After flirting with maybe someday trying to start reading poetry, I finally got into it after seeing this poem by chance on Pinterest. July in Appalachia, by Keaton St. James.

It reads:

ma says there’s an angel in the creek out behind old mr. henry’s shack. she saw it when she was seven years old, playing by herself while her pa helped mr. henry with his hay bales: sliced her bare foot open on a jagged rock, and the angel swam towards the blood in the water.

ma looked right into the angel’s six blind eyes and asked him, “how come you’re down here, sleepin’ in the mud, when you could be up in heaven, plantin’ sunflowers for god?”

his wings were like a dragonfly’s, transparent and glimmerin’, and his halo was a ring of algae. the angel grinned, three rows of sharp teeth, and said, “girlie, god has plans for the bluegills too.”

I just thought it was horribly gorgeous. Perfectly enigmatic. Even though I felt like I couldn't make anything out over what the hell it meant, I felt like I still understood it. It spoke to me, and meant something, though I'd never be able to put it into words.

I read a bunch more from that poet, and since then I've been incredibly interested in it, and trying to expand my diet. I've also started playing with writing poetry, though I don't think any of what I've written so far will go up here.

I'm making this page to make a collection of poetry I like, in plain text html, in readable fonts, since that's usually the format I prefer, and I feel it's sometimes hard to come by.

I'm very new to reading poetry, and so my diet is pretty small and not varied right now.

Still, I'm always yelling about these poems and poets to people, and I want more people to get into poetry in an accessable way. I hope this interests some intrepid websurfers in the artform.

If any of these links break, check on the Wayback Machine. If that fails, search the name of the poem or poet and try to find it hosted elsewhere. Or check your local library for a poetry collection.

DO PLEASE NOTE! Most of these are very chill, but some of these poems have what may be triggering or upsetting material. I am trying to add these in hover text. In general, if I put a CW up for something, keep in mind that you may react differently to poems vs a book or movie. Topics I put in hover text may be only referenced or alluded to, or may be explained with very poetic language that makes it different to read than a frank play by play description in a book or some such. And I don't put any poems that I personally believe are in poor taste towards a topic.

Directory

Maya Angelou

  • Phenomenal Woman
  • Wendell Berry

  • How to Be a Poet (to remind myself)
  • William Blake

  • The Tyger
  • The Lamb

    Roald Dahl

    Little Red Riding Hood

    Catadromously

    The Old House Speaks

    Carol Ann Duffy

    Little Red Cap

    Valentine

    Robert Frost

    Nothing Gold Can Stay

    Mary Howitt

    The Spider and the Fly

    Langston Hughes

    Poem

    Keaton St. James

    July in Appalachia

    Rural Boys Watch the Apocalypse

    Lovesick Boy Prays

    Trans Mans Hymn

    To Be Sixteen Again

    Sarah Kay

  • Hand Me Downs
  • John Keats

  • On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer
  • Ted Kooser

  • Abandoned Farmhouse
  • Spring Plowing
  • Angie Siujun Lou

  • Jessica gives me a chill pill
  • Mary Oliver

  • Wild Geese
  • The Return
  • Lead

    Benjamin, who came from who knows where