Famous Anyway Poems by Famous Poets

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

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My Prisoner

by Robert William Service
 We was in a crump-'ole, 'im and me;
Fightin' wiv our bayonets was we;
Fightin' 'ard as 'ell we was,
Fightin' fierce as fire because
 It was 'im or me as must be downed;
'E was twice as big as me;
I was 'arf the weight of 'e;
 We was like a terryer and a 'ound.

'Struth! But 'e was sich a 'andsome bloke.
Me, I'm...Read more of this...

Gamblers All

by Charles Bukowski
 sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, 
I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside 
remembering all the times you've felt that way, and 
you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet, see that face 
in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my, but you comb your hair anyway, 
get into...Read more of this...

The Definition of Gardening

by James Tate
 Jim just loves to garden, yes he does. 
He likes nothing better than to put on 
his little overalls and his straw hat. 
He says, "Let's go get those tools, Jim." 
But then doubt begins to set in.
He says, "What is a garden, anyway?"
And thoughts about a "modernistic" garden
begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve. 
He stands...Read more of this...

The Sharks Parlor

by James Dickey
 Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on Cumberland Island 
Where the night tide came crawling under the stairs came up the first 
Two or three steps and the cottage stood on poles all night 
With the sea sprawled under it as we dreamed of the great fin circling 
Under the bedroom floor. In...Read more of this...

Up The Country

by Henry Lawson
 I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went -- 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of...Read more of this...

To J. S

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those 
That are cast in gentle mould.
And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dare to flow
In these words toward you, and invade
Even with a verse your holy woe.
'Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our...Read more of this...

Abuses And Awards

by Andrei Voznesensky
 A poet can't be in disfavour, 
 he needs no awards, no fame. 
 A star has no setting whatever, 
 no black nor a golden frame. 

 A star can't be killed with a stone, or 
 award, or that kind of stuff. 
 He'll bear the blow of a fawner 
 lamenting he's not big enough. 

...Read more of this...

The Grindstone

by Robert Frost
 Having a wheel and four legs of its own
Has never availed the cumbersome grindstone
To get it anywhere that I can see.
These hands have helped it go, and even race;
Not all the motion, though, they ever lent,
Not all tke miles it may have thought it went,
Have got it one step from the starting place.
It stands beside the same old apple...Read more of this...

The Transparent Man

by Anthony Hecht
 I'm mighty glad to see you, Mrs. Curtis,
And thank you very kindly for this visit--
Especially now when all the others here
Are having holiday visitors, and I feel
A little conspicuous and in the way.
It's mainly because of Thanksgiving. All these mothers
And wives and husbands gaze at me soulfully
And feel they should break up their box of chocolates
For a donation, or...Read more of this...

Off the Turnpike

by Amy Lowell
 Good ev'nin', Mis' Priest.
I jest stepped in to tell you Good-bye.
Yes, it's all over.
All my things is packed
An' every last one o' them boxes
Is on Bradley's team
Bein' hauled over to th' depot.
No, I ain't goin' back agin.
I'm stoppin' over to French's fer to-night,
And goin' down first train in th' mornin'.
Yes, it do seem kinder *****
Not to be goin' to...Read more of this...

A Birthday Present

by Sylvia Plath
 What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one,...Read more of this...

The Simple Line

by Laura Riding Jackson
 The secrets of the mind convene splendidly,
Though the mind is meek.
To be aware inwardly
of brain and beauty
Is dark too recognizable.
Thought looking out on thought
Makes one an eye:
Which it shall be, both decide.
One is with the mind alone,
The other is with other thoughts gone
To be seen from afar and not known.

When openly these inmost sights
Flash and speak fully,
Each head at...Read more of this...

The Quality Of Sprawl

by Les Murray
 Sprawl is the quality
of the man who cut down his Rolls-Royce
into a farm utility truck, and sprawl
is what the company lacked when it made repeated efforts
to buy the vehicle back and repair its image. 

