“Excellent and enormously important. . . . I urge you to buy [the book], pass [it] around, exert influence in schools. Help stamp out the kind of poetry children are normally forced to read and write.” —John Gardner, The New York Times Book Review
“A handbook, anthology and instructor’s guide combined, Koch’s work will instantly endear itself to writers and to teachers of every age and competence.” —Library Journal
“Koch is performing an extraordinary act of education.” —Webster Schott, The Washington Post
“It deserves the widest possible audience, and in the shortest possible time.” —Jonathan Kozol
Introduction: Teaching Great Poetry to Children
Introduction #2 (1990)
*TEN LESSONS*
Chapter One.
WILLIAM BLAKE The Tyger
Chapter Two.
ROBERT HERRICK The Argument of His Book
Chapter Three.
JOHN DONNE A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Chapter Four.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Songs
Chapter Five.
WALT WHITMAN from Song of Myself sections 1 and 2
Chapter Six.
WALLACE STEVENS Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Chapter Seven.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS This Is Just to Say; The Locust Tree in Flower; Between Walls
Chapter Eight.
FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA Romance Sonambulo; Arbole, Arbole
Chapter Nine.
JOHN ASHBERY Into the Dusk-Charged Air
Chapter Ten.
ARTHUR RIMBAUD Voyelles
*ANTHOLOGY*
Introduction to the Anthology
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Cuckoo Song
The Irish Dancer
DANTE ALIGHIERI
Sonetto / Sonnet
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
The Demon Lover
Lord Randal
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Sonnet
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Over Hill, over Dale
Under the Greenwood Tree
Aubade
Orpheus with His Lute
Sonnet
ROBERT HERRICK
Delight in Disorder
How Violets Came Blew
How Roses Came Red
How Marigolds Came Yellow
GEORGE HERBERT
Heaven
THOMAS CAREW
A Song
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Lamb
The Sick Rose
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Kubla Khan
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Ode to the West Wind
JOHN KEATS
Ode on a Grecian Urn
ROBERT BROWNING
Home Thoughts, from Abroad
WALT WHITMAN
from Song of Myself section 15
from Song of Myself section 26
EMILY DICKINSON
I Never Saw a Moor
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
God’s Grandeur
ARTHUR RIMBAUD
Fleurs / Flowers
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Who Goes with Fergus?
GUILLAUME APOLLI NAIRE
Coeur Couronne et Miroir / Heart Crown and Mirror
D. H. LAWRENCE
The White Horse
Trees in the Garden
Humming-Bird
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Der Knabe / The Boy
Aus einer Kindheit / From a Childhood
WALLACE STEVENS
Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks
Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
Bantams in Pine-Woods
MARIANNE MOORE
The Wood-Weasel
LÉOPOLD SÉDAR SENGHOR
Je veux dire ton nom / I Want to Say Your Name
ELIZABETH BISHOP
Cirque d’Hiver
GABRIEL OKARA
Piano and Drums
FRANK O’HARA
Les Étiquettes Jaunes
A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island
JOHN ASHBERY
The Painter
Four Chinese Poems
CH’U YUAN
In Praise of the Orange Tree
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Oath of Friendship
PO CHU-I
Eating Bamboo Shoots
HAN-SHAN
Cold Mountain Poems
Five Japanese Poems
SHIKI
What a wonderful day!
ISSA
Wild goose
RYOTA
No one spoke
BASHO
The old pond
With what voice
Two African Tribal Poems
The Magnificent Bull
Song for the Sun That Disappeared behind the Rainclouds
Three American Indian Poems
Dawn Song
Love-Charm Song
The War God’s Horse Song
SOME POEMS FROM SWAZILAND
Afterword (Mainly for Teachers)
Bibliographical Note
Author and Title Index of Adult Poems
Subject Index of Adult Poems
