At the end of 2019, Living Poetry conducted a poll of its members to determine which 20th century poems were our favorites. First we held nominations and 37 poems by 32 different poets qualified for the ballot then we voted.

Each Living Poet was allowed to rank up to five poems. Their first place poem received 10 votes, second got 5, third 3, fourth 2 and fifth 1 vote. The results were tallied and Living Poetry’s Favorite Poem of the 20th Century is Wistawa Szymborska‘s Children of Our Age!

Maya Angelou‘s Still I Rise came second while three poems tied for third: Robert Hayden‘s Those Winter Sundays and William Carlos Williams‘ The Red Wheelbarrow and This Is Just To Say.

Thanks to all who participated in this poll. Let’s do it again in a hundred years!

The complete results of the poll:

• • Wistawa Szymborska, Children of Our Age, 22 votes
  • Maya Angelou, Still I Rise, 15
  • Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays, 10
  • William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow , 10
  • William Carlos Williams, This Is Just To Say, 10
  • Anna Akhmatova, Imitation from the Armenian, 8
  • Charles Bukowski, The Laughing Heart, 7
  • Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay , 6
  • William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming , 6
  • Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool, 5
  • Lucille Clifton, won’t you celebrate with me, 5
  • Langston Hughes, I, Too, 5
  • E. E. Cummings, [i like my body when it is with your], 3
  • Audre Lorde, Revolution Is One Form of Social Change, 3
  • Mary Oliver, The Journey, 3
  • T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred prufrock, 2
  • Adrienne Rich, Cartographies of Silence, 2
  • Joseph Brodsky, Lithuanian Nocturne (scroll down), 1
  • Billy Collins, Fishing on the Susquehanna in July, 1
  • E. E. Cummings, [in Just-], 1
  • Jane Kenyon, Happiness, 1
• Other nominations:
• • Elizabeth Bishop, At The Fishhouses
  • Richard Brautigan, Castle of the Cormorants
  • Charles Bukowski , back to the machinegun
  • Martin Espada, Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
  • Carolyn Kizer, Semele Recycled
  • Stanley Kunitz, The Layers
  • Denise Levertov, A Woman Meets an Old Lover
  • Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead
  • Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
  • Molly Peacock, The Fare
  • Sylvia Plath, Daddy
  • Anne Sexton, Sylvia’s Death
  • Wallace Stevens, Of Mere Being
  • Wallace Stevens, Waving Adieu Adieu Adieu
  • Mark Strand, Five Dogs
  • May Swenson, Question