Since the dawn of language, poets have celebrated the majestic immensity of Earth's oceans, the powerful waters that create and destroy, the intense drama and soothing gentleness of waves, the dangerous voyages to distant shores, and the indelible sensory memories set on shifting sandy beaches drenched in sunshine.

This collection joins the verse of renowned poets with the voices of select modern writers, all inspired by the ceaseless splendor of the sea.

Includes a reading guide for teachers and book groups, and biographies of the poets inside.

Classic

Dante Alighieri

Joseph Auslander

Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

George Shepard Burleigh

Lord Byron

Bliss Carman

Stephen Crane

H. D.

Emily Dickinson

A. E.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Arthur Guiterman

Thomas Hardy

Sadakichi Hartmann

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Rudyard Kipling

Thomas S. Jones, Jr.

D. H. Lawrence

Eugene Lee-Hamilton

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

John Masefield

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Marianne Moore

Thomas Moore

John Boyle O'Reilly

Eva L. Ogden

Ezra Pound

Rainer Maria Rilke

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Alan Seeger

William Shakespeare

John Sterling

Wallace Stevens

Robert Louis Stevenson

Sara Teasdale

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Walt Whitman

Oscar Wilde

William Wordsworth

William Butler Yeats

Current

Joel Allegretti

Carol Alena Aronoff

Janet Barry

Sidney Bending

Ben Bever

Jenny Blackford

Eloise Bruce

R. T. Castleberry

Bill Cushing

Lauren Davis

Elizabeth Ruth Deyro

Agnieszka Filipek

Marj Hahne

David Holper

Gene Hult

Clarissa Jakobsons

Marjorie Maddox

Paul Magrs

Lucinda Marshall

Stephen McGuinness

Leah Mueller

Ciarán Parkes

Winston Plowes

Suzanne S. Rancourt

Meg Smith

Alec Solomita

Alison Stone

Larry D. Thacker

Lynne Viti