Sprawl is doing your farm work by aeroplane, roughly,
or driving a hitchhiker that extra hundred miles home.
It is the rococo of being your own still...Read more of this...

Maple

by Robert Frost
 Her teacher's certainty it must be Mabel
Made Maple first take notice of her name.
She asked her father and he told her, "Maple—
Maple is right."
"But teacher told the school
There's no such name."
"Teachers don't know as much
As fathers about children, you tell teacher.
You tell her that it's M-A-P-L-E.
You ask her if she knows a maple tree.
Well, you were named after a...Read more of this...

Baby Lazarus

by Jackie Kay
 When I got home
I went out into the garden
Liking it when the frost bit
My old brown boots
And dug a hole the size of a baby
And buried the clothes
I'd bought anyway, just in case.

A week later I stood at my window
And saw the ground move
And swell the promise of a crop;
That's when she started crying.

I gave her a service then
Sang...Read more of this...

Giving Myself Up

by Mark Strand
 I give up my eyes which are glass eggs.
I give up my tongue.
I give up my mouth which is the contstant dream of my tongue.
I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice.
I give up my heart which is a burning apple.
I give up my lungs which are trees that have never seen the moon.
I give...Read more of this...

Old Tom

by Robert William Service
 The harridan who holds the inn
 At which I toss a pot,
Is old and uglier than sin,--
 I'm glad she knows me not.
Indeed, for me it's hard to think,
 Although my pow's like snow,
She was the lass so fresh and pink
 I courted long ago.

I wronged her, yet it's sadly true
 She wanted to be wronged:
They mostly do, although...Read more of this...

Message

by Harold Pinter
 Jill. Fred phoned. He can't make tonight.
He said he'd call again, as soon as poss.
I said (on your behalf) OK, no sweat.
He said to tell you he was fine,
Only the crap, he said, you know, it sticks,
The crap you have to fight.
You're sometimes nothing but a walking shithouse.

I was well acquainted with the pong myself,
I told him, and I...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 08: The Box With Silver Handles

by Conrad Aiken
 Well,—it was two days after my husband died—
Two days! And the earth still raw above him.
And I was sweeping the carpet in their hall.
In number four—the room with the red wall-paper—
Some chorus girls and men were singing that song
'They'll soon be lighting candles
Round a box with silver handles'—and hearing them sing it
I started to cry. Just then he came...Read more of this...

The Widening Spell Of Leaves

by Larry Levis
 --The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
 --for my brother

Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck
In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it.
But the city was hours away, beyond the hills
Shaped like the bodies of...Read more of this...

The Bear

by Galway Kinnell
1
In late winter 
I sometimes glimpse bits of steam
coming up from
some fault in the old snow 
and bend close and see it is lung-colored 
and put down my nose
and know
the chilly, enduring odor of bear. 

2
I take a wolf's rib and whittle
it sharp at both ends
and coil it up
and freeze it in blubber and place it out
on the fairway of...Read more of this...

In the Home Stretch

by Robert Frost
 SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And...Read more of this...

Death and Fame

by Allen Ginsberg
 When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in 
 Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother 
 96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor...Read more of this...

To Various Persons Talked To All At Once

by Kenneth Koch
 You have helped hold me together.
I'd like you to be still.
Stop talking or doing anything else for a minute.
No. Please. For three minutes, maybe five minutes.
Tell me which walk to take over the hill.
Is there a bridge there? Will I want company?
Tell me about the old people who built the bridge.
What is "the Japanese economy"?
Where did you hide the...Read more of this...

Montreal Maree

by Robert William Service
 You've heard of Belching Billy, likewise known as Windy Bill,
As punk a chunk of Yukon scum as ever robbed a sluice;
A satellite of Soapy Smith, a capper and a shill,
A slimy tribute-taker from the Ladies on the Loose.
But say, you never heard of how he aimed my gore to spill
(That big gorilla gunnin' for a little guy like me,)
A-howlin'...Read more of this...

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