INTRODUCTION TO POETRY ~BY BILLY COLLINS
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT ~BY DYLAN THOMAS
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day
LETTING GO ~BY POETICIA
My shadows you grew in your backyard, clandestine photosynthesis with your darkness. I nourished them with tears, unsalted over time. The sun came up, I reached deep down, my roots calling out to me. Uprooting them was painful but I heard your darkness scream through my veins. Tearing away from your weeds, I stretched out…
THE MAN IN THE DOORWAY ~BY PAM LEVARI
There once was a little girl so innocent and free-
One morning she work up
That had all been taken
A LESSON FOR THIS SUNDAY ~BY DEREK WALCOTT
The growing idleness of summer grass
With its frail kites of furious butterflies
ONCE UPON A TIME ~ BY GABRIEL OKARA
Once upon a time, son,
they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
WHO SAID IT WAS SIMPLE ~BY AUDRE LORDE
There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.
WHERE THE SIDE WALK ENDS ~BY SHEL SILVERSTEIN
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,