni, \u201cEgo Tripping<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, \u201cI am so hip even my errors are correct\u201d should probably be your mantra. Watch Giovanni perform her poem here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terrance Hayes, \u201cThe Golden Shovel<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayes\u2019s homage to Gwendolyn Brooks is a masterpiece in its own right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the anniversary of the publication of Robert Frost\u2019s iconic poem \u201cStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening\u201d came around, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/pcc.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2395,"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions\/2395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmaxwell.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}