Poetry Foundation

Poem texts and poem search results

Poetry Foundation provides poems, poets, and poetry resources; poem searches follow its search order, while full text is limited to publicly available poems.

Get poem

Get a poem’s complete public text, poet, source, publication year when shown, and subject tags by title. Optionally specify a poet to distinguish identical titles. Only poems with full text on a public Poetry Foundation page are returned; source and year may be unavailable.

Your information

PoetOptional

The poet’s name to distinguish poems with the same title, for example Robert Frost.

Title

The title of the poem, for example The Road Not Taken.

1 credit per completed run

The same inputs also work from your code or an AI assistant. See For developers.

Example results

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

View poem on Poetry Foundation

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Themes

Activities > Travels & Journeys

About the Poetry Foundation tool

Poetry Foundation (PF) Get poem returns public poem text and details; it needs a title and optionally a poet.

Search poems returns matching poems with titles, poets, available opening lines, and themes or occasions; it needs a topic, occasion, or poet name.

Built from poetryfoundation.org. Last checked Oct 7, 2026.

Actions

Get poem

1 credit

What you provide

Field	Type	Required	Description
Poet`poet`	Text	Optional	The poet’s name to distinguish poems with the same title, for example Robert Frost.Example: Robert Frost
Title`title`	Text	Required	The title of the poem, for example The Road Not Taken.Example: The Road Not Taken

What you get

Field	Type	Description
Poet`poet`	Text	Example: Robert Frost
Tags`tags`	List	Occasions, poetic terms, emotions, and other category labels listed for the poem.
Text`text`	Text	Full poem text, with its line and stanza breaks.
Title`title`	Text	Example: The Road Not Taken
Source`source`	Text	Printed source citation, if shown on the poem page.Example: Poetry (June 2024)
Themes`themes`	List	Subject categories listed for the poem.
Poem Link`poem_link`	Text	Example: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken
Poet Page Link`poet_page_link`	Text	Example: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-frost
Publication Year`publication_year`	Number	Year appearing in the printed source, if shown.Example: 2024

Example result

For Poet: Robert Frost, Title: The Road Not Taken

JSON

{
  "poet": "Robert Frost",
  "tags": [
    "Graduation",
    "Stanza Forms > Rhymed Stanza"
  ],
  "text": "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,\nAnd sorry I could not travel both\nAnd be one traveler, long I stood\nAnd looked down one as far as I could\nTo where it bent in the undergrowth;\n\nThen took the other…",
  "title": "The Road Not Taken",
  "source": null,
  "themes": [
    "Activities > Travels & Journeys"
  ],
  "poem_link": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken",
  "poet_page_link": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-frost",
  "publication_year": null
}

Search poems

1 credit

Find poems matching a topic or occasion, or poems by a named poet, in Poetry Foundation search order. Older magazine poems without public text have no first two lines; untagged poems have no themes or occasions.

What you provide

Field	Type	Required	Description
Query`query`	Text	Required	Topic, occasion, or poet name, for example grief, wedding, or Mary Oliver.Example: Wedding
Max Results`max_results`	Number	Optional	Maximum number of poems to return, for example 20 (up to 50).Example: 35

What you get

Field	Type	Description
Poems`poems`	List
Poet`poems[].poet`	Text	Example: Ross Gay
Title`poems[].title`	Text	Example: Wedding Poem
Poem Link`poems[].poem_link`	Text	Example: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58761/wedding-poem
First Two Lines`poems[].first_two_lines`	Text	The first two available lines, separated by a newline; null if the poem text is not published.Example: Friends I am here to modestly report seeing in an orchard
Themes or Occasions`poems[].themes_or_occasions`	List

Example result

For Query: Wedding, Max Results: 35

JSON

{
  "poems": [
    {
      "poet": "Ross Gay",
      "title": "Wedding Poem",
      "poem_link": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58761/wedding-poem",
      "first_two_lines": "Friends I am here to modestly report\nseeing in an orchard",
      "themes_or_occasions": [
        "Love",
        "Nature",
        "Animals"
      ]
    },
    {
      "poet": "Denise Levertov",
      "title": "Wedding-Ring",
      "poem_link": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53080/wedding-ring",
      "first_two_lines": "My wedding-ring lies in a basket\nas if at the bottom of a well.",
      "themes_or_occasions": [
        "Social Commentaries",
        "Relationships",
        "Breakups & Separation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "poet": "Sidney Lanier",
      "title": "Wedding Hymn",
      "poem_link": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50297/wedding-hymn",
      "first_two_lines": "Thou God, whose high, eternal Love\nIs the only blue sky of our life,",
      "themes_or_occasions": [
        "Love",
        "Religion",
        "Living"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

For developers

Call it from your code with one request. Change the values in input to run it on new data. To get an API key, open Developers at the bottom of Studio, turn on Developer mode and go to API keys.

cURL

curl 'https://api.fous.com/v1/query' \
  --fail-with-body --silent --show-error --max-time 180 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{
  "api": "@poetry-foundation",
  "visibility": "public",
  "operation": "get_poem",
  "version": 1,
  "input": {
    "poet": "Robert Frost",
    "title": "The Road Not Taken"
  },
  "response": {
    "format": "json"
  }
}'

What you can do with it

Find poems about a topic or occasion
Browse poems by a named poet
Retrieve a poem’s full public text
Review poem themes and occasions
Check a poem’s source and publication year when shown

Questions about Poetry Foundation

Can I run it with my own inputs?

Yes. Change the inputs in Studio and press Run, or send new inputs from your code, or ask a connected AI assistant.

Can I call this Poetry Foundation tool as an API?

Yes. Send a POST request to /v1/query with your Fous API key and the inputs, and get JSON back.

How much does it cost?

Each completed run costs 1 credit. Failed runs without a completed receipt are free; completed work can remain charged if delivery is interrupted. With pay as you go, a credit costs 1¢. Monthly plans cost less per credit.

Do I need a Poetry Foundation account?

No. You only need a Fous account.

How current is the data?

Fous gets the data from poetryfoundation.org when you run it. Some results are reused for up to 24 hours, and results that use your account or key are never reused. It was last verified on Oct 7, 2026.