As the school year begins again, grab your pens, pencils, planners, and notebooks, and check out this selection of poems related to school. From biology to geology, phys ed to study hall—along with a few electives—these poems take on all the subjects in your class schedule for September—for students and teachers alike.
Poems for English Class
“Ode to an Encyclopedia” by James Arthur
“American Syntax” by Ching-In Chen
“Workshop” by Billy Collins
“Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes
“Books” by Gerald Stern
“After Reading ‘Antony and Cleopatra’” by Robert Louis Stevenson
“How to Read a Poem: Beginner’s Manual” by Pamela Spiro Wagner
Poems for Social Studies Class
Poems for Economics Class
“What the businessman said” by Allison Cobb
“The impact of a dollar upon the heart” by Stephen Crane
“The American middle class …” by Dawn Lundy Martin
“More Money than God” by Richard Michelson
“The World We Want Is Us” by Alice Walker
Poems for History Class
“Holding Posture” by Howard Altmann
“September 1, 1939” by W. H. Auden
“The Fall of Rome” by W. H. Auden
“A Carpapalooza: An American Anthem” by Regie Cabico
“A People’s Historian” by Kenneth Carroll
“Occasioned by General Washington’s Arrival in Philadelphia, on His Way to His Residence in Virginia” by Philip Freneau
“On Seeing Larry Rivers’ Washington Crossing the Delaware at the Museum of Modern Art” by Frank O’Hara
“American History” by Michael S. Harper
“History” by Linda Hogan
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Julie Ward Howe
“Thanks” by Yusef Komunyakaa
“Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“For the Union Dead” by Robert Lowell
“Pomegranate Means Grenade” by Jamaal May
“In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
“On the Day of Nixon’s Funeral” by Ira Sadoff
“Eastern European Cooking” by Charles Simic
“Eighteenth Century Remains” by Tess Taylor
“Election Day, November, 1884” by Walt Whitman
“The Documents” by Terence Winch
Poems for Politics & Current Affairs Class
“Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander
“Patriotics” by David Baker
“América” by Richard Blanco
“One Today” by Richard Blanco
“The Tradition” by Jericho Brown
“America” by Robert Creeley
“Everyday We Get More Illegal” by Juan Felipe Herrera
“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes
“The American middle class…” by Dawn Lundy Martin
“America” by Claude McKay
“Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye
“United” by Naomi Shihab Nye
“Laundry” by Alicia Ostriker
“Some Effects of Global Warming in Lackawanna County” by Jay Parini
“from Citizen, I” by Claudia Rankine
“Black Laws” by Roger Reeves
“The Border: A Double Sonnet” by Alberto Ríos
“Problem-Not-Solving” by Anne Waldman
Poems for Science Class
Poems for Biology Class
“Textbook & Absence (Anatomy)” by Catherine Barnett
“Evolution” by Linda Bierds
“Human Atlas” by Marianne Boruch
“Mostly Read the Luna Moth” by Jordan Davis
“My Proteins” by Jane Hirshfield
“My Skeleton” by Jane Hirshfield
“Then Saw the Problem” by Mark Jarman
“Combustion” by Sara Eliza Johnson
“Farrow” by Kimberly Johnson
Poems for Chemistry Class
"John Correia, My College Chemistry Teacher" by Jorge H. Aigla
“Periodic Table of Ethereal Elements” by Lucie Brock-Broido
“Not Nothing” by Kimiko Hahn
“For the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches Hair, Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen” by Jane Hirshfield
“Left-Handed Sugar” by Jane Hirshfield
Poems for Geology Class
“Last Night We Saw South Pacific” by James Applewhite
“First Probe” by Barry Ballard
“Sunrise, Grand Canyon” by John Barton
“The Museum of Stones” by Carolyn Forche
“How Everything Was in the End Resolved in California” by Charles Foster
“Parowan Canyon” by David Lee
“Negotiations with a Volcano” by Naomi Shihab Nye
“Stonemason” by James O’Hern
“Field Note” by Eric Pankey
“Springing” by Marie Ponsot
“Two Views” by Wyatt Prunty
“Stone Bird” by Pattiann Rogers
“Stone” by Charles Simic
Poems for Physics Class
“On Reading a Child’s Guide to Modern Physics” by W. H. Auden
“Gravity and Center” by Henri Cole
“Sentimental Atom Smasher” by Darcie Dennigan
“Holy Cosmos” by Nathalie Handal
“String Theory Sutra” by Brenda Hillman
“For What Binds Us” by Jane Hirshfield
“The Universe” by Joshua Henry Jones, Jr.
“Einstein Defining Special Relativity” by A. Van Jordan
“Dark Matter” by Jack Myers
“1905” by Marilyn Nelson
“Dark Matter and Dark Energy” by Alicia Ostriker
“Quick Black Hole Spin-Change” by Edward Sanders
“Space Station” by Tom Sleigh
“Psalm” by Joshua Weiner
Poems for Math Class
Poems for Algebra Class
"Calculations" by Brenda Cárdenas
“Kiss Over Zero” by George David Clark
“An Equation” by Hyam Plutzik
“The Meaning of Zero: A Love Poem” by Amy Uyematsu
Poems for Calculus Class
“Living in Numbers” by Claire Lee
“A Calculus of Readiness” by Liz Waldnor
Poems for Geometry Class
“Burial” by Robert McAlmon
“Design” by Billy Collins
“Pythagorean Silence [excerpt]” by Susan Howe
Poems for Physical Education Class
“At the Gym” by Mark Doty
“Fast Break” by Edward Hirsch
"Sports History" by Brett Fletcher Lauer
“A Boy Juggling a Soccer Ball” by Christopher Merrill
"Perfect Form" by Kamilah Aisha Moon
“Baseball and Writing” by Marianne Moore
“Swimming in the Presence of Lurid Opposition” by Sawako Nakayasu
“Losing the 440-Yard Dash” by Afaa Michael Weaver
Poems for Study Hall
“Sappho in Her Study” by Kelly Cherry
“It is Night, in My Study” by Miguel de Unamuno
“Dawn” by James Laughlin
“Chance” by Molly Peacock
Poems for Arts Classes
Poems for Art Class
“The Painting” by John Balaban
“Dragged Mass” by Rick Barot
“The Bed on the Wall” by Lauren Camp
“To Jackson Pollock” by Mark Doty
“For the Blind Man in the Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence” by Jeffrey Thomson
“To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works” by Phillis Wheatley
Poems for Drama Class
“Talk” by Kwame Dawes
“Aureng-Zebe, Prologue” by John Dryden
“As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [All the world’s a stage]” by William Shakespeare
“Untitled” by Amber Tamblyn
“The Prisoner of Zenda” by Richard Wilbur
Poems for Music Class
“Little Fugue” by Marianne Boruch
"Poem for the Tin-tun-teros" by Brenda Cárdenas
“Song Out Here” by Juan Felipe Herrera
“Ode to a Drum” by Yusef Komunyakaa
“The Guitar” by Federico Garcia Lorca
“Song Book” by Naomi Shihab Nye
“Limitations” by Henrietta Cordelia Ray
“The Silent Singer” by Len Roberts
“The Everyday Enchantment of Music” by Mark Strand
“The Junior High School Band Concert” by David Wagoner
“That Music Always Round Me” by Walt Whitman