I like to read and recommend to you:
“Be Strong” by Maltbie Davenport Babcock (though it is a little negative)
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain” Emily Dickinson
“Little Boy Blue” by Eugene Field (one of my dad’s favorites)
“Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant (my dad’s other favorite)
“Plant a Tree” by Lucy Larcom
“Crossing the Bar” by Alfred Tennyson
“Easter Wings” by George Herbert
“The Altar” by George Herbert
“She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” by William Wordsworth
“The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes
“I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman
So that’s 23 I’d recommend from the other lists. Plus the 10 I wouldn’t hang. And these 11. I’m up to 44 poems that I enjoy now, have enjoyed in the past, and/or would recommend.
That’s not 52, and it’s probably not the sort he was looking for, but I sent them in.
What about the poem about the soldier that was surfing the internet that made me cry? Do I have that anywhere? I know I read it on Blackfive and other places.
That one was “A Different Christmas Poem” on Blackfive.
And I found “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” when I was rummaging through the search button of my blog.
Then I found a post of mine on “Committed to Memory” with a list of many poems I like, some of which were not here. Those include:
“The New Colossus†by Emma Lazarus (great poem on the statue of liberty)
“Ozymandias†by Percy Bysshe Shelley (I thought about including it in the list.)
“The Spacious Firmament on high†by Joseph Addison (One of my favorite songs.)
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers†by Langston Hughes
From “In Memoriam†by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Song of Myself, XI by Walt Whitman
“Ecclesiastes 3:1-8″ by Anonymous
“The Road Not Taken†by Robert Frost
“The Owl and the Pussy-cat†by Edward Lear
“Richard Cory†by Edwin Arlington Robinson
“All the world’s a stage†by William Shakespeare
“Casey at the Bat†by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
“Because I could not stop for Death†by Emily Dickinson
“Mending Wall†by Robert Frost
“The Kraken†by Lord Alfred Tennyson
“A noiseless patient spider†by Walt Whitman
Then there’s “The Unknown Citizen” by WHAuden, which I loved in junior high. It seemed such a perfect social commentary.
Langston Hughes “A Dream Deferred.”
That’s a total of 66 poems I’ver recommended today. I think that’s all the poetry I’ll talk about today.