What do poets write about in summer? From swimming holes to birds to death, poets take the summer season as a useful backdrop to deliver their dramas.
The following articles discuss poems that offer a variety of moods and subjects:
Frost's speaker in "The Oven Bird" explores the same mystery that presents itself in the little eight-line poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay."
In this poem, Dickinson personifies summer as a woman who struggles to overcome the coldness of late spring.
John Greenleaf Whittier's "The Barefoot Boy" is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill"; both dramatize memories of boyhood. Whittier offers a special nod to summer.
“Riley’s 'The Old Swimmin’-Hole': Nostalgia and Summer”
Nostalgia and summer seem to be soul mates. James Whitcomb Riley's "The Old Swimmin'-Hole" is a delightful example of a man recalling his boyhood in summer.
“Amy Lowell’s ‘Penumbra’: An After Death Presence”
Unlike the nostalgic looking back into the past of Whittier and Riley, Amy Lowell's poem, "Penumbra," looks into the future after the speaker's death.
