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 run

Example results

Poet: Robert Frost
Text: 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.
Title: The Road Not Taken
Source: Not provided
Poem Link: poetryfoundation.org
Poet Page Link: poetryfoundation.org
Publication Year: Not provided
Tags: Graduation
Stanza Forms > Rhymed Stanza
Themes: Activities > Travels & Journeys

Example data · Run in Studio for fresh results.

About Poetry Foundation

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 by Fous from poetryfoundation.org and checked automatically; it last passed a check on Sep 29, 2026. Fous is not affiliated with Poetry Foundation.

Actions

Get poem

1 credit per run

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 per run

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: Matthew Dickman
Title`poems[].title`	Text	Example: Grief
Poem Link`poems[].poem_link`	Text	Example: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/150394/grief-5d0c057c36f0c
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: When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla you must count yourself lucky.
Themes or Occasions`poems[].themes_or_occasions`	List

Example result

For Query: Grief

JSON

{
  "poems": [
    {
      "poet": "Matthew Dickman",
      "title": "Grief",
      "poem_link": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/150394/grief-5d0c057c36f0c",
      "first_two_lines": "When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla\nyou must count yourself lucky.",
      "themes_or_occasions": [
        "Living",
        "The Mind",
        "Death & Dying"
      ]
    },
    {
      "poet": "Barbara Crooker",
      "title": "Grief",
      "poem_link": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/88766/grief-56e86db5ba0be",
      "first_two_lines": "is a river you wade in until you get to the other side.\nBut I am here, stuck in the middle, water parting",
      "themes_or_occasions": [
        "Nature",
        "Living",
        "Bodies of Water"
      ]
    },
    {
      "poet": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning",
      "title": "Grief",
      "poem_link": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47646/grief-56d2283e927df",
      "first_two_lines": "I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;\nThat only men incredulous of despair,",
      "themes_or_occasions": [
        "Living",
        "Death & Dying",
        "Mourning"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

For developers

Run this workflow from your own code. In Studio, turn on Developer mode and create an API key.

cURL

# First set your key: export FOUS_API_KEY='YOUR_FOUS_API_KEY'
: "${FOUS_API_KEY:?Set FOUS_API_KEY before running this example}"

curl 'https://api.fous.com/v1/query' \
  --fail-with-body --silent --show-error --max-time 120 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FOUS_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

Is Fous affiliated with Poetry Foundation?

No. Fous is not affiliated with Poetry Foundation. This workflow reads the public poetryfoundation.org website and returns its data.

How much does it cost?

Each run costs 1 credit. 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; repeating the same request within a day may return the saved result. Fous checks this workflow automatically; it last passed a check on Sep 29, 2026.