Short Poems

Our Short Poems Collection highlights the power of poetry through titles that make an impact in few words. These bite-sized selections offer a convenient starting place for readers new to analyzing poetry or anyone who appreciates short-form verse and its ability to move and inspire.

The Raven

by Edgar Allan Poe

Publication year 1845

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Memory

Tags Horror & Suspense, Narrative Poem, Classic Fiction, Animals, Grief & Death

Influenced by the English Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Lord” George Gordon Byron, and Percy Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe represents one of the essential American Romantic poets of the nineteenth century. Romanticism here refers to a literary movement of the late 1700s and 1800s which focused on the emotional life of the individual and curiosity about the self. This movement complemented a larger geopolitical and ideological shift in the United States. As a young nation... Read The Raven Summary

The Red Shoes

by Sheila Black

Publication year 2014

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Social Class, Grief, Love, Community, Conflict, Safety & Danger

Tags Narrative Poem, Confessional, Grief & Death, Addiction & Substance Abuse, Relationships, Mental Illness, Disability

... Read The Red Shoes Summary

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

by Samuel Coleridge

Publication year 1798

Genre Poem, Fiction

Tags Classic Fiction, Narrative Poem

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” first published in 1798, is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and is the first poem in Lyrical Ballads, a collaborative effort of Coleridge and fellow poet William Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads is widely considered to be the first collection of Romantic English poetry, and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a classic example of English Romanticism, with its vivid imagery and inclusion of the supernatural.The poem is a tale... Read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Summary

The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats

Publication year 1919

Genre Poem, Fiction

Themes Order & Chaos, Good & Evil

Tags Lyric Poem, World History, European History, World War I

“The Second Coming” is an allegorical poem that W. B. Yeats penned in 1919 and published in The Dial in 1920. The poem describes a declining, violent present and an impending apocalyptic future, marked by the approach of a sphinxlike monster. The poem is often considered an allegory for the fraught times Yeats was living in—namely, the end of World War I, the midst of the Spanish flu pandemic, and the beginning of the Irish... Read The Second Coming Summary