Section one, What do poems do? ; Part one, Make you smile : Crunchy / Max Fatchen --
Commas / Douglas Florian --
My mother took me skating / Jack Prelutsky --
Learning / Judith Viorst --
There was a man / Dennis Lee --
Ceiling / Theodore Roethke --
Miss McGillicuddy / Mary Ann Hoberman --
Knitted things / Karla Kuskin --
Getting together / N.M. Bodecker.
Part two, Tell stories : Peanut sat on a railroad track / Anonymous --
Knowlegeable child / L.A.G. Strong --
What happened to Lulu? / Charles Causley --
Coyote blue / Judith Mountain-Leaf Volborth --
Outlaw / Felice Holman --
Story that could be true / William Stafford --
Mummy slept late and daddy fixed breakfast / John Ciardi --
Part three, Send messages : Before starting / Walker Gibson --
Smokescreen / Charles Ghigna --
Subway rush hour / Langston Hughes --
Golf links / Sarah N. Cleghorn --
Spctacular / Lilian Moore --
Childhood / Frances Cornford --
Poor / Myra Cohn Livingston --
Raccoon / Kenneth Rexroth --
Landscape / Eve Merriam --
Word is dead / Emily Dickinson --
Oh, God of dust and rainbows / Langston Hughes --
Time to plant trees / James Hayford.
Part four, Share feelings : Christmas morning i / Carol Freeman --
And stands there sighing / Elizabeth Coatsworth --
My brother / Bobbi Katz --
Leave me alone / Felice Holman --
Look out! / Max Fatchen --
Zimmer in grade school / Paul Zimmer --
Losing face / Janet S. Wong --
The 1st / Lucille Clifton --
Listening to grownups qurreling / Ruth Whitman --
Hide and seek / Robert Graves --
Hurt doe / Emanuel diPasquale --
Historic moment / William J. Harris --
Country school / Ted Kooser --
While I slept / Robert Francis.
Part five, Help you understand people : People / Charlotte Zolotow --
Puerto Ricans in New York / Charles Reznikoff --
Narcissa / Gwendolyn Brooks --
Knowing one / Jean Little --
Park people / Karama Fufuka --
Two people / Eve Merriam --
Mama's bouquets / Ashley Bryan --
My mother / Valeris Worth --
Sundays / Paul B. Janeczko --
grandmother / Ray A. Young Bear.
Part six, Start you wondering : Magnet / Valerie Worth --
Key ring / Virginia Hamilton Adair --
Magical mouse / Kenneth Patchen --
Daniel Boone / Stephen Vincent Benét --
White horse / D.H. Lawrence --
Child on the shore / Ursula K. LeGuin --
Boat / Richard Brautigan --
Winter song / Dennis Lee --
Green candles / Humbert Wolfe --
Old stone house / Walter de la Mare.
Section two, What's inside a poem? ; Part one, Images : Good hot dogs / Sandra Cisneros --
My fingers / Mary O'Neill --
September / John Updike --
Bull snake rattle / Barbara Juster Esbensen --
Surprise / Richard Brautigan --
Waiting for the storm / Timothy Steele --
Snowy benches / Aileen Fisher --
Spruce woods / A.R. Ammons --
This is a night / Elizabeth Coatsworth --
Earthy anecdote / Wallace Stevens.
Part two, Word music : Winter ocean / John Updike --
Saying Dante aloud / James Wright --
Flittermice / Patricia Hubbell --
Skaters / John Gould Fletcher --
Rain / Emanuel diPasquale --
Julius Caesar / Anonymous --
Pickety fence / David McCord --
Mice are nice / N.M. Bodecker --
My old cat / Hal Summers --
Stories / J. Patrick Lewis --
Analysis of baseball / May Swenson --
Part three, Beats that repeat : We real cool / Gwendolyn Brooks --
Ostrich is a silly bird / Mary E. Wilkins Freeman --
Windy nights / Robert Louis Stevenson --
Windy nights / Robert Bennett --
Windshield wiper / Eve Merriam --
I am Rose / Gertrude Stein --
Canis Major / Robert Frost --
Paleface / James Hayford --
Opposite of kite, I'd say / Richard Wilbur --
My half / Florence parry Heide and Roxanne Heide Pierce --
Blackberry sweet / Dudley Randall --
Triolet aganist sisters / Phyllis McGinley.
