Poems : By First Line "P" : The Poetry Foundation

There are 109 Poems that have a first line beginning with "p"

= First appeared in Poetry magazine.

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man,
"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man,"
By Anonymous

Pease porridge hot,
"Pease porridge hot,"
By Anonymous

Polly, put the kettle on,
"Polly, put the kettle on,"
By Anonymous

Put an ear to the light at fall
A Cave of Angelfish Huddle Against the Moon First appeared in Poetry
By Ron De Maris

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
By Wallace Stevens

Put nothing down to distress the reader.
A Poem That Starts Out Wrong
By Landis Everson

Poor Nietzsche in Turin, eating sausage his mother
A Supple Wreath of Myrtle
By Robert Hass

Paris in the Spring, Autumn in New York,
AAA Vacation Guide
By Ernest Hilbert

Pen marks trying to scratch their way to sense
After One
By Tom Sleigh

Proudly swept the rain by the cliffs
Aloha’oe (Farewell to Thee)
By Lydia Kamakaeha Lili’uokalani

Penelope for her Ulisses sake,
Amoretti XXIII: Penelope for her Ulisses sake
By Edmund Spenser

PART 1
An Essay on Criticism: Part 1
By Alexander Pope

Pale gold and crumbling with crust
Appetite First appeared in Poetry
By Paulann Petersen

Poetry, I tell my students,
Ars Poetica #100: I Believe
By Elizabeth Alexander

Plague took us and the land from under us,
Berkeley in Time of Plague
By Jack Spicer

Pretty boy, towel your tears,
Blues for X
By George Elliott Clarke

Past the fourth cloverleaf, by dwindling roads
Buckroe, After the Season, 1942
By Virginia Hamilton Adair

Powder and scent and silence. The young dwarf
Clair de Lune
By Anthony Hecht

Purple as tulips in May, mauve
Colors passing through us
By Marge Piercy

Paradox is not comfortable; its X exposes that; too many
Discomfiting the Absolute Splendor
By Cynthia Macdonald

Protruding, rebelling against the lips,
Dracula First appeared in Poetry
By Salwa Al-Neimi

Please! Keep
Each Defeat
By Eileen Myles

Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Ex-Basketball Player
By John Updike

Pure? What does it mean?
Fever 103° First appeared in Poetry
By Sylvia Plath

Pindar, poet of the victories, fitted names
Glory First appeared in Poetry
By Robert Pinsky

Pink Dawn, Aurora Pink, Misty Pink, Fresh Pink, Natural Pink, Country
Gloss of the Past
By David Trinidad

Pale, then enkindled,
In California: Morning, Evening, Late January
By Denise Levertov

Praised be the moon of books! that doth above
In the Reading-Room of the British Museum
By Louise Imogen Guiney

Piping down the valleys wild,
Introduction to the Songs of Innocence
By William Blake

Pavement slipp’ry, people sneezing,
January, 1795
By Mary Robinson

Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
Juggling Jerry
By George Meredith

Puisque je suis
Le Secret
By Thomas James Merton

Poor muse, north wind, or any god
Lines for Winter First appeared in Poetry
By Dave Lucas

Pack, clouds away! and welcome day!
Love's Good-Morrow
By Thomas Heywood

Plato, despair!
Meditation on Statistical Method
By J. V. Cunningham

Pancho, the barrio idiot.
Meditations on the South Valley, Part XXIII
By Jimmy Santiago Baca

Praying, thy will be done,
Midstairs
By Virginia Hamilton Adair

Perhaps her cook, come under the influence
Mme. Sperides
By Gregory Djanikian

Protestants pray for grace,
My God First appeared in Poetry
By Susan Rolston

Poverty much maligned but beautiful
Mysteries of Small Houses
By Alice Notley

Penelope as a garçon manqué
Mythology
By Marilyn Hacker

proceeds by chance
Natural Selection First appeared in Poetry
By Alan Shapiro

Probably no one noticed the mornings I disappeared to sit
from Nettles: Lies
By Jane Miller

Pardon us for uttering a handful
New Netherland, 1654
By Grace Schulman

Pretty soon the Negroes were looking to get paid.
Ode to Big Trend First appeared in Poetry
By Terrance Hayes

Poetry? It’s a hobby.
from Odes: 6. What the Chairman Told Tom
By Basil Bunting

Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
On a Dead Child
By Robert Bridges

Playwright, convict of public wrongs to men,
On Playwright
By Ben Jonson

Pangur Bán and I at work,
Pangur Bán First appeared in Poetry
By Anonymous

PErplex'd and troubl'd at his bad success
Paradise Regain'd: Book IV (1671)
By John Milton

Parks and ponds are good by day;
Parks and ponds
By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Parmi beaucoup de poèmes
Parmi beaucoup de poèmes / Among Many Poems First appeared in Poetry
By Jacques Roubaud

Passing away, saith the World, passing away:
Passing away, Saith the World
By Christina Rossetti

Pastime with good company
Passtime with good company
By Henry VIII, king of England

Patience, though I have not
Patience, Though I Have Not
By Thomas Wyatt

People getting divorced
People Getting Divorced
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Perhaps it is time, I thought,
Perhaps
By Hilda Morley

