Poll for May

Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” received 75% of the votes. And coming in second place is . . . William Wordsworth's “The world is too much with us” with 25%.

The other poems received no votes.

Commentary

The most widely anthologized of the lot is Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which accounts for its being the most famous and recognizable of the bunch. And no doubt explains it garnering the most votes.

I am puzzled that the Wordsworth poem, “The world is too much with us,” would place second. I would have guessed that Dickinson’s “A bird came down the walk” might place ahead of the Wordsworth poem, because most Dickinson poems get more exposure than Wordsworth nowadays and have consistently for the past thirty years.

Get Acquainted with the Poems

Common sense dictates that it is always more likely that readers are going to vote for the poems they know about, and unlikely to vote for a poem they have not experienced. So here is the opportunity to become acquainted with those poems that are less likely to have been on the readers’ radar screen.

• Housman’s 'Loveliest of trees': More than Carpe Diem
• ‘A Bird came down the Walk': Dickinson’s Frightened Beads
• Bryant’s 'The Yellow Violet': A Lesson in Humility

And for articles commenting on the winners, please visit the following:

• Frost’s Snow and Woods: Commentary on 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'
• Wordsworth’s Romantic Cry: 'The world is too much with us'