Famous Area Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A was an Area Arch

by Edward Lear
A  was an Area ArchWhere washerwomen sat; They made a lot of lovely starchTo starch Papa's Cravat. ...Read more of this...

A Historical Breakfast

by Russell Edson
 A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face, 
tilting it to his mouth. It's historical, he thinks. 
He scratches his head: another historical event. 
He really ought to rest, he's making an awful lot of 
history this morning.
 Oh my, now he's buttering toast, another piece of 
history is being made.
 He wonders why it should...Read more of this...

Thoughts

by Walt Whitman
 1
OF these years I sing, 
How they pass and have pass’d, through convuls’d pains as through parturitions; 
How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the promise, the sure fulfillment, the
 Absolute
 Success, despite of people—Illustrates evil as well as good; 
How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths, obedience,
 compulsion, and
 to infidelity; 
How few see the...Read more of this...

Bats Ultrasound

by Les Murray
 Sleeping-bagged in a duplex wing
with fleas, in rock-cleft or building
radar bats are darkness in miniature,
their whole face one tufty crinkled ear 
with weak eyes, fine teeth bared to sing. 

Few are vampires. None flit through the mirror. 
Where they flutter at evening's a ***** 
tonal hunting zone above highest C. 
Insect prey at the peak of our hearing 
drone...Read more of this...

Ladies And Gentlemen In Outer Space

by Ron Padgett
 Here is my philosophy:
Everything changes (the word "everything"
has just changed as the
word "change" has: it now
means "no change") so
quickly that it literally surpasses my belief,
charges right past it
like some of the giant
ideas in this area.
I had no beginning and I shall have
no end: the beam of light
stretches out before and behind
and I cook the vegetables
for a few minutes only,
the...Read more of this...

This Dust and its Feature --

by Emily Dickinson
 This Dust, and its Feature --
Accredited -- Today --
Will in a second Future --
Cease to identify --

This Mind, and its measure --
A too minute Area
For its enlarged inspection's
Comparison -- appear --

This World, and its species
A too concluded show
For its absorbed Attention's
Remotest scrutiny --...Read more of this...

The Self and the Mulberry

by Marvin Bell
 I wanted to see the self, so I looked at the mulberry.
It had no trouble accepting its limits,
yet defining and redefining a small area
so that any shape was possible, any movement.
It stayed put, but was part of all the air.
I wanted to learn to be there and not there
like the continually changing, slightly moving
mulberry, wild cherry and particularly the...Read more of this...

Our Son

by Barry Tebb
 Quarter to three: I wake again at the hour of his birth

Thirty years ago and now he paces corridors of dark

In nightmares of self-condemnation where random thoughts

Besiege his fevered imagination – England’s 

Imminent destruction, his own, the world’s…

Sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, unavailing depot injections,

Failed abscondings, failed everything: Eton and Balliol

Hold no sway on ward one, nor even...Read more of this...

118. A Bard's Epitaph

by Robert Burns
 IS there a whim-inspirèd fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
 Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
 And drap a tear.


Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
 O, pass not by!
But, with a frater-feeling strong,
 Here, heave a...Read more of this...

Song of the Redwood-Tree

by Walt Whitman
 1
A CALIFORNIA song! 
A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air; 
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing; 
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, 
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.

Farewell, my brethren, 
Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters; 
My time has ended, my term...Read more of this...

Morning at the Window

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the...Read more of this...

Mungojerrie And Rumpelteazer

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple 
 of cats.
As knockabout clown, quick-change comedians, tight-rope 
 walkers and acrobats
They had extensive reputation. They made their home in 
 Victoria Grove--
That was merely their centre of operation, for they were 
 incurably given to rove.
They were very well know in Cornwall Gardens, in Launceston 
 Place and in Kensington...Read more of this...

American Feuillage

by Walt Whitman
 AMERICA always! 
Always our own feuillage! 
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the
 cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas! 
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New
 Mexico!
 Always soft-breath’d Cuba! 
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes
 drain’d
 by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the...Read more of this...

Two Lengths has every Day --

by Emily Dickinson
 Two Lengths has every Day --
Its absolute extent
And Area superior
By Hope or Horror lent --

Eternity will be
Velocity or Pause
At Fundamental Signals
From Fundamental Laws.

To die is not to go --
On Doom's consummate Chart
No Territory new is staked --
Remain thou as thou art....Read more of this...

The Heart has narrow Banks

by Emily Dickinson
 The Heart has narrow Banks
It measures like the Sea
In mighty -- unremitting Bass
And Blue Monotony

Till Hurricane bisect
And as itself discerns
Its insufficient Area
The Heart convulsive learns

That Calm is but a Wall
Of unattempted Gauze
An instant's Push demolishes
A Questioning -- dissolves....Read more of this...

Nightmare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening

by Amy Lowell
 After a Print by George Cruikshank

It was a gusty night,
With the wind booming, and swooping,
Looping round corners,
Sliding over the cobble-stones,
Whipping and veering,
And careering over the roofs
Like a thousand clattering horses.
Mr. Spruggins had been dining in the city,
Mr. Spruggins was none too steady in his gait,
And the wind played ball with Mr. Spruggins
And laughed as it whistled past him.
It rolled...Read more of this...

Old Deuteronomy

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria's accession.
Old Deuteronomy's buried nine wives
And more--I am tempted to say, ninety-nine;
And his numerous progeny prospers and thrives
And the village is proud of him in his decline.
At the sight of that placid...Read more of this...

Winding River (2)

by Du Fu
 Court return every day pawn spring clothes Every day river area utmost drunk return Wine debt common go place have Life seventy always rare Through flowers vanessa butterfly deep deep see Drop water dragonfly leisurely fly Pass on speech time all be on move Brief time mutual recognise not mutual separate  I come back from...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Area poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace