Famous Attacking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Gunner Joe

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell you a seafaring story, 
Of a lad who won honour and fame 
Wi' Nelson at Battle 'Trafalgar, 
Joe Moggeridge, that were his name. 

He were one of the crew of the Victory, 
His job when a battle begun 
Was to take cannon balls out o' basket 
And shove 'em down front end o' gun. 

One day him...Read more of this...

Wants Poems And Has Never Rejected Anyone

by Barry Tebb
 Eamer o’ Keefe with your tinge of brogue

And Irish warmth, Daisy and Debjani 

With your karma and cool verse, I salute you.

( III )

"Ecoutez la voix du vent" – listen to the wind’s voice

As Milosz commands "All your griefs,

My sad ones, are in vain" but offering

In recompense soaring sonatas which remain unread

Untranslated, relegated to the reserve stock

Of the Institut...Read more of this...

At the Top of My voice

by Vladimir Mayakovsky
 My most respected
 comrades of posterity!
Rummaging among
 these days’ 
 petrified crap,
exploring the twilight of our times,
you,
 possibly,
 will inquire about me too.

And, possibly, your scholars
 will declare,
with their erudition overwhelming
 a swarm of problems;
once there lived
 a certain champion of boiled water,
and inveterate enemy of raw water.

Professor,
 take off your bicycle glasses!
I myself will expound
 those times
 and...Read more of this...

Three Songs For Mayday Morning

by Barry Tebb
 ( I )


for ‘JC’ of the TLS

Nightmare of metropolitan amalgam

Grand Hotel and myself as a guest there

Lost with my room rifled, my belongings scattered,

Purse, diary and vital list of numbers gone – 

Vague sad memories of mam n’dad

Leeds 1942 back-to-back with shared outside lav.

Hosannas of sweet May mornings

Whitsun glory of lilac blooming

Sixty years on I run and run

From death,...Read more of this...

When first to earth thy gentle spirit came

by Hafez
When first to earth thy gentle spirit came
From some soft climate of Elysian field,
Garmented in its own ethereal flame;

When first from heav’n’s high peace it enter’d here,
No armour had it then, nor guarding shield,
Nor sword for safety, nor attacking spear,
No pang’d misgivings suffered it, nor fear,
Seeing in every face its own sweet face,
Smiling to treachery with trustful eyes,
Finding in nature...Read more of this...

1985

by Brooks Haxton
 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth 
 the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in 
 the blood of the wicked. Psalm 58

It was the fortieth year since Buchenwald: two thousand
Jewish refugees in Sudan starved while Reagan visited
the graves of Nazis. CBS paid off Westmoreland
for their rude disclosure of his lies and crimes:
he had killed thirty of the...Read more of this...

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