Poems About Friendship

Anytime is a great season to read poetry, but summer’s slower pace seems to lend itself well to the more mindful contemplation of poetic works. Many of the great poets have found inspiration in friendship. We have collected a few of our favorite friendship-related poems to inspire your musings as you enjoy the season. What are some of your favorites?

• 1383 by Emily Dickinson–Considered one of America’s greatest poets, Dickinson’s poem about enduring friendship is one of several hundred that she wrote even though only a few of her poems were published during her lifetime.
• Sonnet 104 by William Shakespeare–One of the 154 sonnets in Shakespeare’s Fair Youth sequence written to an unnamed young man, this poem expresses the strength of friendship through time. The words still feel relevant and meaningful today even though they were written hundreds of years ago.
• Summer Friends by Mary Lamb–Written by a woman born in England in the latter 1700s, this poem compares the actions of two types of birds, the swallow and the sparrow, to her own human companions as the seasons change.
• A Time to Talk by Robert Frost–Another of America’s most renowned poets, Frost describes his willingness to drop his task at hand to have a meaningful conversation with a friend.
• Alone by Maya Angelou–As the most contemporary poet on this list, Maya Angelou is known for her memoirs, essays and civil rights activism. In this poem, she talks about how no matter who you are, everyone needs companionship to get through this life: “Nobody, but nobody, can make it out here alone.”