Relatively unknown in his own lifetime, Gerard Manley Hopkins is the now accredited as the author of some of the finest and most complex poems in the English language. As a Victorian poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, Hopkins pioneered a revolutionary form of meter he termed "sprung rhythm" in his first major work, "The Wreck of the Deutschland." This poem, like most of Hopkins' work, reflects both his belief in the doctrine that human...

For this companion to her "New York Times"-bestselling collection "A Family of Poems," Kennedy has hand-selected more than 100 of her favorite poems that lend themselves to memorization.