Famous Anthology Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Mollymook

by Dale Harcombe
 All week, in this rented house, 
 sea spray and whispers of wind 
 weave through the eucalypts, 
 like a Sondheim melody.
 Through the pewter leaves
 the sea glimpsed from the wooden deck 
 is, at times, teal silk. 
 Other days it is grey.

 Longing stirs like waves 
 about to break on the shore
 and sometimes...Read more of this...

Oxford Anthology Of Twentieth Century Poetry'

by Barry Tebb
 To Simon Jenner



NO ARMITAGE (I’d like to see his rage)

NO DUHIG (one dig long overdue)

NO GREENLAW (M & S might sue)

NO IMLAH (ditto the TLS)

NO CRICHTON SMITH or JAMIE

(Tuma’s not haggis-crazy)

NO CONSTANTINE (who’ll miss his donnish whine?)

NO LONGLEY (the QMP tick didn’t do the trick)

NO PORTER (long overdue for slaughter)

NO MAXWELL, MORRISON or MOTION

(to miss that lot I’d swim...Read more of this...

Reading An Anthology Of Chinese Poems Of The Sung Dynasty I Pause To Admire The Length And Clarity Of Their Titles

by Billy Collins
 It seems these poets have nothing
up their ample sleeves
they turn over so many cards so early,
telling us before the first line
whether it is wet or dry,
night or day, the season the man is standing in,
even how much he has had to drink.

Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow.
Maybe it is snowing on a town with...Read more of this...

For Joseph

by Dale Harcombe
 Your ears will never hear sounds
  that to me are ordinary as air.
  From the hour that you were born
  the tight white shell of silence
  closed around you. 
  You edged away from friendship.
  Silence clung and stung like sand, 
  smothering words before they could
  break free.
  Sand...Read more of this...

Writing To Onegin

by Ruth Padel
 (After Pushkin) 
Look at the bare wood hand-waxed floor and long 
White dressing-gown, the good child's writing-desk 
And passionate cold feet
Summoning music of the night - tumbrils, gongs
And gamelans - with one neat pen, one candle
Puttering its life out hour by hour. 
Is "Tell Him I love him" never a good idea? You can't wish this
Unlived - this world...Read more of this...

The Singing School

by Barry Tebb
 The Poetry School, The Poetry Book Society, The Poetry Business:

So much poetry about you’d think I’d want to shout, “Hurray, hurray,

Every day’s Poetry Day!” but I don’t and you don’t either-

You know its flim-flam on the ether, grants for Jack-the-lads

Of both sexes, poets who’ve never been seen in a little magazine

Then gone on to win the Oopla Prize and...Read more of this...

The Gift

by David Lehman
 "He gave her class. She gave him sex." 
 -- Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers 

He gave her money. She gave him head. 
He gave her tips on "aggressive growth" mutual funds. She gave him a red rose 
 and a little statue of eros. 
He gave her Genesis 2 (21-23). She gave him Genesis 1...Read more of this...

Landscape At The End Of The Century

by Stephen Dunn
 The sky in the trees, the trees mixed up
with what's left of heaven, nearby a patch
of daffodils rooted down
where dirt and stones comprise a kind
of night, unmetaphysical, cool as a skeptic's
final sentence. What this scene needs
is a nude absentmindedly sunning herself
on a large rock, thinks the man fed up
with nature, or perhaps a lost tiger,
the maximum amount of wildness...Read more of this...

A Call To Arms

by Barry Tebb
 It was like chucking-out time

In a rough Victorian pub

Cherubic Dylan was first to go

Lachrymose but with a show

Of strength, yelling "Buggerall,

Buggerall, this is my boat-house

In Laugherne, these are my books,

My prizes, I ride every wave-crest,

My loves are legion. What’s this

You’re saying about fashion?

Others follow where I lead,

Schoolchildren copy my verse,

No anthology omits me

Put me down! Put me down!

George Barker...Read more of this...

On a Theme in the Greek Anthology

by Alan Seeger
 Thy petals yet are closely curled, 
Rose of the world, 
Around their scented, golden core; 
Nor yet has Summer purpled o'er 
Thy tender clusters that begin 
To swell within 
The dewy vine-leaves' early screen 
Of sheltering green. 


O hearts that are Love's helpless prey, 
While yet you may, 
Fly, ere the shaft is on the string! 
The fire that...Read more of this...

James Simmons R.i.p

by Barry Tebb
 You were the one I wanted most to know

So like yet unlike, like fire and snow,

The casual voice, the sharp invective,

The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant

Who never gave a ****, crossed the palms

Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt

For the fakers and the tricksters whose poetry

Deftly bent to fashion’s latest slant.



You wrote from the heart,...Read more of this...

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