Bob Dylan is a poet who knows it, but for those of you who were unaware, collections of Dylan's poetry would appear on the back of his album covers. Jack o' Diamonds struck me as particularly musical, not only in content and imagery, but through the use of meter and repetition as well. The "jack o' diamonds is a hard t play" chorus presents itself throughout the poem and the use of text in parenthesis almost provides the reader with a personal set of backup singers.

The poem in its entirety can be found here, midway down the page:
http://www.bobdylanisis.com/Another_side_of_bob_dylan.htm

Ben Caruthers & the Deep adapted and set the poem to music, as seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in75LQAPoXg

This poem is a great example of call and response, a technique in music in which a two musicians play a distinct succession of phrases that build on the phrase of the previous musician. Here, the call is made by the husband and his wife responds in rhythm, following the rhyme scheme which he just laid out. The husband's use of repetition at the end of each call as in "Down in the valley drumming, drumming?" helps to solidify the rhythm and further adds to the sing-song quality of the poem. Enjoy!
http://www.themediadrome.com/content/poetry/auden_the_quarry.htm

As a musician and a poet, it is not surprising that Leonard Cohen's work becomes a blend of both. This poem is lyrically created, in the style and pattern of a song, but it has a very consistent rhyming pattern that almost makes it impossible not to "sing." The refrain that Cohen repeats every two stanzas reminds the reader of a catchy hook, sticking in the mind with its simplicity and poignancy.

http://blog.favorite10.com/2009/02/25/leonard-cohen-has-new-poem-in-the-...

I wish I could find a better link to it!

http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/D/DickinsonEmi/214Itasteali.htm

This poem is meant to be read with a sense of gusto if not actually sang out loud. It is full of great rhymes and literary uses of sound. Lines like "Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats" and the following lines, have great uses of consonance and Dickinson's strange use of capitalization could be used to instruct a performer how to sing these lines.

This piece by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is not only centered around music but the poem itself also has a musical feel to it. I like how this poem is sort of left up to the reader and could be interpreted many different ways. Here it is...

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/elizabeth_barrett_browning/poems/47...

Seamus Heaney is one of my favorite poets. In Bogland, the stanzas have a slipping, lyrical slide, partly because of the way he separates sentences across stanzas. This poem just feels very lush to me, full of long, round vowels and vibrant images.

http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/heaney/bogland.php

This poem is one of Kerouac's many "jazz poems," which he performed while playing piano or bongos, while his friend David Amran freestyle scatted along. The Beat poets were known for these jazz poems (heavily influenced by the poets of the Harlem Renaissance, who essentially created the genre). The poems themselves imitate the syncopated, improvisational sound of jazz. This poem pays tribute to the great jazz musician Charlie Parker, while imitating the jazz style.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~bigron/sonic/tybsjake.html

A great article by David Amran about the rise of jazz poetry among the Beats: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=154

It is quite difficult to AVOID singing this poem, which I wouldn't doubt was Tennessee Williams' intent when he wrote it. The rhythm is very consistent throughout the piece, and the repetition of lines and rhyming words makes the poem very much like a sing along....

http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/tennessee_williams_heavenly_grass....

If this poem were turned into a song it would be a slow, haunting one. The repetition/rhyme of the last line of each stanza gives it the feel of a song with a refrain, but it lacks sing-songy quality. Still, each word has a pitch and each line follows a rhythm, noted on the page with punctuation the way a musician would note pauses and inflections. Check out the colons, the question marks, and the dashes. This poem was composed for performance, not just written. On a separate note, the poem itself references sound and song. Overall, it's another nifty piece of work.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15452

http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww124.html

I just love this poem by William Wordsworth, master supreme of the lyrical ballad. The poem is so lilting and pleasant to the ear that it is difficult to read it silently. This musical quality portrays the little girl's ultimate cheerfulness even in the face of the deaths of her siblings.

I absolutely love the flow that Robert Browning establishes in this poem. The 11-syllable lines contrast wonderfully with the abrupt 3-syllable ones, yet they remain connected by the rhyme. I find the overall rhythm of the poem to be very soothing and musical - almost like a lullaby.

Enjoy!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173019

Edgar Allen Poe's lengthy poem "Annabel Lee" can be instantly recognized as musical because of its distinct rhythm. The use of carefully crafted meter and repitition make this work very lyrical. In addition, the rhyme scheme makes it read very much like a song. It is one of my favorite poems because of this rhythmic quality. You can tell each word was chosen so carefully in order to capture this musical essence. Poe's ability to control the pace of the reader is also remarkable. It seems as though there is a background track to the song that speeds up when the intesity of the subject matter rises and slows down as the poem comes to an end. Like a song, it seems to even fade out in the very last line of the poem.

Hope you like it as much as I do!

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/annabel-lee/

William Blake always creates an intricate relationship between the text and the image of his poetry, but in "Nurse's Song" he also includes a connection to sound that adds complexity and meaning to the poem. The sing-song nature of the rhyme and meter, paired with the descriptions of the laughter from both the children and the hills, helps capture an experience, creating almost a virtual encounter with childish innocence.

http://4umi.com/blake/innocence/16.htm

The imagery and diction is vey evocative which gives the poem a musical qualtiy. I feel the language is dense but concise and has a lyrical quality which also heightens the musical qualties of "Evening Hawk" by Robert Penn Warren.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/robert_penn_warren/poems/3677

http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/twl.html

Though it is decidedly long and abstract, T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" happens to be one of my favorite poems.

At first I had chosen to only address one section, but to me the whole poem has such a unique approach to sounds I had to reference the entire piece. I love how Eliot uses snippets from a multitude of languages and other plays/literature to create a unique rhythm and at times, a song-like feel. I think even though you can't understand what it means literally, the song or auditory aspect significantly increases the strength of the poem's impression. On me at least!

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15612. I love this poem. I think the poem overall sounds more musical than the song the musician is singing in the poem

I know Shel Silverstein is a children's poet, but for some reason his poems never seem to get old (and they take on new meaning for me as I grow older). This poem really seemed musical to me, almost like a song- it even has a refrain at the end.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/shel_silverstein/poems/14836

"In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound is my suggestion.

http://www.palace.net/~llama/poetry/metro

This is probably more visual than musical but I love it's simplicity.

I do not know if I am allowed to repeat poets, however, Billy Collins is easily the most musical poet of the 21st century; enjoy!

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/another-reason-why-i-don-t-keep-a-gun-in-...