Poetry Prof – Read, Teach, Study Poetry

September 10, 2024 Poetry Prof

Plaits

Elizabeth Smither weaves a life lesson from strands of her own hair
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August 10, 2024 Poetry Prof

A Long Journey

Follow Musaemura Zimunya back up an endless river into Zimbabwe’s forgotten past
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July 31, 2024 Poetry Prof

The Enemies

Elizabeth Jennings explores the poisonous power of paranoia in this cold-war parable
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August 10, 2023 Poetry Prof

The Instant of My Death

Sarah Jackson makes an unexpected connection in this elusive poem about travel and change.
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July 24, 2023 Poetry Prof

Song

George Szirtes pays tribute to a determined and courageous spirit.
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June 28, 2023 Poetry Prof

Rich and Poor or, Saint and Sinner

Thomas Love Peacock exposes the unfairness of religious moralism towards the poor.
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June 12, 2023 Poetry Prof

These are the Times We Live In

Imtiaz Dharker’s poem exposes institutional xenophobia through a demeaning interaction.
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June 2, 2023 Poetry Prof

Boxes

Life’s a squeeze in Sampurna Chattarji’s depiction of Mumbai.
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May 27, 2023 Poetry Prof

Children of Wealth

Elizabeth Daryush shows how money can’t buy happiness in this sympathetic sonnet.
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May 23, 2023 Poetry Prof

The Bus

Get your tickets and board Arun Kolatkar’s mysterious old bus for a mystical nighttime journey.
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May 15, 2023 Poetry Prof

Funeral Blues

When the world doesn’t seem to care, turn to Auden’s moving elegy.
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May 8, 2023 Poetry Prof

Away, Melancholy

When Stevie Smith gets knocked down, she gets back up again.
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May 4, 2023 Poetry Prof

From Long Distance

Tony Harrison’s father copes with grief in his own way.
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April 29, 2023 Poetry Prof

The City Planners

Take a drive through Margaret Atwood’s sinister suburban poem to find out who the City Planners are – and what they really want.
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April 21, 2023 Poetry Prof

A Consumer’s Report

Peter Porter pushes back against consumer-culture in this uniquely un-poetic poem.
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April 18, 2023 Poetry Prof

Night Sweat

Sink or swim in the sea of Robert Lowell’s obsession.
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April 14, 2023 Poetry Prof

Request to a Year

Judith Wright knows what it takes to be a successful artist: her great-great-grandmother showed her the way.
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April 10, 2023 Poetry Prof

The Telephone Call

Fleur Adcock reminds us that, in the final reckoning, we’re all winners; we just need to remember to appreciate it.
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April 8, 2023 Poetry Prof

Ozymandias

Pride comes before a fall in Percy Shelley’s smashing sonnet.
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April 5, 2023 Poetry Prof

The Man with Night Sweats

Thom Gunn gives form to fear in a time of crisis.
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March 26, 2023 Poetry Prof

He Never Expected Much

Don’t look back in anger, advises Thomas Hardy; but is he hiding deeper regrets?
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March 16, 2023 Poetry Prof

The Spirit is too Blunt an Instrument

Anne Stevenson’s philosophical poem asks what it means to be truly alive.
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March 4, 2023 Poetry Prof

On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book

Charles Tennyson Turner finds himself unexpectedly moved by a tiny tragedy.
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February 23, 2023 Poetry Prof

Rain

Edward Thomas’ not-quite-a-war poem inspired by a tempestuous downpour.
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April 10, 2022 Poetry Prof

The Character of a Happy Life

Follow Henry Wotton’s step-by-step guide to peace and contentment.
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April 6, 2022 Poetry Prof

Rhyme of the Dead Self

See the lengths A.R.D. Fairburn will go to bury the misery of romantic failure.
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February 10, 2022 Poetry Prof

Nearing Forty

A sleepless night prompts Derek Walcott’s intense, introspective poem.
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January 12, 2022 Poetry Prof

Verses Written on her Death-Bed at Bath

Mary Monck ruminates on death and life in this touching verse-letter.
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January 5, 2022 Poetry Prof

Now Let No Charitable Hope

Elinor Wylie teaches us to face adversity with a dignified smile.
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October 5, 2021 Poetry Prof

