{"id":1395552,"date":"2026-03-30T10:49:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.sparknotes.com\/?p=1395552"},"modified":"2026-03-30T10:49:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:49:45","slug":"better-names-for-all-the-poems-youll-have-to-read-in-english-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/better-names-for-all-the-poems-youll-have-to-read-in-english-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Names for All the Poems You&#8217;ll Have to Read in English Class"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"http:\/\/img.sparknotes.com\/content\/sparklife\/sparktalk\/emilydickinsonhaileesteinfeld_LargeWide.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Have you ever read a poem before? I&#8217;m guessing you have. If you liked it, good news: there&#8217;s plenty more where that came from! If you hated it, well, I&#8217;ve got some good news for you too: as soon as you finish school, you&#8217;ll never have to read another poem again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until that time, however, you&#8217;ll have to spend your days analyzing poetic imagery&nbsp;and trying to figure out what scansion is. It doesn&#8217;t help that poets are always naming their poems things like <em>The Rime of the Ancient Mariner<\/em> and &#8220;Binsey Poplars,&#8221; because those are just vague words and I only know what half of them mean. Maybe the poetry we have to read in school would be more bearable if they were just straight with us\u2014you know, if poets named their poems things like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Have Fun Googling What Any of This Even Means&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8220;Jabberwocky,&#8221;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/eliot\/section2.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The Waste Land<\/em><\/a>, <em>Troilus and Criseyde<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I Climbed a Tree Once and Now I Understand Everything&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/frost\/section5.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;After Apple-Picking,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/frost\/section8.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Birches,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;&#8220;The Shepherd&#8217;s Tree&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;My Lover is Dead, But Hey, at Least I Got Some Good Poetry Out of It&#8221;<br><strong>Examples: <\/strong>&#8220;Annabel Lee,&#8221; &#8220;Requiescat,&#8221;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/browning\/section3.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;My Last Duchess&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;An Ode to Plants&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8220;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/hopkins\/section6.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\">Binsey Poplars,&#8221;<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/shakespeare\/sonnets\/themes\/\">Sonnet 12<\/a>, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/whitman\/section7.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom&#8217;d&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;An Ode to Whatever Is Going On with This Bird&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/dickinson\/section5.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;A Bird came down on the Walk,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/frost\/themes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;The Oven Bird,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/keats\/section3.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Ode to a Nightingale&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Am I the Only Person Who Still Goes for Walks?&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8220;As I Walked Out One Evening,&#8221;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/frost\/section8.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;The Road Not Taken,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/wordsworth\/section7.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;I wandered lonely as a cloud&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Wheelbarrow is Not Actually a Wheelbarrow&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8220;Sunflower Sutra,&#8221;&nbsp;&#8220;At the Fishhouses,&#8221;&nbsp;&#8220;The Red Wheelbarrow&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I Hope You&#8217;re Interested in Candles, Because I&#8217;ve Got Some Thoughts on the Subject&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8220;First Fig,&#8221; &#8220;Meditations Upon A Candle,&#8221;&nbsp;&#8220;The light of a candle&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;What Happened to Us As a Society? All We Care About Now Are THINGS&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/eliot\/section1.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/wordsworth\/section4.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;The World Is Too Much With Us,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;&#8220;Howl&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I Am Going on a Journey That No One Can Know About&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/frost\/section10.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/frost\/themes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Into My Own,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/wordsworth\/themes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;I travelled among unknown men&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;No One Has Ever Felt Love Like This Before, and If They Say They Have They Are Lying&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong> Sonnet 43,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/shakespeare\/sonnets\/section9\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Sonnet 130<\/a>, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/donne\/themes.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Good-Morrow&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Sike! I&#8217;m Not Really Dead Because Death is a State of Mind&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8220;Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep,&#8221; &#8220;Because I could not stop for Death,&#8221;&nbsp;&#8220;Death Is Nothing At All&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Life is Fleeting, So We Should Probably Have Sex&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8220;To His Coy Mistress,&#8221;&nbsp;&#8220;Live Blindly and Upon the Hour,&#8221; &#8220;To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;If I Could Marry the Moon, I Totally Would&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong> <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/coleridge\/section1.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Rime of the Ancient Mariner<\/a>,<\/em>&nbsp;&#8220;To the Moon,&#8221; &#8220;The Sadness of the Moon&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Death is Coming For Us Always&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong> &#8220;Another Elegy,&#8221;&nbsp;&#8220;Nothing Gold Can Stay,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/tennyson\/section9.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;The Charge of the Light Brigade&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Nature is a Big Ol&#8217; Thumbs-Up In My Book&#8221;<br><strong>Examples:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/coleridge\/section3.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Frost at Midnight,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/hopkins\/themes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Hurrahing in Harvest,&#8221;<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/shelley\/section1.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;&#8220;Patience Taught By Nature,&#8221; &#8220;Song of Nature,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/poetry\/keats\/section6.rhtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;To Autumn,&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;I could go on forever but I&#8217;m guessing you have places to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever read a poem before? I&#8217;m guessing you have. If you liked it, good news: there&#8217;s plenty more where that came from! If you hated it, well, I&#8217;ve got some good news for   <a class=\"continue-reading\" href=\"#\"><span class=\"continue-text\">continue reading<\/span><svg class=\"continue-icon\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" alt=\"\">\n    <path fill=\"#007acd\" fill-rule=\"nonzero\" d=\"M13.442 5.558L19.885 12l-6.443 6.442-.884-.884 4.934-4.934L4 12.625v-1.25l13.492-.001-4.934-4.932.884-.884z\"><\/path>\n  <\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[628,1171,25171,25017,150],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395552"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1395552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1447078,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395552\/revisions\/1447078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1395552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1395552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1395552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}