Famous Neighborhood Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Neighborhood poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous neighborhood poems. These examples illustrate what a famous neighborhood poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Lehman, David
...can't believe it.
Thy had always hated Jews.
As children they had roamed in gangs on winter nights in the old
neighborhood, looking for Jews.
They were not Jewish, they were Irish.
They brandished broken bottles, tough guys with blood on their
lips, looking for Jews.
They intercepted Jewish boys walking alone and beat them up.
Sometimes they were content to chase a Jew and he could elude
them by running away. They were happy just to see him run...Read more of this...
by
Rich, Susan
...is grief.
It’s enough now, they say.
Each day more baked goods to friends,
and friends of friends, even
the neighborhood cops. He can’t stop,
holds on to the rhythmic opening
and closing of the oven,
the timer’s expectant ring.
I was just baking, he says if
someone comes by. Again and again,
evenings winter into spring,
he creates the most fragile
of confections: madelines
and pinwheels, pomegranate crisps
and blue florentines;
each crumb to...Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...br>
What justice does authority display when it kills the killer? When it imprisons the robber? When it descends on a neighborhood country and slays its people? What does justice think of the authority under which a killer punishes the one who kills, and a thief sentences the one who steals?
You are my brother, and I love you; and Love is justice with its full intensity and dignity. If justice did not support my love for you, regardless of your tribe and community, I ...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...gs between,
Were soften'd Trumpets heard.
The Noon do's following Treats provide,
In the Pavilion's Shade;
The Neighborhood, and all beside,
That will attend the amorous Pride,
Are welcom'd with the Maid.
Poor Alcidor! thy Hopes are cross'd,
Go perish on the Ground;
Thy Sighs by stronger Notes are toss'd,
Drove back, or in the Passage lost;
Rich Wines thy Tears have drown'd.
In Women's Hearts, the softest Things
Which Nature cou'd devise,
Are yet ...Read more of this...
by
Duhamel, Denise
...fun of everyone, didn't make fun
of her. She walked over the bridge
with the one other white girl who lived
in her neighborhood. Smoke curled
like Slinkies from the factory stacks
above them.
I liked to imagine that Crater Face
went straight home, like I did, to watch Shirley Temple
on channel 56. I liked to imagine that she slipped
into the screen, bumping Shirley with her hip
so that child actress slid out of frame, into the tubes
and wires that made the T...Read more of this...
by
Elytis, Odysseus
...LATE MIDNIGHT my room is moving in the
neighborhood shining like an emerald.
Someone searches it, but truth eludes him
constantly. How to imagine that it is
placed lower
Much lower
That death too, has its own Red sea." ...Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...
"And will ye pardon then (replied the youth)
Your Waldegrave's feign'd name, and false attire?
I durst not in the neighborhood, in truth,
The very fortunes of your house inquire;
Lest one that knew me might some tidings dire
Impart, and I my weakness all betray,
For had I lost my Gertrude and my sire
I meant but o'er your tombs to weep a day,
Unknown I meant to weep, unknown to pass away.
But here ye life, ye bloom,--in each dear face,
The changing hand of time I m...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...d in Paper-sheets, from Town to Town,
Words smooth was they, and softer than his Down.
O'er such he reign'd, whom Neighborhood had join'd,
And hopt, from Bough to Bough, supported by the Wind.
When for a Wife the youthful Patriarch sent,
The Camels, Jewels, and the Steward went,
A wealthy Equipage, tho' grave and slow;
But not a Line, that might the Lover shew.
The Rings and Bracelets woo'd her Hands and Arms;
But had she known of melting Words, the Charm...Read more of this...
by
Hacker, Marilyn
...through one cheek's nap, a syllable, a tear,
was never blame, whatever I wished it were.
You were the weather in my neighborhood.
You were the epic in the episode.
You were the year poised on the equinox....Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...fish-slice, your buttons unloosing,
Prepare for the fabulous browsing and sluicing,
And quote, til you're known as the neighborhood nuisance,
The gems that illumine the browsance and sluicance.
Oh, fondle each gem, and after you quote it,
Kindly inform me just who wrote it.
Which came first, the egg or the rooster?
P.G.Wodehouse or Bertram Wooster?
I know hawk from handsaw, and Finn from Fiji,
But I can't disentangle Bertram from PG.
I inquire in the s...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...y,
The patient angel waiting for a place
In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe,
Nor God's infliction, nor death's neighborhood,
Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,
Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,—
Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, teach me so
To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...re got,
While some scrambled out themselves, the best way they could--
And the most of them were the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
Part of them were the wives and daughters of the dockyard hands,
And as they gazed upon them they in amazement stands;
And several bodies were hauled up quite dead.
Which filled the onlookers' hearts with pity and dread.
One of the first rescued was a little baby,
Which was conveyed away to the mortuary;
And several were taken t...Read more of this...
by
Edson, Russell
...There was once a man who disguised himself as a
housefly and went about the neighborhood depositing
flyspecks.
Well, he has to do something hasn't he? said someone to
someone else.
Of course, said someone else back to someone.
Then what's all the fuss? said someone to someone else.
Who's fussing? I'm just saying that if he doesn't get off the
wall of that building the police will have to shoot him off.
Oh...Read more of this...
by
Reeser, Jennifer
...ver anguish,
nor regret,
dismissive, free
to roam the street,
no matter how
the visions meet.
Remembrance is
a neighborhood
where convicts live
with great and good,
its roads of red,
uneven brick,
whose surfaces –
both rough and slick –
spread out into
a patchwork plan.
Sometimes at night
I hear a man
vault past the fence,
and cross the yard,
my door chain down,
and me off-guard.
He curses, threatens,
pounds the door.
I’m wedged between
the ...Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...cial wildernessAnd a sky like lead. A plain without a feature, bare and brown,No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,Yet, congregated on its blankness, stoodAn unintelligible multitude,A million eyes, a million boots in line,Without expression, waiting for a sign. Out of the air a voice without a faceProved by statistics that some cause was justIn tones as dry and level as the place:No ...Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...fain
Never to lave its love in them again.
Later, a sweet Voice `Love thy neighbor' said;
Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread
Beyond all confines of old ethnic dread.
Vainly the Jew might wag his covenant head:
`"All men are neighbors,"' so the sweet Voice said.
So, when man's arms had circled all man's race,
The liberal compass of his warm embrace
Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space;
With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace,
Drew...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...orld turned like a toy globe,
those murderers of the nightgown
would understand.
The amnesiac
who tunes into a new neighborhood,
having misplaced the past,
having thrown out someone else's
credit cards and monogrammed watch,
would understand.
The drunken poet
(a genius by daylight)
who places long-distance calls
at three A.M. and then lets you sit
holding the phone while he vomits
(he calls it "The Night of the Long Knives")
getting his kicks out of the deat...Read more of this...
by
Hayden, Robert
...The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.
Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.
She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:
My head gripped in bony vise
of kne...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...When I was a child
there was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch.
All day she peered from her second story
window
from behind the wrinkled curtains
and sometimes she would open the window
and yell: Get out of my life!
She had hair like kelp
and a voice like a boulder.
I think of her sometimes now
and wonder if I am becoming her.
My shoes turn up like a jester's.
Clump...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Today or this noon
She dwelt so close
I almost touched her --
Tonight she lies
Past neighborhood
And bough and steeple,
Now past surmise....Read more of this...
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