Famous Autobiography Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Autobiography poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous autobiography poems. These examples illustrate what a famous autobiography poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Hikmet, Nazim
...
I can say I've lived like a human being
and who knows
how much longer I'll live
what else will happen to me
This autobiography was written
in east Berlin on 11 September 1961...Read more of this...
by
Hikmet, Nazim
...Oh, both my shoes are shiny new,
And pristine is my hat;
My dress is 1922....
My life is all like that....Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas.
What did Judy say? "God-forsaken is beautiful, too."
A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes
care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a
manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver.
An old dog stands beside him. It's a hot day: 105.
What am I doing out here in w...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...Delay, well, travellers must expect
Delay. For how long? No one seems to know.
With all the luggage weighed, the tickets checked,
It can't be long... We amble too and fro,
Sit in steel chairs, buy cigarettes and sweets
And tea, unfold the papers. Ought we to smile,
Perhaps make friends? No: in the race for seats
You're best a...Read more of this...
by
Jeffers, Robinson
...Seventy years ago my mother labored to bear me,
A twelve-pound baby with a big head,
Her first, it was plain torture. Finally they used the forceps
And dragged me out, with one prong
In my right eye, and slapped and banged me until I breathed.
I am not particularly grateful for it.
As to the eye: it remained invalid and now has a cataract....Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...[Goethe quotes the beginning of this song in
his Autobiography, as expressing the manner in which his poetical
effusions used to pour out from him.]
THROUGH field and wood to stray,
And pipe my tuneful lay,--
'Tis thus my days are pass'd;
And all keep tune with me,
And move in harmony,
And so on, to the last.
To wait I scarce have power
The garden's earliest flower,
The tree's first bloom in ...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...hrisch, who was tutor to Count Lindenau, and of whom Goethe gives
an odd account at the end of the Seventh Book of his Autobiography.]
FIRST ODE.
TRANSPLANT the beauteous tree!
Gardener, it gives me pain;
A happier resting-place
Its trunk deserved.
Yet the strength of its nature
To Earth's exhausting avarice,
To Air's destructive inroads,
An antidote opposed.
See how it in springtime
Coins its pale green leaves!
Their orange-fragrance
Poisons each flyblow...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...[This song was also written for Lily. Goethe
mentions, at the end of his Autobiography, that he overheard her
singing it one evening after he had taken his last farewell of her.]
WHEREFORE drag me to yon glittering eddy,
With resistless might?
Was I, then, not truly blest already
In the silent night?
In my secret chamber refuge taking,
'Neath the moon's soft ray,
And her awful light around me breaking,
Musing there I l...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...d inside to find just a leaf of spinach. That was all.
Was it Kafka who learned about America by reading the
autobiography of Benjamin Franklin..............
Kafka who said, "I like the Americans because they are healthy
and optimistic."
KNOCK ON WOOD
(PART ONE)
As a child when did I first hear about trout fishing in America?
From whom? I guess it was a stepfather of mine.
Sum...Read more of this...
by
Walker, Alice
...When Golda Meir
Was in Africa
She shook out her hair
And combed it
Everywhere she went.
According to her autobiography
Africans loved this.
In Russia, Minneapolis, London, Washington, D.C.,
Germany, Palestine, Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem
She never combed at all.
There was no point. In those
Places people said, "She looks like
Any other aging grandmother. She looks
Like a troll. Let's sell her cookery
And guns."
"Kre...Read more of this...
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