Poems about Travel
Take a poetry road trip across the United States and abroad with this curated collection of poems about vacation and travel, videos on poetic trips and poets abroad, poetry landmarks, walking tours, featured poetry books for literary travelers, and postcards from poets on summer vacations.
Poems about Vacation and Travel
“If You Get There Before I Do” by Dick Allen
Air out the linens, unlatch the shutters on the eastern side …
“Flying” by Sarah Arvio
One said to me tonight or was it day …
“Passing Through Albuquerque” by John Balaban
At dusk, by the irrigation ditch …
“Looking for The Gulf Motel” by Richard Blanco
There should be nothing here I don’t remember …
“Return to Florence” by Cyrus Cassells
How do I convey the shoring gold …
“Vacation” by Rita Dove
I love the hour before takeoff …
“Cattails” by Nikky Finney
One woman drives across five states just to see her …
“Self-Portrait on the Street of an Unnamed Foreign City” by Jennifer Grotz
The lettering on the shop window in which …
“Go Greyhound” by Bob Hicok
A few hours after Des Moines …
“Spain” by Major Jackson
Beneath canopies of green, unionists marched doggedly …
“Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles” by Sally Wen Mao
In Lijiang, the sign outside your hostel …
“The Road from Biloxi” by Khaled Mattawa
Qader blew at a cigarette, stuck his head …
“Travel” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The railroad track is miles away …
“Window Seat: Providence to New York City” by Jacqueline Osherow
My sixteenth …
“Window” by Carl Sandburg
Night from a railroad car window …
“Crostatas” by Charlie Smith
in rome I got down among the weeds and tiny perfumed …
“Travel” by Robert Louis Stevenson
I should like to rise and go …
Videos
Edward Hirsch on American Poets Abroad
In this video, recorded at the 2013 Poets Forum, Edward Hirsch discusses how American poetry has been influenced by the work of American poets who have gone abroad.
Not Persuasion, But Transport: The Poetry of Witness
In this video, from the 2013 Poets Forum, Carolyn Forché delivers the Blaney Lecture, in which she talks about her travels and the poetry of transport, activism, and witness.
Arthur Sze on American Poets Abroad
In this video, recorded at the 2013 Poets Forum, Arthur Sze talks about the influence of American poetry in China.
Poetry Landmarks
Death, Be Not Proud: The Graves of Poets
Take a trip across the United States—with some trips abroad as well—and visit the resting places of several renowned poets with this listing of the graves of poets. Then visit the following poetry landmarks—from Langston Hughes’s hometown to the White Horse Tavern—across the United States.
The Poetry Walk in Berkeley, CA
The City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, CA
The Poet Homes of Key West, FL
The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in Chicago, IL
Langston Hughes’s Hometown of Lawrence, KS
Robert Penn Warren Birthplace Museum in Guthrie, KY
McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA
The George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room in Cambridge, MA
The Search for Anne Bradstreet in Essex County, MA
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Hometown of Camden, ME
Robert Hayden’s Bus Route in Ann Arbor, MI
George Moses Horton’s Hometown in Chatham County, NC
William Carlos Williams’ Hometown of Rutherford, NJ
The Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, NY
The White Horse Tavern in New York, NY
The California Gulch Trail in La Grande, OR
James Wright’s Hometown of Martins Ferry, OH
The Marianne Moore Collection at the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, PA
Poets Via Post
Check out these summer postcards from poets across the U.S.
Robin Becker; postmarked July 2011, New Hampshire
Brenda Hillman; postmarked July 2011, California
Dana Levin; postmarked July 2011, New Mexico
Featured Books
Poets on Place by W. T. Pfefferle
In this anthology, Pfefferle interviews sixty-two poets, including Carol Muske-Dukes, Terrance Hayes, Alberto Ríos, and Natasha Trethewey, about the importance of place in their work.
Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop
Bishop spent much of her life traveling and living abroad in places such as Europe, South America, and North Africa. Her descriptions and memories of these voyages and encounters can be found throughout her poetry.
Ninety-fifth Street by John Koethe
“The poems spring from the landscapes of childhood, travels in the United States and Europe, a youth spent in the company of poets, and feeling.”
Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis
The poems in Lewis’s collection “short and long braid her own family history into a wider trajectory from ancient Egypt to present-day Sri Lanka, New York City, and New Orleans.”
Lake Superior by Lorine Niedecker
Inspired by a trip Niedecker took with her husband in 1966 and Midwestern history and landscapes, this collection combines poems, letters, journal entries, and commentary.