A selection of poems about animals by poets like Alberto Blanco, Elizabeth Bishop, William Blake, Lewis Carroll, and more.
Many of these poems are especially suitable for students in elementary school.
“The Parakeets” by Alberto Blanco
They talk all day…
“The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop
I caught a tremendous fish…
“The Tyger” by William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright…
“The Crocodile” by Lewis Carroll
How doth the little crocodile…
“Snail-Picking” by Onyedikachi Chinedu
The weatherman reports rain…
“The Carolina Wren” by Laura Donnelly
I noticed the mockingbirds first…
read the lesson plan
“Playing with Bees” by RK Fauth
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota…
“The Pasture” by Robert Frost
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring…
“The Caterpillar” by Robert Graves
Under this loop of honeysuckle…
“Mary’s Lamb” by Sarah Josepha Hale
Mary had a little lamb…
“Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight” by Jane Hirshfield
One ran, her nose to the ground…
watch the dear poet video
“Lamb” by Richie Hofmann
I had a lamb I brought everywhere…
“Breaking Free” by Stuart Kestenbaum
I am pledging allegiance to the flag…
“The Tree Sparrows” by Joseph O. Legaspi
We suffer through blinding equatorial heat…
read the lesson plan
“A Jelly-Fish” by Marianne Moore
Visible, invisible…
read the lesson plan
“Crows” by Marilyn Nelson
What if to taste and see, to notice things…
read the lesson plan
“Psalm” by George Oppen
In the small beauty of the forest…
“Move” by Alicia Ostriker
Whether it’s a turtle who drags herself…
“Grasshopper” by Ron Padgett
It’s funny when the mind thinks about the psyche…
“The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered…
“I Am! Said the Lamb (excerpt)” by Theodore Roethke
I had a Donkey, that was all right…
“Testy Pony” by Zachary Schomburg
I am given a pony for my birthday…
“The Eagle” by Lord Alfred Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands…
“At the Zoo” by William Makepeace Thackeray
First I saw the white bear, then I saw the black…
“Mother Doesn’t Want a Dog” by Judith Viorst
Mother doesn’t want a dog…
“from Manatee/Humanity [1]” by Anne Waldman
sing manatee, manatee...
read the lesson plan
“A Blessing” by James Wright
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota…
browse materials for teachers
browse poems and poets
how to create an anthology