my 100

Still in progress (as of Jan 2022). Partly inspired by Beth Ann Fennelly’s My 100. These are not necessarily my favorite poems, although many of them are; they are ones I memorized when I needed them (for comfort, inspiration, hope, some project I was working on). Here’s where I keep the poems I’m trying to memorize: Practice Space.

note: For my 50th birthday, in June 2024, I’ve memorized 50 poems: 50 for 50

  1. Auto-lullaby/ Franz Wright
  2. Tell all the truth but tell it slant/ Emily Dickinson
  3. And Swept All Visible Signs Away/ Carl Phillips
  4. LOVESONG OF THE SQUARE ROOT OF NEGATIVE ONE/ Richard Siken
  5. It’s all I have to bring today/ Emily Dickinson
  6. Dear One Absent This Long While/ Lisa Olstein 
  7. Ode to My Right Knee/ Rita Dove
  8. The Trees/ Phillip Larkin
  9. Instructions on Not Giving Up/ Ada Limón
  10. What Would Root/ Katie Farris
  11. Threshold/ Maggie Smith
  12. Voiceover/ Rita Dove
  13. I dwell in Possibility – (466)/ EMILY DICKINSON
  14. I Remember/ Anne Sexton
  15. Doors/ Carl Sandburg 
  16. Praying/ Mary Oliver
  17. Invitation/ Mary Oliver
  18. Crows/ Marilyn Nelson
  19. Wild Geese/ Mary Oliver
  20. Turkey Vultures/ Ted Kooser
  21. Perhaps You Tire of Birds/ Donika Kelly
  22. Before I got my eye put out/ Emily Dickinson
  23. The Meadow/ Marie Howe
  24. The Gate/ Marie Howe
  25. Natural Forces/ Vicente Huidobro
  26. I Look Up from My Book and Out at the World through Reading Glasses/ Diane Seuss
  27. Writing a Poem/ Shirley Geok-lim Lin
  28. Snow-flakes/ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  29. Dust of Snow/ Robert Frost 
  30. Let It Be Forgotten/ SARA TEASDALE
  31. We grow accustomed to the Dark — / Emily Dickinson
  32. Nothing Gold Can Stay/ Robert Frost
  33. Spring and Fall /Gerard Manly Hopkins
  34. Nobody /Emily Dickinson
  35. Vertical/ Linda Pastan
  36. What Big Eyes You Have/ Heather Christle
  37. I measure every Grief I meet/ Emily Dickinson
  38. The Crazy Woman/ Gwendolyn Brooks
  39. Listen/ Didi Jackson
  40. A Murmur in the Trees – to note – / Emily Dickinson (F433 — 1862)
  41. A Stranger/ Saeed Jones
  42. “Hope” is the thing with feathers – (314)/ Emily Dickinson
  43. I felt a Cleaving in my Mind—/ Emily Dickinson
  44. Mushrooms/ Sylvia Plath (read by Plath)
  45. A lane of Yellow led the eye (1650)
  46. Summer Studies/ Tony Hoagland
  47. A Short Story of Falling/ ALICE OSWALD
  48. The Social Life of Water/ Tony Hoaglund
  49. II from Evaporations/ Alice Oswald
  50. first half of The Nude Swim/ Anne Sexton
  51. Swimming, One Day in August/ Mary Oliver
  52. Halos/ Ed Bok Lee
  53. Out, Out– /Robert Frost
  54. Luke /Mary Oliver
  55. Can You Imagine? /Mary Oliver
  56. 7 from October/ May Swenson
  57. A Rhyme for Halloween/ Maurice Kilwein Guevera
  58. Who Has Seen the Wind/ Christina Rossetti
  59. Fall, leaves, fall/ EMILY BRONTË
  60. I heard a Fly buzz — when I died/ Emily Dickinson
  61. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340) / Emily Dickinson
  62. Still Life with Window and Fish / Jorie Graham (recording + full text in my 4 may 2022 entry)
  63. To the Light of September/ W. S. MERWIN