Homer At The Start Poem by Elena Plotkin

If you recall it was Homer at the start,
then Aeschylus, bless his tragic heart,
gave Sophocles and Euripides the tragic bug,
while Aristophanes felt a more comedic tug.
And although Menander kept comedy fresh and new,
It was Philemon's comedy people respected and knew.
Virgil, Horace, and Ovid always commanded a lot of respect.
But when it came to Catullus, no one knew what to expect.
And while Gellius inspired an Aesop fable with Attic Nights.
It was only Aesop himself who could reach greater heights.
And while Dante was a true advocate for writing in the vernacular,
It was Chaucer's bawdy humor people found thrilling and spectacular.
And when the Bard Shakespeare emerged with sonnets, prose, and plays,
His popularity and success went unmatched even these modern of days.
However, we must admit without Milton no paradise will ever be complete.
And without the flamboyant Molière no farce could ever be as sweet.
Blake, Burns, Shelley, Wordsworth, Longfellow, Byron, Keats and Thoreau,
Whitman, Emerson, Dickenson, Poe, Thomas, Frost, and Yeats, we all love and know.
But it was Swift, Hugo, Dickens, Shelley, Austen, Twain, Stevenson, Welles, and Verne,
That made our imagination soar and the pages so eagerly and swiftly turn.

(c) 2016 Copyright Elena Plotkin