本书力求将学术性、知识性和观赏性融为一体，在点评诗作语言、内容、技巧的同时，强调人文、社会、哲学、宗教等学科知识的接受，不仅是一个简捷便利的读本，同时也是美国诗歌研究者有价值的参考资料。
本书面向英语本科三、四年级的学生，也适用于同等英语水平的广大读者，既可用作教材、教辅，也是闲暇阅读的好教材。通过该书的学习或阅读，读者可以“尝一脔而知全味”，也可以此书为“敲门砖”，登堂入室，在英语诗歌的**里寻宝。
这是一个在有限的篇幅内力求全面的选本。起自安妮·布雷特里特，止于西尔维亚·普拉斯，共选诗人23位，诗作54首，基本囊括美国诗坛上的主要诗人和他(她)们的代表诗作。
本书每章均含这些部分：开篇设有详实的英文版诗人简介，以便读者对诗人的生活背景、创作风格等有一具大概的印象，同时又能激发其阅读诗歌的兴趣。本书以所选诗歌，以短篇为主，尽可能反映出诗人创作的不同风格。诗歌中的生僻词语、短语、难句，重要的人名、地名等专有名词，相关的文化、背景知识等采用中英文双语注释，即便于阅读理解，夯实基础英语知识，又节省读者时间。

Anne Bradstreet
Some Verses on the Burning of Our House
To My Dear and Loving Husband
The Flesh and the Spirit
Philip Frenean
The Wild Honey Suckle
The Indian Burying Ground
William Cullen Bryant
The Yellow Violet
To a Waterfowl
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm of Life
Excelsior
My Lost Youth
Edgar Allan Poe
Israfel
The Raven
Annabel Lee
Walt Whitman
O Captain!My Captain!
Come up from the Field Father
Spirit That Form’d This Scene
Emily Dickinson
Success
I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed
I’m Nobody!Who Are You?
Tell All the Truth But Tell It Slant
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Richard Cory
Miniver Cheevy
Mr．Flood’s Party
Amy Lowell
Patterns
Robert Frost
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
Mending Wall
The Road Not Taken
Carl Sandburg
Chicago
The Harbor
Wallace Stevens
The Anecdotes of the Jar
The Idea of Order at Key West
The Emperor of Ice--Cream
William Carlos Williams
The Red Wheelbarrow
Spring and A1l
Ezra Pound
A Pact
In a Station of the Metro
E．E．Cummings
In Just
I(a
0 sweet spontaneous
Archibald MacLeish
Ars Poetica
Allen Tate
Ode to the Confederate Dead
Langston Hughes
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Ballad of the Landlord
Mother to Son
Robert Lowell
For the Union Dead
Mr．Edwards and the Spider
Allen Ginsberg
Howl
James Wright
Saint Judas
A Blessing
In Terror of Hospital Bills
Alllle Sexton
You，Doctor Martin
Sylvia’s Death
Sylvia Plath
Lady Lazarus
Daddy