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Famous Ars Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown-- 

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

 *

A poem should be motionless in time 
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

L...Read more of this...
by MacLeish, Archibald



...I have always aspired to a more spacious form
that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
and would let us understand each other without exposing
the author or reader to sublime agonies.

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
a thing is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had s...Read more of this...
by Milosz, Czeslaw
......Preamble

A rough draft 
for an ars poetica

. . . . . . . 

Let's get our dreams unstuck

The grain of rye
free from the prattle of grass
et loin de arbres orateurs

I 

plant

it

It will sprout


But forget about 
the rustic festivities

For the explosive word 
falls harmlessly
eternal through
the compact generations 

and except for you

 nothing 
 denotates

its sweet-scented dynamite...Read more of this...
by Cocteau, Jean
...And for none other cause? say ye no?
Experience wot well it is not so.
So that the clerkes* be not with me wroth, *scholars
I say this, that they were made for both,
That is to say, *for office, and for ease* *for duty and
Of engendrure, there we God not displease. for pleasure*
Why should men elles in their bookes set,
That man shall yield unto his wife her debt?
Now wherewith should he make his payement,
If he us'd not his silly instrument?
Then were they made upon a creatu...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry