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Best Famous Vital Statistics Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Vital Statistics poems. This is a select list of the best famous Vital Statistics poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Vital Statistics poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of vital statistics poems.

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Written by Stanley Kunitz | Create an image from this poem

Passing Through

 Nobody in the widow's household
ever celebrated anniversaries.
In the secrecy of my room
I would not admit I cared
that my friends were given parties.
Before I left town for school
my birthday went up in smoke 
in a fire at City Hall that gutted
the Department of Vital Statistics.
If it weren't for a census report
of a five-year-old White Male
sharing my mother's address
at the Green Street tenement in Worcester
I'd have no documentary proof
that I exist. You are the first, 
my dear, to bully me
into these festive occasions.

Sometimes, you say, I wear
an abstracted look that drives you
up the wall, as though it signified
distress or disaffection.
Don't take it so to heart.
Maybe I enjoy not-being as much
as being who I am. Maybe
it's time for me to practice
growing old. The way I look 
at it, I'm passing through a phase:
gradually I'm changing to a word.
Whatever you choose to claim
of me is always yours:
nothing is truly mine
except my name. I only
borrowed this dust.


Written by Hilaire Belloc | Create an image from this poem

On Vital Statistics

 Ill fares the land to hast'ning ills a prey (1) 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.' 
But how much more unfortunate are those 
Where wealth declines and population grows! 

(1)This line is execrable; and I note it.
I quote it as the faulty poet wrote it.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things