58 Comments
User's avatar
Sheila Carroll's avatar

One of my favorite poems is

Who Has Seen the Wind?

By Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

When I do a nature study with children on the wind, I begin with this poem. Lovely!

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

Lovely. She has some great, short poems for children. Simple but not basic, if that makes sense.

Expand full comment
Lisa Nagel's avatar

My six year old is currently working on this one!

Expand full comment
Gemma Lynn Myers's avatar

This poem was pasted on the wall of my Grade 11 high school classroom, and I was so enchanted by it I made the effort to memorize it. Many years later, it was one of the first poems I taught my children! (Or maybe they learned it because I'm still forever reciting it!) 🌬️🤍

Expand full comment
Bianca's avatar

This is a favourite with my five year old and I also :)

Expand full comment
Tara Penry's avatar

I ask my university students to memorize poems, and this one is sometimes chosen by 18-year-olds who've never been asked to do such a thing before. It's beautiful for all ages. :-)

Expand full comment
Sarina Gruver's avatar

At that age I had an edition of *A Child’s Garden of Verses* that I loved, and I memorized at my mother’s suggestion “The Land of Counterpane.”

My children at this age enjoyed memorizing Blake’s “The Tyger.” We also all loved the collection *Poetry Speaks to Children,” which comes with a CD and has something like 90 poems, many read by the poets themselves—Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Seamus Heaney, Yeats even!

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

Poetry Speaks to Children sounds brilliant, I will definitely see if I can track that down. I loved my edition of A Child’s Garden of Verses and happened to find the same edition for my own children, with the dreamy illustrations by Hilda Boswell.

Expand full comment
Meryn Addison's avatar

I also loved A Child’s Garden of Verses but I memorised From a Railway Carriage 🥰

Expand full comment
Ruth Gaskovski's avatar

Wonderful list Catherine! Have you discovered Mensa's "A Year of Living Poetically"? The site includes a list of poems which you can download in a pdf format (includes poem, analysis, and fill-in-the-blank practice). https://www.mensaforkids.org/read/a-year-of-living-poetically/

We particularly enjoyed A Psalm of Life (always made me tear up when students in my homeschool co-op recited this...)

This is their list:

“No Man is an Island” by John Donne

“Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare

“The Road not Taken” by Robert Frost

“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley

“Death be not Proud” by John Donne

“Sonnet” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

“The Man in the Arena: Citizenship in a Republic” by Teddy Roosevelt

“Richard Cory” by Edward Arlington Robinson

“Hope is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson

“A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The Cloths of Heaven” by William Butler Yeats

“Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

This is brilliant Ruth, thank you. I hadn’t read A Psalm of Life before, what a great poem.

Expand full comment
Kristin Sanders's avatar

Thank you for this, Ruth!!! We are new to memorizing poetry but I have really started realizing the value of it. This resource is just what we need!

Expand full comment
Alina's avatar

Not a Serious Literature poem but fun to recite aloud:

The cow mainly moos as she chooses to moo

And she chooses to moo as she chooses

She furthermore chews as she chooses to chew

And she chooses to chew as she muses

If she chooses to moo she may moo to amuse

Or may moo just to moo as she chooses

If she chooses to chew she may moo as she chews

Or may chew just to chew as she muses

(Jack Prelutsky)

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

Ha! I love that. Nothing wrong with fun poetry at all.

Expand full comment
Mark Canada, Ph.D.'s avatar

Kudos to you for encouraging children to memorize poems! As a literature professor, I taught poetry for years before I made a concerted effort to memorize a batch of them. I'm up to about 100. I don't need to convince you of the value, but I will make just one point. Being able to recite poems is more than a nifty parlor trick. (Do people still use this expression?) Knowing the lines can help make sense of the world around us. More than once in a conversation, I have reached into my memory to quote an appropriate passage from, say, Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" or Milton's "When I consider how my light is spent."

Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I recommend. few more poems for children to memorize:

"The Cuckoo Song" ("Sumer is i-cumin in")

"A Psalm of Life," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The Owl and the Pussycat," by Edward Lear

"I like to see it lap the miles," by Emily Dickinson

"Success is counted sweetest," by Emily Dickinson

"A narrow fellow in the grass," by Emily Dickinson

"There is no Frigate like a Book," by Emily Dickinson

Teenagers can take on longer poems, as well as ones with more "adult themes." Here are a few suggestions:

"The Sun Rising," by John Donne

"The Flea," by John Donne

"Leda and the Swan," by William Butler Yeats

"The Second Coming," by William Butler Yeats

"Dulce et Decorum Est," by Wifred Owen

"Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part," by Michael Drayton

"To a Mouse," by Robert Burns

"Kubla Khan," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Ulysses," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"If--," by Rudyard Kipling

"Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Not Waving but Drowning," by Stevie Smith

and, of course . . .

"Annabel Lee," by Edgar Allan Poe

I believe all or nearly all of these poems are available at poetryfoundation.org.

Expand full comment
Emmett Ackerlund's avatar

For next post (good books on the American Revolution): Rabble In Arms by Kenneth Roberts.

Expand full comment
Mike Isaac's avatar

Cargoes - John Masefield

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

One of my favourites. Such magical, evocative words. Quinquireme of Ninevah…

Expand full comment
Chrysti Hedding's avatar

Love Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening! We also memorised The Road Not Taken.

Another I'd add to this list, for your Tolkien fan...

the "All that that is Gold does not Glitter..." poem from Fellowship of the Ring.

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

I like that a lot Chrysti, thank you.

Expand full comment
Robin's avatar

A few of the favourites in our house: Ozymandias, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Casabianca, Sea-Fever (John Masefield), Jabberwocky, A Psalm of Life (Longfellow).

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

Lots of these are on my list too, a great selection. We all love The Charge of the Light Brigade, such a good poem (especially for a boy who loves his war stories!).

Expand full comment
Emily Hess's avatar

American Revolution book recommendation:

It might be hard to find because it's out of print, but Felicity's World (published by American Girl). It gives a very good exploration of what life was like just prior to and during the Revolution from a child's perspective. Lots of pictures of artifacts from the era and short real-life stories about girls and women from the time period. Honestly, if you have a girl who's into historical fiction, the whole Felicity series is worth exploring. They also do a good job exploring things like how to respectfully and graciously hold your beliefs when those close to you disagree-- Felicity's best friend in the series comes from a Loyalist (wants to remain united with Britain ) family.

Not a book, but Liberty's Kids is a TV show free on YouTube that's SHOCKINGLY well done-- very nuanced, and depicts the war from the Loyalist and African American perspectives as well as from the Patriot one. The writers also went out of their way to bring in and quote a ton of actual accounts and writing from the time in the dialogue -- like I said, shockingly well done.

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

This all sounds fantastic, thank you so much! I love an out-of-print book recommendation - so many good books out there that are invisible unless you stumble across them in a second hand shop or some helpful person shares their knowledge!

Expand full comment
Bianca's avatar

Thank you for sharing such a wonderful selection of poems. My 5 year old and I love reading and memorising the beautiful poems that we encounter.

Expand full comment
Burbling On's avatar

What a brilliant list

Expand full comment
nour's avatar

Is it a cultural practice to be learn poetry? Never heard of it!

Expand full comment
Catherine Oliver's avatar

Sadly not any more, but it used to be.

Expand full comment
Catherine Van Huizen's avatar

I also love Stopping by Woods. I stopped on your post because you reminded me of long ago days when I loved reading poetry and it ended up memorized through sheer repetition. A favorite from a book of poems and stories for young children:

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,

These are the finest of suppers I think.

When I am old and can do as I please,

I think I shall always insist upon these.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Expand full comment
Jenniferm72's avatar

Ode to Autumn by Keats has always been one of my favorites. Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Redemption by George Herbert brings a lump to my throat every time.

Expand full comment
Page Smith's avatar

My 9 year old is working on Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Expand full comment