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Famous Birmingham Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Dickinson, Emily
...ng
His Dining Room do swing.

His Cutlery -- he keeps
Within his Russer Lips --
To see it flashing when he dines
Do Birmingham eclipse --

Convicted -- could we be
Of our Minutiae
The smallest Citizen that flies
Is heartier than we --...Read more of this...



by Raine, Craig
...jogging together?
Tackle the Ridgeway in nasty weather?
Face force 55 gales and chat about prep
or how you bested that Birmingham rep?

He must be mad with excitement.
So must you. What an incitement
to lust all those press-ups must be.
Or is it just the same? PE?

Tell me, I'm curious. Is it fun
being in love with just anyone?
How do you remember his face
if you meet in a public place?

Perhaps you know him by his shoes?
Or do you sometimes choose
another pi...Read more of this...

by Blackburn, Thomas
...Holding with shaking hands a letter from some
Official – high up he says in the Ministry,
I note that I am invited to Birmingham,
There pedagogues to address for a decent fee.
'We like to meet,' he goes on, 'men eminent
In the field of letters each year,' and that's well put,
Though I find his words not wholly relevant
To this red-eyed fellow whose mouth tastes rank as soot.
No doubt what he's thinking of is poetry
When 'Thomas Blackburn' he writes, and not the fuss...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...19 years old and going nowhere, 
I got a ride to Bessemer and walked 
the night road toward Birmingham 
passing dark groups of men cursing 
the end of a week like every week. 
Out of town I found a small grove 
of trees, high narrow pines, and I 
sat back against the trunk of one 
as the first rains began slowly. 
South, the lights of Bessemer glowed 
as though a new sun rose there, 
but it was midnight and another shift 
tooled the rolling...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...tles, 
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying 
 to each other's hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude 
 watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation, 
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out 
 if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had 
 a vision to find out Eternity, 
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who 
 came back to Denver & waited in vain, who 
 watched over Denver & brooded & loned in 
 Denver and finally went away to find out the 
 Time, & n...Read more of this...



by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...r the shame with a shriek!) 
And, lastly, we'll shriek the political shriek as we sit in the dark and doubt; 
Where the Birmingham Judas led us in, and there's no one to lead us out. 
And Rosebery -- whom we depended upon! Would only the Oracle speak! 
"You go to the Grocers," says he, "for your laws!" By Heavens! it's time to shriek!...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...and the ink of chimneys
The smoke nights write their oaths:
Smoke into steel and blood into steel;
Homestead, Braddock, Birmingham, they make their steel with men.
Smoke and blood is the mix of steel.

 The birdmen drone
 in the blue; it is steel
 a motor sings and zooms.

Steel barb-wire around The Works.
Steel guns in the holsters of the guards at the gates of The Works.
Steel ore-boats bring the loads clawed from the earth by steel, lifted and lugged by...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...d
what's to eat
tell me about yourselves
(and things like that)

he had a real face
and he spoke english
with a kind of
birmingham accent
and he didn't seem to know
much more than they did

he was always pissing around
(he told them)
when he was their age

the teacher gradually
came back
 very surprised
and (when he dared to look
at himself) obviously
very relieved

he went away and began
reading the plays
and (discovering
where he'd gone wrong)

got out of teaching...Read more of this...

by Hudgins, Andrew
...e another's new white dresses,
then squeal with laughter. Three girls about that age
of those blown up in church in Birmingham.

The legendary buses rumble past the church
where Reverend King preached when he lived in town,
a town somehow more his than mine, despite
my memory of standing on Dexter Avenue
and watching, fascinated, a black man fry
six eggs on his Dodge Dart. Because I watched
he gave me one with flecks of dark blue paint
stuck on the yolk. My mo...Read more of this...

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