Part four, Likenesses : Fireflies / J. Patrick Lewis --
Porch light / Deborah Chandra --
Child frightened by a thunderstorm / Ted Kooser --
House-wreckers / Charles Reznikoff --
Wind and silver / Amy Lowell --
Dreams / Langston Hughes --
stars / Nikki Giovanni --
Epigram engraved on the collar of a dog / Alexander Pope --
Horses of the sea / Christina Rossetti --
Eagle / Alfred, Lord Tennyson --
Splinter / Carl Sandburg --
Dry winter / Jane Kenyon --
Spill / Judith Thurman --
Part five, Word play : Sing me a song of teapots and trumpets / N.M. Bodecker --
in Just- / e.e. cummings --
My auntie / Colin West --
Plant life / Alan Benjamin --
Song of the pop-bottlers / Morris Bishop --
Chess nut / Charles Ghigna --
Crickets / Myra Cohn Livingston --
Did you eever, iver, over? / Anonymous --
Auk talk / Mary Ann Hoberman --
Notice to myself / Eve Merriam --
I wave good-bye when butter flies / Jack Prelutsky.
Section 3, Special kinds of poetry ; Part one, Limericks : Bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett / Anonymous --
There was an old person of Skye / Edward Lear --
Well, it's partly the shape of the thing / Anonymous --
How akward while playing with glue / Constance Levy --
April fool / John Ciardi --
Piggish young person from Leeds / Anonymous --
There was a young lady from Lynn / Anonymous --
There was a young lady named Rose / William Jay Smith --
There was a young lady of Twickenham / Oliver Herford --
There was an old man from Peru / Anonymous --
Blessèd Lord, what it is to by young / David McCrod.
Part two, Takeoffs : Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! / Lewis Carroll --
This is just to say / William Carlos Williams --
Variations on a theme by William Carlos Williams / Kenneth Koch --
Clementine / Anonymous --
In a cavern, in a canyon / Paul Dehn --
Sing a song of sixpence / Anonymous --
Sing a song of subways / Eve Merriam --
Wee four lads / Anonymous.
Part three, Songs : Riddle song / Anonymous --
I had a little nut tree / Anonymous --
On top of old Smoky / Anonymous --
Blowin' in the wind / Bob Dylan.
Part four, Show-and-spell poems : Dancing bear / Rachel Field --
You can talk about your hummingbirds / Arnold Adoff --
Sidewalk racer / Lillian Morrison --
waterwheels in whirl / Ian Hamilton Finlay --
Fury said to a mouse / Lewis Carroll --
Seashells / Douglas Florian --
For a quick exit / Norma Farber --
Concrete cat / Dorthi Charles --
HANDSAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW / Richard Lebovitz.
Part five, Finders-keepers poems : GATE / Anonymous --
Lake was covered all over / Dorothy Wordsworth --
4-way stop / Myra Cohn Livingston --
Genuine poem, found on a blackboard in a bowling alley in Story City, Iowa / Ted Kooser.
Part six, Haiku : Ancient pool / Bashō (trans. by Olivia Gray) --
Bantam rooster / Kikaku (trans. by harry Behn) --
Now the swing is still / Nicholas Virgilio --
out after dark / Penny Harter --
midnight sirens / Penny Harter --
Tunnel / Sylvia Cassedy --
Green cockleburs / Richard Wright --
After weeks of watching the roof leak / Gary Snyder --
Bang! the starter's gun / Dorthi Charles --
August / J. Patrick Lewis.
Section 4, Do it yourself; Part one, Writing your own poems. Part two, Ideas : Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around / Anonymous --
Rope rhyme / Eloise Greenfield --
That old haunted house / Judith Viorst --
On the one-ton temple bell Bashō (trans. by Olivia Gray) --
Do it yourself / Joan Aiken. Part three, Afterword to adults.