See the Granger's Guided Tour here.

Our 2026 high school poetry contest winners have been selected. See winning poems here.

See our Compare Poems tool with examples of reading poems side-by-side.

Quick Search:

Amy Lowell

Amy Lowell of Brookline, Massachusetts, was the fifth of five children. Her nearest sister was 12 years older. When Lowell was just 17 she had to leave private school to care for her parents who were already nearing

Venus Transiens

by Amy Lowell (1874–1925)

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<author>
3  <person id="7274" sex="2" role="author">
4    <name>
5      <firstname>Amy</firstname>
6      <lastname>Lowell</lastname>
7    </name>
8    <life-events>
9      <date ty="birth" circa="false" suffix="ad">1874</date>
10      <date ty="death" circa="false" suffix="ad">1925</date>
11      <text-value>(1874–1925)</text-value>
12    </life-events>
13    <biography>y</biography>
14  </person>
15</author>
16

 Tell me, 
 Was Venus more beautiful 
 Than you are, 
 When she topped 
 The crinkled waves, 
 Drifting shoreward 
 On her plaited shell? 
 Was Botticelli's vision 
 Fairer than mine, 

Click here for complete poem

Poets Book of Days

June 15

W. H. Auden's "Under Which Lyre" is published in The Harvard Alumni Bulletin in 1946.

View Calendar of Days

Poetry Trivia

Question:

What book of French poetry prompted Algernon Swinburne to write, "a poet's business is presumably to write good verse, and by no means to redeem the age and remold society," inaugurating the "art for art's sake" movement in Britain?

Answer

Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (or The Flowers of Evil ).

Previous Trivia Questions

Find us on: