The following selections of poems are curated around specific themes and are appropriate for young readers.
Find poetry lesson plans, essays about teaching, a glossary of poetry terms, and other educator resources on our Materials for Teachers page. Visit our Poetry for Teens page to find more selections of poems tailored to a high school audience.
Browse this selection of poems kids love, including favorites by E. E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Jack Prelutzky, and Shel Silverstein. Many of these poems are especially suitable for younger children.
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
—from “Eating Poetry” by Mark Strand
Browse this selection of poems about animals, including favorites like William Blake’s “The Tyger” and Marianne Moore’s “A Jelly-Fish.” Many of these poems are especially suitable for younger children.
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
—from “The Crocodile” by Lewis Carroll
Browse this selection of poems about autumn, including classics like Robert Frost's "After Apple-Picking" alongside contemporary poems like Brenda Hillman's "Autumn Ritual with Hate Turned Sideways."
Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
—from "Fall" by Edward Hirsch
Browse this selection of poems for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, including poems by Li-Young Lee, Joseph O. Legaspi, and Jenny Xie.
You grow up hearing two languages. Neither fits your fits
Your mother informs you "moon" means "window to another world"
—from "Music from Childhood" by John Yau
Browse this selection of poems for Black History Month by classic and contemporary poets, including Jericho Brown's "The Tradition" and Marilyn Nelson's "1905."
come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
—from "won't you celebrate with me" by Lucille Clifton
Browse this selection of poems about cities, including "The Tropics of New York" by Claude McKay and "August Morning, Upper Broadway" by Alicia Ostriker.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Browse this selection of poems about parents, children, siblings, and families, including "Knoxville, Tennessee" by Nikki Giovanni and "Refugio's Hair" by Alberto Ríos.
Five daughters, in the slant light on the porch,
are bickering. The eldest has come home
with new truths she can hardly wait to teach.
—from "Daughters, 1900" by Marilyn Nelson
Browse this selection of poems about fathers and fatherhood, including "The Gift" by Li-Young Lee and "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.
—from "Only a Dad" by Edgar Guest
Browse this selection of poems about friendship and comradery, including poems by Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shihab Nye, and William Wordsworth.
We have been friends together,
In sunshine and in shade;
Since first beneath the chestnut-trees
In infancy we played.
—from “We Have Been Friends Together” by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Browse this selection of poems for the holiday season, with poems about Christmas, Chanukah, and New Year's Day. Among the holiday classics featured are “The Feast of Lights” by Emma Lazarus and “Christmas Bells” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
When the snow is shaken
From the balsam trees
And they're cut down
And brought into our houses
—from “Noel” by Anne Porter
Browse this selection of poems about immigration and heritage, including “Veterans of Foreign Wars” by Edward Hirsch and “The Buttonhook” by Mary Jo Salter.
The border is a line that birds cannot see.
The border is a beautiful piece of paper
folded carelessly in half.
—from “The Border: A Double Sonnet” by Alberto Ríos
Browse this selection of poems from the rich tradition of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer poetry, including poems by Frank O'Hara and May Swenson.
Of such loves unwrit, at the boundary layer
between earth and air,
I feel most clear.
—from "Gay Marriage Poem" by Jenny Johnson
Browse this selection of poems about libraries, librarians, and the joys of reading, including Nikki Giovanni's "My First Memory (of Librarians)" and Mark Strand's "Eating Poetry."
The library is dangerous, full
Of answers. If you go inside,
You may not come out
The same person who went in.
—from "Don't Go Into the Library" by Alberto Ríos
Browse this selection of poems about love, affection, romance, and devotion, including “Resignation” by Nikki Giovanni and “Having a Coke with You” by Frank O'Hara.
Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me,
in the old ways.
—from “Love Comes Quietly” by Robert Creeley
Browse this selection of poems about mothers and motherhood, including "The Blue Dress" by Saeed Jones and "Mother's Day" by David Young.
Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty
—from "Mother" by Lola Ridge
Browse this selection of poems related to fables, fairy tales, folklore, legends, and myths, including poems by Homer, Dorianne Laux, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
—from "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Browse the following poems from the rich tradition of Native American poetry, including "The Clans" by Richard Calmit Adams and "Remember" by Joy Harjo.
We travel carrying our words.
We arrive at the ocean.
With our words we are able to speak
of the sounds of thunderous waves.
—from "Carrying Our Words" by Ofelia Zepeda
Browse this selection of poems about nature and the outdoors, including “Patience Taught by Nature” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and “maggie and milly and molly and may” by E. E. Cummings.
Browse this selection of poems about reading, writing, books, and poetry, featuring “The Republic of Poetry” by Martín Espada, “Valentine for Ernest Mann” by Naomi Shihab Nye, and more.
Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.
—from “The Secret” by Denise Levertov
Browse this selection of poems about school, learning, and the classroom, including “Girl Sleuth” by Brenda Hillman and “Sick” by Shel Silverstein.
The teacher asks a question.
You know the answer, you suspect
you are the only one in the classroom
who knows the answer...
—from “The Hand” by Mary Ruefle
Browse this selection of poems to help facilitate discussions about social justice, equality, and human rights, including poems by Juan Felipe Herrera, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Claudia Rankine.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
—from "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou
Browse this selection of poems in Spanish, alongside their English translations, including classics like "Arbolé, Arbolé..." by Federico García Lorca and contemporary poems like "Imágenes" by Jaime Manrique.
soy
un nómada
en un país
de sedentarios
—from "Naturaleza criminal" by Francisco X. Alarcón
Browse this selection of poems about baseball, basketball, track, horse racing, soccer, wrestling, and other sports, including “American Pharoah” by Ada Limón and “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer.
America under the lights
at Harry Ball Field. A fog rolls in
as the flag crinkles and drapes...
—from “The Rookie” by January Gill O’Neil
Browse this selection of poems about spring, growth, and renewal, including “To the Thawing Wind” by Robert Frost and “Crisscross” by Arthur Sze.
Dear March - Come in -
How glad I am -
I hoped for you before -
—from “Dear March - Come in - (1320)” by Emily Dickinson
Browse this selection of poems about summer and warm weather, including "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July" by Billy Collins and "Summer Morn in New Hampshire" by Claude McKay.
Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
—from "Warm Summer Sun" by Mark Twain
Browse this selection of poems about technology, invention, and information, including poems by Matthea Harvey, Matthew Rohrer, and Jenny Xie.
Browse this selection of poems about gratitude and the Thanksgiving holiday, featuring Richard Blanco’s “América,” Marilyn Nelson’s “Dusting,” and more.
Over the river, and through the wood
Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting-hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.
—from “Thanksgiving Day” by Lydia Marie Child
Browse this selection of poems about vacation, travel, and transportation, including "Vacation" by Rita Dove and "Song of the Open Road" by Walt Whitman.
Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.
—from "Window" by Carl Sandburg
Browse this selection of poems about painting, sculpture, and other forms of visual art, including poems by Billy Collins and Phillis Wheatley.
You’ll have to find your own
pictures, whoever you are,
whatever your need.
—from “A Table in the Wilderness” by Li-Young Lee
Browse this selection of poems about winter, snow, and cold weather, including “Dust of Snow” by Robert Frost, “When the Year Grows Old” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and “Ode to My Socks” by Pablo Neruda.
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
—from “Dust of Snow” by Robert Frost
Browse this selection of poems celebrating women by classic and contemporary women poets, including June Jordan, Ada Limón, and Anne Waldman.
A woman sleeps on an island
and from her hair is born the dwelling place
of memories and wild birds.
—from "A Woman Sleeps on an Island" by Marjorie Agosín