The Planners

Boey Kim Cheng reveals the sinister side of relentless urbanisation in his poem that delivers a timely warning.
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June 24, 2021 Poetry Prof

from An Essay on Criticism

Join Alexander Pope on a metaphysical journey of discovery… that will last a lifetime.
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May 13, 2021 Poetry Prof

The Forsaken Wife

Elizabeth Thomas exposes what it means to be a woman in a man’s world.
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February 15, 2021 Poetry Prof

Love in a Life

Lose yourself in Robert Browning’s twisted labyrinth.
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January 23, 2021 Poetry Prof

I Find No Peace

Sir Thomas Wyatt is trapped by his own conflicting desires.
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September 17, 2020 Poetry Prof

Waterfall

Immerse yourself in Lauris Edmond’s beautiful images of sun and spray.
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August 9, 2020 Poetry Prof

A Leave-Taking

Charles Swinburne says he’ll do anything for love – but does he mean it?
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July 25, 2020 Poetry Prof

Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrestles with depression in a poem that seems to anticipate his own destiny.
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July 1, 2020 Poetry Prof

The Flower-Fed Buffaloes

Vachel Lindsay laments a vanished way of life.
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May 23, 2020 Poetry Prof

Rooms

What should be her sanctuary becomes Charlotte Mew’s prison cell.
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May 6, 2020 Poetry Prof

I Hear An Army…

James Joyce suffers from terrible nightmares.
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April 21, 2020 Poetry Prof

The Voice

Thomas Hardy’s poem is touching – but also troubling when he rewrites the past.
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April 7, 2020 Poetry Prof

Dover Beach

Armies of ignorance conquer all in Matthew Arnold’s dark and disturbing vision of the world.
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March 18, 2020 Poetry Prof

After

There’s never enough time says Philip Bourke Marston in this powerful poem about loss and bereavement.
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March 5, 2020 Poetry Prof

Amends

Adrienne Rich’s mysterious poem suggests we all have something to make up for – but what?
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February 28, 2020 Poetry Prof

Sonnet 29

Whatever you do, don’t pity Edna St Vincent Millay for her broken heart.
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February 20, 2020 Poetry Prof

Song to the Men of England

Percy Bysshe Shelley exhorts us to rise up in this powerful poetical polemic.
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February 9, 2020 Poetry Prof

Not Waving But Drowning

Stevie Smith asks if we couldn’t all do a little more to help from time to time.
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January 31, 2020 Poetry Prof

In Praise of Creation

Faith is stronger than doubt in this eulogy by Elizabeth Jennings.
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January 26, 2020 Poetry Prof

Ode on Melancholy

Go with John Keats on a quest to find Joy in the mystical realm of Lethe.
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January 17, 2020 Poetry Prof

Cetacean

If you feel like you’re missing that spark of inspiration, go whale-watching with Peter Reading.
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January 7, 2020 Poetry Prof

Little Boy Crying

Mervyn Morris debates if it’s ever right to smack a child.
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December 29, 2019 Poetry Prof

Coming

Is Philip Larkin dreading or welcoming the arrival of spring?
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December 26, 2019 Poetry Prof

Mid-Term Break

Seamus Heaney shares with us a sad memory from his childhood.
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December 19, 2019 Poetry Prof

Stormcock in Elder

Muse, angel, herald, companion, spirit guide. Ruth Pitter explores the significance of a seemingly ordinary bird in this lovely poem.
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December 15, 2019 Poetry Prof

Caged Bird

Maya Angelou explores suffering, inequality and a people’s refusal to give up in this hard-hitting poem.
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November 18, 2019 Poetry Prof

The Three Fates

Rosemary Dobson’s unique backwards-poem reminds us that, however much we might want to, we can’t change the past.
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November 6, 2019 Poetry Prof

Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening

Charlotte Smith negotiates the shifting sands of life in this dark and stormy sonnet.
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October 25, 2019 Poetry Prof

Marrysong

If you think that getting married means living happily-ever-after, Dennis Scott will probably want to have a word.
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October 20, 2019 Poetry Prof

The Caged Skylark

Gerard Manley Hopkins explores what it feels like to be trapped in your skin.
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October 7, 2019 Poetry Prof

