To celebrate Valentine’s Day, the following class and contemporary poems about love, heart, and friendship, are appropriate for young people.
Read related lesson plans for Valentine’s Day and year-round.
“Love” by Rupert Brooke
Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate,…
“How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
“Evening Song” by Willa Cather
Dear love, what thing of all the things that be…
“Heart to Heart” by Rita Dove
It’s neither red…
“Why I Love Thee?” by Sadakichi Hartmann
Why I love thee?...
“Ask Me Why I Love You” by Walter Everette Hawkins
Ask me why I love you, dear…
“Of Love: A Sonnet” by Robert Herrick
How love came in I do not know…
“My Loves” by Langston Hughes
I love to see the big white moon…
“In the Heart of a Rose” by George Marion McClellan
I will hide my soul and its mighty love…
“Crossing the Line” by E. Ethelbert Miller
Sitting across the table from you…
“Untitled [Do you still remember: falling stars]” by Rainer Maria Rilke
Do you still remember: falling stars,...
“How Much?” by Carl Sandburg
How much do you love me, a million bushels?...
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)” by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day...
“A Valentine” by Priscilla Jane Thompson
Out of the depths of a heart of love…
“Sonnet w/ Rose” by Matthew Yeager
When I see you after so long not…
Poems for Teens:
“Love” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
We cannot live, except thus mutually…
“Amores (IX)” by E. E. Cummings
i like…
“The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.” by Donika Kelly
I am taken with the hot animal...
“Eros the Contagion” by Annie Kim
Soft as a Claude painting, the yellow sky tonight—…
“Unacknowledged Pollinators” by Fady Joudah
“If you were a star,” you said, “you’d be called Forgive me.”…
“I Loved You Before I Was Born” by Li-Young Lee
I loved you before I was born…
“Valentine’s Afternoon” by Michael McFee
Four lanes over, a plump helium heart—…
“To O. E. A.” by Claude McKay
Your voice is the color of a robin’s breast...
“Having a Coke with You” by Frank O’Hara
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye…
“[And sometimes I know I am having a feeling]” by Matthew Siegel
And sometimes I know I am having a feeling…
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