Famous Blanks Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Commonplace Day

...dered, planned; no one thing asking blame or 
praise, 
 Since the pale corpse-like birth 
Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays - 
 Dullest of dull-hued Days! 

 Wanly upon the panes 
The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and 
yet 
 Here, while Day's presence wanes, 
And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set, 
 He wakens my regret. 

 Regret--though nothing dear 
That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime, ...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas


Apprehensions

...es.

On a black wall, unidentifiable birds
Swivel their heads and cry.
There is no talk of immorality amoun these!
Cold blanks approach us:
They move in a hurry....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

Aubade

...l myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
-- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused -- nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; ...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip

Big Hair

...her "best hair."
Iowa City was said to be the place where 
all aspiring poets went, their poems written 
on water, with blanks instead of words, a tonic
of silence in the heart of noise, and a vision of lingerie

in the bright morning -- the lingerie to be worn by a moll 
holding a tumbler of gin, with her hair 
wet from the shower and her best poems waiting to be written....Read more of this...
by Lehman, David

Canto XIII

...n ruled with moderation,
 "In his day the State was well kept,
"And even I can remember
"A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
"I mean, for things they didn't know,
"But that time seems to be passing.
A day when the historians left blanks in their writings,
But that time seems to be passing."
And Kung said, "Without character you will
 "be unable to play on that instrument
"Or to execute the music fit for the Odes.
"The blossoms of the apricot
 "blow from t...Read more of this...
by Pound, Ezra


Majestas Populi

...crowds shall I seek thee?
'Tis with only a few that thou hast made thine abode.
Only a few ever count; the rest are but blanks of no value,
And the prizes are hid 'neath the vain stir that they make....Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

Passage to India

...bs, Portuguese, 
The first travelers, famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,
Doubts to be solv’d, the map incognita, blanks to be fill’d, 
The foot of man unstay’d, the hands never at rest, 
Thyself, O soul, that will not brook a challenge. 

9
The medieval navigators rise before me, 
The world of 1492, with its awaken’d enterprise;
Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in spring, 
The sunset splendor of chivalry declining. 

And who art thou, sad sh...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Sonnet 77: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear

...ady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.
Look what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book....Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

Sonnet LXXVII

...dy stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.
Look, what thy memory can not contain
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book....Read more of this...
by Shakespeare, William

The Lacking Sense Scene.--A sad-coloured landscape Waddon Vale

...mbols keenly: 
 In her wonderworks yea surely has she wounded where she loves. 
 The sense of ills misdealt for blisses blanks the mien most 
queenly, 
Self-smitings kill self-joys; and everywhere beneath the sun 
 Such deeds her hands have done." 

III 

- "And how explains thy Ancient Mind her crimes upon her creatures, 
 These fallings from her fair beginnings, woundings where she 
loves, 
 Into her would-be perfect motions, modes, effects, and features 
Admitting cramps, ...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

The Songs of the Lathes

...rding to the seasons,
 Twice since I've been here.

The trains on the sidings they call to us
With the hundred thousand blanks that they haul to us;
And we send 'em what we've finished, and they take it where it's wanted,
 For that is why we are here!

Man's hate passes as his love will pass.
God made Woman what she always was.
Them that bear the burden they will never grant forgiveness
 So long as they are here!

Once I was a woman, but that's by with me.
All I loved and loo...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Variations on the Word Love

...This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. H...Read more of this...
by Atwood, Margaret

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