Presented by:
Search
Features: Literature & Language Arts
Twenty-One Poems for AP Literature and Composition
The selections within this listing represent frequently taught poets and poems in AP English Literature and Composition.
For each of the twenty-one poems or poetic forms for AP Literature and Composition, students and teachers will find a link to the poem and multimedia resources. These include EDSITEment lessons as well as EDSITEment-reviewed websites that discuss the poem, the poet, and its context. Media incorporated in these resources include audio clips and video as well as primary source documents and photographs, along with other useful tools such as timelines. They offer both the content and skills needed to support student success in AP English Literature and Composition.
EDSITEment also offers a Literary Glossary of terms cross-referenced with EDSITEment lessons. It serves as a ready reference for students as they work through the lesson activities and prepare for the AP examination.
1. Matthew Arnold: “Dover Beach”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Arnold’s “Dover Beach”: A Commentary from Victorian Web
“Dover Beach” audio clip from the American Academy of Poets
Dover Beach from Representative Poetry Online
2. Elizabeth Bishop: “In the Waiting Room”
Elizabeth Bishop from Voices and Visions
On “In the Waiting Room” from Modern American Poetry
3. Gwendolyn Brooks: “We Real Cool”
The Impact of a Poem's Line Breaks: Enjambment and Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool"
On “We Real Cool” from Modern American Poetry
“We Real Cool” audio clip read by the author from the American Academy of Poets
4. Robert Browning: “My Last Duchess”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Browning's "My Last Duchess" and Dramatic Monologue
“My Last Duchess” audio clip from the American Academy of Poets
“My Last Duchess” from Representative Poetry Online
5. Emily Dickinson: “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” (124)
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Emily Dickinson from Voices and Visions
“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” (216) audio clip from the American Academy of Poets
Letters from Emily Dickinson: “Will you be my preceptor?” Lesson 2: Responding to Emily Dickinson: Poetic Analysis
6. John Donne: “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
A Brief Guide to Metaphysical Poets from the American Academy of Poets
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” from Representative Poetry Online
7. T.S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Introduction to Modernist Poetry. Lesson 3: Navigating Modernism with J. Alfred Prufrock
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” from Representative Poetry Online
T. S. Eliot from Voices and Visions
8. Carolyn Forché: “The Colonel”
About this Poem and “The Colonel” audio clip from the Poetry Foundation
On “The Colonel” from Modern American Poetry
9. Robert Frost: “Mending Wall”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
On “Mending Wall” from Modern American Poetry
Robert Frost's "Mending Wall": A Marriage of Poetic Form and Content
Robert Frost from Voices and Visions
10. Robert Hayden: “Those Winter Sundays”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Close Reading Notes for “Those Winter Sundays” from ReadWriteThink
11. Langston Hughes: “Let America Be America Again”
On “Let America be American Again” from Modern American Poetry
Langston Hughes from Voices and Visions
Walt Whitman to Langston Hughes: Poems for a Democracy
12. John Keats: “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Ekphrasis: Poetry Confronting Art from the American Academy of Poets
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” from Romantic Circles
13. Andrew Marvell: “To His Coy Mistress”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
“To his Coy Mistress” from Representative Poetry Online
"World enough and time": Andrew Marvell's Coy Mistress
14. Wilfred Owen: “Dulce et Decorum Est”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Poetry of The Great War: “From Darkness to Light”?
Introduction to Modernist Poetry. Lesson 1: Understanding the Context of Modernist Poetry
15. John Crowe Ransom: “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
A Brief Guide to the Fugitives from the American Academy of Poets
On "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter" from Modern American Poetry
16. William Shakespeare: Sonnets
Shakespeare’s Sonnets from the Folger Shakespeare Library
Listening to Poetry: Sounds of a Sonnet
Poetic Form: Sonnet from American Academy of Poets
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: “You kiss by the book”
The Sonnets from Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet
William Shakespeare from the Poetry Foundation
17. Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Ozymandias”
Poem Guide and About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Percy Bysshe Shelley from Victorian Web
“Ozymandias” from Representative Poetry Online
18. Wallace Stevens: “Sunday Morning”
On “Sunday Morning” from Modern American Poetry
Introduction to Modernist Poetry. Lesson 2: Thirteen Ways of Reading a Modernist Poem
“Sunday Morning” from Representative Poetry Online
19. Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
“Do not go gentle into that good night” audio clip from the American Academy of Poets
20. William Carlos Williams: “Danse Russe”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
Seeing Sense in Photographs and Poems
William Carlos Williams from Voices and Visions
21. William Butler Yeats: “The Second Coming”
About this Poem from the Poetry Foundation
William Butler Yeats from Online Literary Criticism Collection
Yeats: the Life and Works of William Butler Yeats from Irish Resources in the Humanities
About the Image
Main Reading Room. View of statue of Poetry by John Quincy Adams Ward. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.
Library of Congress Series, Carol M. Highsmith Archive. Division of Prints and Photographs, Library of Congress
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars Repairing, in their golden urns draw light...
John Milton, Paradise Lost, vii, 364 Inscription above the figure of Poetry
Tools
EDSITEment has partnered with Thinkfinity to help you find, save, and share even more free lesson plans and educational resources. Try it Now
-
-
EDSITEment! is a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities
-
Special support for Edsitement is provided by Thinkfinity.org and Verizon
