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ONLY poems listed here or in the current printed anthology are eligible for the 2012-2013 Poetry Out Loud competition. More information here.

Recuerdo

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— . . .

A Red, Red Rose

By Robert Burns

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
   That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody . . .

Remarks on Poetry and the Physical World

By Mary Barnard

After reading Ash Wednesday
she looked once at the baked beans
and fled. Luncheonless, poor girl, . . .

Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Retired ballerinas on winter afternoons   
          walking their dogs
                      in Central Park West . . .

Reverie in Open Air

By Rita Dove

I acknowledge my status as a stranger:   
Inappropriate clothes, odd habits   
Out of sync with wasp and wren.    . . .

Richard Cory

By Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown, . . .

Riprap

By Gary Snyder

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
             placed solid, by hands . . .

The River Now

By Richard Hugo

Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on
or changed their names to something green. Greeks gave up   
old dishes and slid into repose. Runs of salmon thin    . . .

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood . . .

Rock and Hawk

By Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes. . . .

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