Famous Adequate Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Adequate poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous adequate poems. These examples illustrate what a famous adequate poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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We thirst at first -- tis Natures Act --

by Emily Dickinson
 We thirst at first -- 'tis Nature's Act --
And later -- when we die --
A little Water supplicate --
Of fingers going by --

It intimates the finer want --
Whose adequate supply
Is that Great Water in the West --
Termed Immortality --...Read more of this...

Tortures

by Wislawa Szymborska
 Nothing has changed.
The body is susceptible to pain,
it must eat and breathe air and sleep,
it has thin skin and blood right underneath,
an adequate stock of teeth and nails,
its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.
In tortures all this is taken into account. 

Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it shuddered
before the founding of Rome and after,
in the twentieth century...Read more of this...

Some we see no more Tenements of Wonder

by Emily Dickinson
 Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder
Occupy to us though perhaps to them
Simpler are the Days than the Supposition
Leave us to presume

That oblique Belief which we call Conjecture
Grapples with a Theme stubborn as Sublime
Able as the Dust to equip its feature
Adequate as Drums
To enlist the Tomb....Read more of this...

Of Bronze -- and Blaze

by Emily Dickinson
 Of Bronze -- and Blaze --
The North -- Tonight --
So adequate -- it forms --
So preconcerted with itself --
So distant -- to alarms --
And Unconcern so sovereign
To Universe, or me --
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty --
Till I take vaster attitudes --
And strut upon my stem --
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,
For Arrogance of them --

My Splendors, are Menagerie --
But...Read more of this...

With sweetness unabated

by Emily Dickinson
 With sweetness unabated
Informed the hour had come
With no remiss of triumph
The autumn started home

Her home to be with Nature
As competition done
By influential kinsmen
Invited to return --

In supplements of Purple
An adequate repast
In heavenly reviewing
Her residue be past --...Read more of this...

The Props assist the House

by Emily Dickinson
 The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Auger and the Carpenter --
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life --
A past of Plank and Nail
And slowness -- then the Scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul....Read more of this...

This Consciousness that is aware

by Emily Dickinson
 This Consciousness that is aware
Of Neighbors and the Sun
Will be the one aware of Death
And that itself alone

Is traversing the interval
Experience between
And most profound experiment
Appointed unto Men --

How adequate unto itself
Its properties shall be
Itself unto itself and none
Shall make discovery.

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be --
Attended by a single Hound
Its own identity....Read more of this...

The Lost Dancer

by Jean Toomer
 Spatial depths of being survive
The birth to death recurrences
Of feet dancing on earth of sand;
Vibrations of the dance survive
The sand; the sand, elect, survives
The dancer. He can find no source
Of magic adequate to bind
The sand upon his feet, his feet
Upon his dance, his dance upon
The diamond body of his being....Read more of this...

Im ceded -- Ive stopped being Theirs --

by Emily Dickinson
 I'm ceded -- I've stopped being Theirs --
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I've finished threading -- too --

Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace --
Unto supremest name --
Called to my Full -- The Crescent...Read more of this...

More Life -- went out -- when He went

by Emily Dickinson
 More Life -- went out -- when He went
Than Ordinary Breath --
Lit with a finer Phosphor --
Requiring in the Quench --

A Power of Renowned Cold,
The Climate of the Grave
A Temperature just adequate
So Anthracite, to live --

For some -- an Ampler Zero --
A Frost more needle keen
Is necessary, to reduce
The Ethiop within.

Others -- extinguish easier --
A Gnat's minutest Fan
Sufficient to...Read more of this...

Ode To Pornography

by David Lehman
 If you could write down the words
moving through a man's mind as
he masturbates you'd have a quick 
bonus bonk read, I used to think. 
But words were never adequate 
or the point in the bar where the girl
is a boy the boy is a girl the two girls
exchange underpants the one with
the ***** is the boy each needs to...Read more of this...

Heaven is so far of the Mind

by Emily Dickinson
 Heaven is so far of the Mind
That were the Mind dissolved --
The Site -- of it -- by Architect
Could not again be proved --

'Tis vast -- as our Capacity --
As fair -- as our idea --
To Him of adequate desire
No further 'tis, than Here --...Read more of this...

Remorse -- is Memory -- awake --

by Emily Dickinson
 Remorse -- is Memory -- awake --
Her Parties all astir --
A Presence of Departed Acts --
At window -- and at Door --

Its Past -- set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match --
Perusal -- to facilitate --
And help Belief to stretch --

Remorse is cureless -- the Disease
Not even God -- can heal --
For 'tis His institution -- and
The...Read more of this...

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