Dog Poems An Anthology

Our canine companions offer us friendship, love, understanding, all unadulterated. They are our joyful playmates and our furry shoulders to cry on, from the cradle to the grave.        This book brings together some of the finest poems on dogs by a range of poets from Diogenes to Dorothy Parker, from Chaucer to Clarice Lispector. Gertrude Stein once said, “I am I because my little dog knows me,” and this collection proves it: with their wit, their wisdom, and their delights, these poems—and the dogs that inspired them—hold up a mirror to our better selves.         Whether exploding with the joy of a new puppy or mourning the loss of a tender lifelong friend, growling a critique at the more “civilized” habits of humans or simply spending a day in the life of a favorite pet, these poems offer something to dog lovers, poets, and poetry readers: in short, just about everyone.

Linda Pastan, “The New Dog” William Carlos Williams, “Stormy” Lucille Clifton, “dog’s god” Hayden Carruth, “The Primavera” Alicia Ostriker, “The Dogs at Live Oak Beach, Santa Cruz” Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Dog” Ioanna Carlsen, “Over and Over Tune” James Schuyler, “Oriane” John Brehm, “If Feeling Isn’t in It” Stevie Smith, “O Pug!” Mary Oliver, “Every Dog’s Story” Cathryn Essinger, “My Dog Practices Geometry” Siegfried Sassoon, “Man and Dog” John Updike, “Dog’s Death” Pablo Neruda, “A Dog Has Died” Robinson Jeffers, “The House-Dog’s Grave” Cecil Day-Lewis, “Sheepdog Trials in Hyde Park” Amy Lowell, “Roads” Dorothy Parker, “Verse for a Certain Dog” Dylan Thomas, “The Song of the Mischievous Dog” William Cowper, “On a Spaniel . . . & Beau’s Response” James Laughlin, “The Hunting Dog” Bernadette Mayer, “Introduction to Killing” Clarice Lispector, “A Dialogue” Gavin Ewart, “Pi-Dog and Wish-Cat” Louis MacNeice, “Dogs in the Park” Henry Dumas, “Hunt” Homero Aridjis, “Precolumbian” Robert Lax, “are you a visitor?” Denise Levertov, “Kindness” Paul Zimmer, “Dog Music” Muriel Spark, “Mungo Bays the Moon” Vincent Starrett, “Oracle of the Dog” Jose´ Emilio Pacheco, “A Dog’s Life” Diogenes, “Fragment 30” Kazuko Shiraishi, “Dog and Man” Sakutaro Hagiwara, “Unknown Dog” Elizabeth Bishop, “Pink Dog” Robert Lax, “Dog Act” Michael Ondaatje, “A Dog in San Francisco” George Oppen, “The Dog” Paul Muldoon, “Beagles” W. G. Sebald, from “Unrecounted” Denise Levertov, “Grey August” Emily Dickinson, “I Started Early – Took My Dog” May Swenson, “Scroppo’s Dog” Eugenio Montale, “In my early years” Joy Harjo, “Nine Below” Lars Gustafsson, “The Dog” Kate Northrop, “Unfinished Landscape with a Dog” Delmore Schwartz, “ Dogs Are Shakespearean, Children Are Strangers” Denise Levertov, “The Dog of Art”