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
Phenomenal Woman
By Maya Angelou

Passing the American graveyard, for my birthday
Poem for My Twentieth Birthday First appeared in Poetry
By Kenneth Koch

Pyongyang, if you’ll please, STOP
Poetics
By Rodrigo Toscano

Poor old lady, she swallowed a fly.
Poor Old Lady
By Anonymous

Prais’d be Diana’s fair and harmless light;
Prais’d be Diana’s Fair and Harmless Light
By Sir Walter Ralegh

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,
Prayer (I)
By George Herbert

Plan of the City of O. The great square
Prose 22
By Michael Palmer

Proud Maisie is in the wood,
Proud Maisie
By Sir Walter Scott

Publication – is the Auction
Publication – is the Auction (788)
By Emily Dickinson

Pumberly Pott’s unpredictable niece
Pumberly Pott’s Unpredictable Niece
By Jack Prelutsky

Play the one about the family of the ducks
Requests for Toy Piano First appeared in Poetry
By Tony Hoagland

Palaces of drift and crystal, the clouds
Rivers into Seas
By Lynda Hull

Plum black & the blush white of an apple
Sex and Taxes First appeared in Poetry
By Kevin Cantwell

Pawnbroker, scavenger, cheapskate,
Sleep First appeared in Poetry
By Meghan O'Rourke

Polly. I like a ship in storms was tossed,
Songs from The Beggar’s Opera: Air X-“Thomas, I Cannot"
By John Gay

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Sonnet CXLVI: Poor Soul, the Centre of my Sinful Earth
By William Shakespeare

Plurality is all. I walk among the restaurants,
Statement with Rhymes First appeared in Poetry
By Weldon Kees

People are putting up storm windows now,
Storm Windows
By Howard Nemerov

Poetry, Wordsworth
Terminator Too
By Tom Clark

Pale, with the blue of high zeniths, shimmered over with silver, brocaded
The Blue Scarf
By Amy Lowell

Perspective never withers from their eyes;
from The Bridge: Quaker Hill
By Hart Crane

Performances, assortments, résumés—
from The Bridge: The Tunnel
By Hart Crane

Punch (pink costume with jingle bells, especially on his cap;
The cast
By Miroslav Holub

Pei designed the building with views,
The Center for Atmospheric Research
By Bin Ramke

People who have no children can be hard:
The Children of the Poor First appeared in Poetry
By Gwendolyn Brooks

Pull in your feet, little darling,
The Chinese Mother’s Lullaby First appeared in Poetry
By Biddy Jenkinson

Popped from the womb, he began gathering property
The Egoist
By William H. Dickey

Pearl egg of fly intimates the curve of larva, its spine and claw point. The cellophane shell,
The Fly
By Lynn Crosbie

Passing through huddled and ugly walls,
The Harbor First appeared in Poetry
By Carl Sandburg

Pray why are you so bare, so bare,
The Haunted Oak
By Paul Laurence Dunbar

Permit me to open by expressing joy and wonder
The Last Attack. To Klaus First appeared in Poetry
By Zbigniew Herbert

Perhaps, when we the strangers in the bar’s blue light
The Memory of Barbarism is the Recollection of Virtue
By Richard Emil Braun

People would come to my great-grandmother’s house.
The Night Would Grow Like a Telescope Pulled Out
By Alberto Ríos

Picture the upturned millipede, dead,
The Orange Alert
By Douglas Kearney

Put my glad rags in a cardboard box—
The Other Side of This World
By Calvin Forbes

Pilgrim feet, pray whither bound?
The Pilgrim
By Sophie Jewett

PIERCE & CUDDIE
from The Shepheardes Calender: October
By Edmund Spenser

Position is where you
The Window First appeared in Poetry
By Robert Creeley

Panic attacks your pain-porous skin?
Therapy from the Garden First appeared in Poetry
By Glenn Morazzini

Pótuia, pótuia
To a Greek Marble First appeared in Poetry
By Richard Aldington

Pray thee, take care, that tak’st my book in hand,
To the Reader
By Ben Jonson

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
To Wordsworth
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

Pigfoot (with Aces Under) Passes
Translations from the English
By George Starbuck

people hurry on, arrive
Untitled
By Bei Dao

Pitiful brother—the dreadful nights I owed him! "I've got no real involvement in the business. I toyed with his weakness, so—it was my fault—we wound up back in exile and enslavement."
Vagabonds First appeared in Poetry
By Arthur Rimbaud

Presently at our touch the teacup stirred,
Voices from the Other World
By James Merrill

Prone on the northern water,
White Head
By Sophie Jewett

Pushing off on her back out
Work
By Sherod Santos

People, don't ask me again where my shoes are.
You People First appeared in Poetry
By Nance Van Winckel

Passing the shop after school, he would look up at the sign
[Passing the shop after school...]
By Charles Reznikoff

Popcorn-can cover
[Popcorn-can cover]
By Lorine Niedecker

Posterity, this me is Now—
[Posterity, this me is Now—]
By Dan Beachy-Quick

IN THIS ISSUE: November 2009