1. “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye

2. “Quilts” by Nikki Giovanni

3. “Revenge” by Taha Muhammad Ali (video)

4. “Pass On” by Michael Lee (video)

5. “Complainers” by Rudy Fransisco (video)

6. “Swift Things are Beautiful” by Elizabeth Coatsworth

Published in the anthology How To Eat a Poem: A Smorgasbord of Tasty and Delicious Poems for Young Readers, 2006.

7. “Camaro” by Phil Kaye (video)

8. “Absolute” by Jacqueline Woodson

9. “Dawn, Revisited” by Rita Dove

10. “The Arm” by Stephen Dunn

Published in the collection The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems, by Stephen Dunn, 2022. 

11. “At Blackwater Pond” by Mary Oliver

12. “Snow Day” by Billy Collins

13. “Poem Written In The Parking Lot of a Tattoo Shop While Waiting For An Appointment” by Ariel Fransisco

14. “Turkey Vultures” by Michael Collier

Published in the collection Dark Wild Realm by Michael Collier, 2006.

15. “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

16. “Remember” by Joy Harjo

17. “Alley Violinist” by Robert Lax

Published in the collection Love Had a Compass, 1996; included with permission in the print edition of Poetry Pauses.

18. “In Two Seconds” by Mark Doty

19. “Evening on the Lawn” by Gary Soto

20. “The Human Family” by Maya Angelou