Interesting Literature

10 of the Best Poems to Memorise and Learn by Heart

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

What qualities make a poem especially good for committing to memory? In our extensive experience of compiling lists of poems for all occasions and needs, we’d say that ideally, the best poems to memorise or ‘learn by heart’ should 1) have a fairly regular rhythm or metre (as this can aid the memory), 2) rhyme, and 3) be fairly short.

The poems we’ve compiled below all fit these criteria, so if you’re looking to impress your friends or increase your knowledge of poetry, these ten poems are great places to start.

A Summary and Analysis of Wallace Stevens’ ‘A Postcard from the Volcano’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘A Postcard from the Volcano’ is one of Wallace Stevens’s most famous poems. It is also one of his more accessible. The poem was published in Stevens’s 1936 collection Ideas of Order. You can read ‘A Postcard from the Volcano’ here before proceeding to our analysis below, which homes in on the poem’s form, language, imagery, and themes. Although it is more straightforward than many of Stevens’s other poems, there is still much to discuss and unpick.

A Short Analysis of Robert Frost’s ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ is one of Robert Frost’s shortest poems, and, along with ‘Fire and Ice’, probably his best-known and most widely studied very short poem. The poem was published in 1923, first of all in the Yale Review and then, later the same year, in Frost’s poetry collection New Hampshire. You can read ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ here before proceeding to our analysis below.

10 Classic Poems about Neighbours and Neighbourhoods

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Poets have often written about the importance of friendship, but as G. K. Chesterton said: ‘We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbour.’ What have poets had to say about neighbours and neighbourhoods? Below, we introduce some of the finest poems about neighbours, from the Tudor era to the present.

A Summary and Analysis of W. B. Yeats’ ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ is the opening, title poem in W. B. Yeats’s 1917 poetry collection The Wild Swans at Coole. Perhaps the best way to offer an analysis of ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ is to take the poem a stanza at a time, and summarise what’s going on and what feelings Yeats is articulating through the imagery of the swans.