Rising Five

Norman Nicholson warns us not to wish our lives away.
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September 25, 2019 Poetry Prof

Watching For Dolphins

David Constantine wonders if there isn’t something more to life than meets the eye.
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September 15, 2019 Poetry Prof

Carpet Weavers, Morocco

Looking at life differently in Carol Rumens’ challenging poem
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September 9, 2019 Poetry Prof

Muliebrity

After many years away from the country of her birth, Sujata Bhatt wonders if it’s finally time to share her memories of India.
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September 7, 2019 Poetry Prof

Storyteller

Liz Lochhead casts a spell in this magical realist poem.
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September 1, 2019 Poetry Prof

The Poplar-Field

William Cowper visits a woody riverbank by which he passed many pleasant childhood days… to find it irrevocably changed.
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August 30, 2019 Poetry Prof

Plenty

Isobel Dixon shows us that older really does mean wiser as she reminisces ruefully about her childhood.
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August 18, 2019 Poetry Prof

You Will Know When You Get There

Allen Curnow suggests that there’s a right time to die in this tough, but rewarding, poem.
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August 8, 2019 Poetry Prof

Farmhand

Watch as James K. Baxter’s eponymous Farmhand refuses the call to adventure in this poem from New Zealand.
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August 3, 2019 Poetry Prof

Sonnet 43

Elizabeth Barrett Browning attempts the impossible: counting the ways one person can love another.
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July 22, 2019 Poetry Prof

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

Who is the mysterious Lucy in this simple elegy by William Wordsworth?
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July 11, 2019 Poetry Prof

Monologue

Why Hone Tuwhare likes working near a door.
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July 7, 2019 Poetry Prof

The Kraken

Alfred Lord Tennyson conjures a spectacular and sympathetic vision of a mythical creature.
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June 22, 2019 Poetry Prof

Afternoon with Irish Cows

Unlock your imagination and help Billy Collins find his vanished herd.
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June 17, 2019 Poetry Prof

Those Winter Sundays

Robert Hayden’s heartbreaking song of ice and fire.
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June 17, 2019 Poetry Prof

The Buck in the Snow

Edna St. Vincent Millay is confronted with mortality in this exquisitely crafted little poem.
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June 16, 2019 Poetry Prof

First Love

John Clare gets maudlin when he falls in love with an unattainable woman.
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June 13, 2019 Poetry Prof

London Snow

Put on your gloves and hat and come play in the snow with Robert Bridges.
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June 12, 2019 Poetry Prof

The Sea Eats the Land at Home

Kofi Awoonor summons his oral heritage in this mournful poetic lament.
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June 12, 2019 Poetry Prof

The Listeners

Walter De La Mere scares his children – and us – with this mysterious fireside fairytale.
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September 10, 2024 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

Plaits

Elizabeth Smither weaves a life lesson from strands of her own hair

Read

August 10, 2024 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

A Long Journey

Follow Musaemura Zimunya back up an endless river into Zimbabwe’s forgotten past

Read

July 31, 2024 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

The Enemies

Elizabeth Jennings explores the poisonous power of paranoia in this cold-war parable

Read

August 10, 2023 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

The Instant of My Death

Sarah Jackson makes an unexpected connection in this elusive poem about travel and change.

Read

July 24, 2023 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

Song

George Szirtes pays tribute to a determined and courageous spirit.

Read

June 28, 2023 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

Rich and Poor or, Saint and Sinner

Thomas Love Peacock exposes the unfairness of religious moralism towards the poor.

Read

June 12, 2023 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

These are the Times We Live In

Imtiaz Dharker’s poem exposes institutional xenophobia through a demeaning interaction.

Read

June 2, 2023 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

Boxes

Life’s a squeeze in Sampurna Chattarji’s depiction of Mumbai.

Read

May 27, 2023 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

Children of Wealth

Elizabeth Daryush shows how money can’t buy happiness in this sympathetic sonnet.

Read

May 23, 2023 From Volume 2, Part 3 (2025 - 2027) / IGCSE Literature

The Bus

Get your tickets and board Arun Kolatkar’s mysterious old bus for a mystical nighttime journey.

Read