Essays analyze thirty-four poems written by twentieth century American poets who represent a variety of ages, life styles, and political beliefs, including those whose work has been banned, burned, and revered.

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Acquainted with the night / by Robert Frost -- All my pretty ones / by Anne Sexton -- America / by Claude McKay -- Birches / by Robert Frost -- Daddy / by Sylvia Plath -- The fish / by Elizabeth Bishop -- Her kind / by Anne Sexton -- The hollow men / by T.S. Eliot -- Howl / by Allen Ginsberg -- I, too, sing America / by Langston Hughes -- In a station of the Metro / by Ezra Pound -- Journey of the magi / by T.S. Eliot -- The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock / by T.S. Eliot -- Luke Havergal / by Edwin Arlington Robinson -- Metaphors / by Sylvia Plath -- The mother / by Gwendolyn Brooks -- My house / by Nikki Giovanni -- My mother's body / by Marge Piercy -- My papa's waltz / by Theodore Roethke -- Old possum's book of practical cats / by T.S. Eliot -- One art / by Elizabeth Bishop -- The possessive / by Sharon Olds -- The raven / by Edgar Allan Poe -- The road not taken / by Robert Frost -- Sestina / by Elizabeth Bishop -- Still I rise / by Maya Angelou --Stopping by woods on a snowy evening / by Robert Frost -- Sunday morning / by Wallace Stevens -- A supermarket in California / by AllenGinsberg -- Take the I out / by Sharon Olds -- Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird / by Wallace Stevens -- The waste land / by T.S. Eliot -- The weary blues / by Langston Huges -- The writer / by Richard Wilbur.