Top 10 Favorite Poems

I was a biology major in college and only had to take 3 English classes. I didn't even think I liked poetry until I ended up in Francis B. Carothers Jr's "Intro to Poetry." We used the Wadsworth Handbook and Anthology of Poems edited by C.F. Main and Peter J. Seng. From that class, I discovered the wonderfully concentrated form of expression that is poetry. The British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac has been quoted as having said, "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." Here are my 10 favorite poems. I hope you will be curious enough to look up and read the ones that are unfamiliar to you. And, sorry, but I couldn't just pick one of Shakespeare's sonnets.