Read classic and contemporary poems about making and listening to music.
Classic Poems about Music
“Suspend, Singer Swan” by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Suspend, singer swan, the sweet strain…
“The Song of the Jellicles” by T. S. Eliot
Jellicle Cats come out to-night
“Pan with Us” by Robert Frost
Pan came out of the woods one day...
“Ghost Music” by Robert Graves
Gloomy and bare the organ-loft…
“The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune…
“The Banjo Player” by Fenton Johnson
There is music in me, the music of a peasant people…
“The Gift to Sing” by James Weldon Johnson
Sometimes the mist overhangs my path…
“The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” by Edward Lear
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea...
“The Guitar” by Federico García Lorca
The weeping of the guitar…
“Listening” by Amy Lowell
’T is you that are the music, not your song…
“A Violin at Dusk” by Lizette Woodworth Reese
Stumble to silence, all you uneasy things…
“My Harp” by John Rollin Ridge
Oh must I fling my harp aside…
“The Trumpet” by Edward Thomas
Rise up, rise up…
“Song of Myself, 18” by Walt Whitman
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums…
“Song of Myself, 26” by Walt Whitman
Now I will do nothing but listen…
“With Music” by Helen Hay Whitney
Dear, did we meet in some din yesterday…
“Endymion” by Oscar Wilde
The apple trees are hung with gold…
Educator Resources
Browse a selection of lesson plans featuring classic and contemporary poems about music.
Contemporary Poems about Music
“John Whirlwind’s Doublebeat Songs, 1956” by Ray Young Bear
Menwi – yakwatoni – beskonewiani…
“Latin & Soul” by Victor Hernández Cruz
some waves / a wave of now…
“Trickster III” by Kwame Dawes
This bassline is sticky like asphalt…
“They Don’t Love You Like I Love You” by Natalie Diaz
My mother said this to me…
“Transit” by Rita Dove
This is the house that music built…
“Sistas” by Sandra María Esteves
Nina Simone, Celia Cruz, Billie Holiday, and Bessie…
“Song Out Here” by Juan Felipe Herrera
if I could sing…
“I Got Heaven…” by Garrett Hongo
I swear that, in Gardena, on a moonlit suburban street…
“Roof Nightclub” by Ishion Hutchinson
First, above all, I live forever. And…
“Spoken For” by Li-Young Lee
I didn’t know I was blue…
“Song Book” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Tiny keyboard bearing the massive reverie of the past…
“The Day Lady Died” by Frank O’Hara
It is 12:20 in New York a Friday…
“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely [Mahalia Jackson is a genius.]” by Claudia Rankine
Mahalia Jackson is a genius. Or…
“A Poem for Ella Fitzgerald” by Sonia Sanchez
when she came out on the stage, this Ella
“Ode to Country Music” by Sandra Simonds
If I wasn’t such a deadbeat, I’d learn Greek…
“Guitar” by David St. John
I have always loved the word guitar…
“The Everyday Enchantment of Music” by Mark Strand
A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound…
“Ode to Dusty Springfeld” by David Trinidad
What makes / a voice / distinct?
“The Voice of God” by Crystal Williams
when she opens her mouth…
Contemporary Poems about Classical Music
“The Final Movement of a Late Quartet” by Christian Barter
Until the last three hammer strokes batter…
“Little Fugue” by Marianne Boruch
Everyone should have a little fugue, she says…
“Birthday” by Richie Hofmann
I look for words in the dark…
“J. S. Bach: F# Minor Toccata” by Bill Holm
This music weeps, not for sin…
“Mozart” by Caroline Knox
Can you imagine…
“Mozart Songbook” by Joan Larkin
Outside on Fremont Ave, black…
“Soave Sia Il Vento” by Adrian Matejka
In the wobbly pirouette between song…
“What Is It You Feel I Asked Kurt” by Diane Seuss
What is it you feel I asked Kurt when you listen to…
“Prelude and Fugue” by Angela Narciso Torres
Something of late November…
“Fugue, Harpsichord” by Rosanna Warren
Out of her left hand fled…
