Bonjour maman! I hope you are doing well. I am an avid reader and lover of poetry and I have wanted to read French poetry for a long, long time. Could you please suggest some poems/collections (B1 - B2) for me?
It would be hard to make a universal list for this because B1/B2 can look many different ways, the best advice I have is to check out famous authors and see at first glance if their stuff looks too hard for you or not. Here are the basics and an example:
B1/B2 with a good dictionary:
Correspondance by Charles Baudelaire
Dans les bois by Paul Verlaine
La demoiselle by Théophile Gautier
Les malheureux by Louise Ackermann ♀
Crépuscule by Guillaume Apollinaire
Les yeux d'Elsa by Louis Aragon (which I would claim to be the most beautiful love poem in the world)
L'hirondelle by Sophie d'Arbouville ♀
Chanson à boire by Nicolas Boileau
La nuit de printemps by Théodore de Banville
L'ennui de Léonore by Victoire Babois ♀
Les feuilles mortes by Jacques Prévert
Regrets d'amour by Pierre Corneille
Des vivants et des morts - Andrée Chedid ♀
Le désir by Anatole France
À Aurore by George Sand ♀
Par un mauvais temps by Alfred de Musset
Melancholia by Victor Hugo
Le bonheur est mélancolique by Cécile Sauvage ♀
C1/C2 but give it a try anyway:
Première soirée by Arthur Rimbaud
Luth compagnon de ma calamité by Louise Labé ♀
La sagesse by Alphonse de Lamartine
Prière de Socrate by Gérard de Nerval
Le temps de vivre by Anna de Noailles ♀
Le songe by Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Ce que dit l'homme de peine by Paul Éluard
Élégie du printemps by Pierre de Ronsard
La grande douleur que je porte by Christine de Pisan ♀
Poème à Uranie - Voltaire
La prison by Alfred de Vigny
L'amour et la folie by Jean de la Fontaine
Ô qu'une sagesse profonde by François de Malherbe
L'âme errante by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore ♀
Les fleurs by Stéphane Mallarmé
Le lundi à Vêpres by Jean Racine
C'était novembre by Vénus Khoury-Ghata (1937-) ♀
Escargots by Francis Ponge (XX, surrealism)
Nous ne sommes fâchés by Joachim Du Bellay (XVI)
Ballade des dames du temps jadis by François Villon (XV)
Lai du Frêne by Marie de France ♀ (XII)
Je brûle avec mon coeur by Théodore Aggripa d'Aubigné (XVI)
Entire anthology about female poetry