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Famous Bookcase Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Lowell, Amy
...the black bricks with golden stars, as though a gala
flamed a night of victorious wars.
The nodding mandarin on the bookcase moves his 
head forward and back, slowly,
and looks into the air with his blue-green eyes. He stares 
into the air
and nods -- forward and back. The red rose in his hand 
is a crimson splash
on his yellow coat. Forward and back, and his blue-green 
eyes stare
into the air, and he nods -- nods.

Tommy's soldiers march to battle,
Trump...Read more of this...



by Ashbery, John
...he serum of the new moral climate
I thought I'd stumbled into, as a stranger
accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back,
revealing a winding staircase with greenish light
somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside
and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions.
At once a fragrance overwhelms him--not saffron, not lavender,
but something in between.He thinks of cushions, like the one
his uncle's Boston bull terrier use...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...bones wheaten hair falling out
enraged and reddening eye as he lay aching huge hairy head on his paws
by the egg-crate bookcase filled up with thin volumes of Plato, & Buddha.

Sat by his side every night averting my eyes from his hungry motheaten
 face
stopped eating myself he got weaker and roared at night while I had 
 nightmares
Eaten by lion in bookstore on Cosmic Campus, a lion myself starved by
 Professor Kandisky, dying in a lion's flophouse circus,
I woke up mor...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...Hanging and floating over it, it stands supreme --
Black, and gold, and crimson, in one twisted scheme!
A candle on the bookcase feels a draught and wavers,
Stippling the white-washed walls with dancing shades and quavers.
A bed-post, grown colossal, jigs about the ceiling,
And shadows, strangely altered, stain the walls, revealing
Eagles, and rabbits, and weird faces pulled awry,
And hands which fetch and carry things incessantly.
Under the Eastern window, where the ...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...Once more the cauldron of the sun 
Smears the bookcase with winy red, 
And here my page is, and there my bed, 
And the apple-tree shadows travel along. 
Soon their intangible track will be run, 
And dusk grow strong 
And they have fled.

Yes: now the boiling ball is gone, 
And I have wasted another day.... 
But wasted--wasted, do I say? 
Is it a waste to have imagined one 
Beyond...Read more of this...



by Hicok, Bob
...e. First 
place was passing 
through a bedroom door 
and removing silk that did not
belong to my wife.
Making a bookcase is not 
the extent of my apology. 
I've also been beaten up 
in a bar for saying huevos 
rancheros in a way 
insulting to the patrons' 
ethnicity. I've also lost 
my job because lying 
face down on the couch 
didn't jibe with my employer's 
definition of home 
office. I wanted her to come
through the door on Sunday
and see the bookcase 
...Read more of this...

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