Famous Carrying Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

he and the hilltown

by Rg Gregory
 when they look into his mind they find a hill town
somewhat surprised they go off to their learned books
outside (architecturally) he’d seems a little wind-blown
not special – a common sort of shackman by his looks
not the sure kind to want the sun to get its hooks
into his self-containment (his bunched-up notions)
thoughts crammed like the heads of ripened corn in...Read more of this...

Letter Home

by Natasha Trethewey
 --New Orleans, November 1910

Four weeks have passed since I left, and still
I must write to you of no work. I've worn down
the soles and walked through the tightness
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants,
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking
my plain English and good writing would secure
for me some modest position Though I dress each day
in...Read more of this...

68. The Holy Fair

by Robert Burns
 UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn
 When Nature’s face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
 An’ snuff the caller air.
The rising sun owre Galston muirs
 Wi’ glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
 The lav’rocks they were chantin
 Fu’ sweet that day.


As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad,
 To see a scene sae gay,
Three hizzies, early...Read more of this...

A Humble Heroine

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas at the Seige of Matagarda, during the Peninsular War,
That a Mrs Reston for courage outshone any man there by far;
She was the wife of a Scottish soldier in Matagarda Port,
And to attend to her husband she there did resort. 

'Twas in the Spring of the year 1810,
That General Sir Thomas Graham occupied Matagarda with 150 men;
These consisted of...Read more of this...

4:02 p.m

by Suheir Hammad
 poem supposed to be about
one minute and the lives of three women in it
writing it and up
the block a woman killed
by her husband

poem now about one minute
and the lives of four women
in it

haitian mother
she walks through
town carrying her son's
head—banging it against
her thigh calling out 
creole come see, see what
they've done to my flesh
holds on to him grip tight
through hair...Read more of this...

January 3

by David Lehman
 The shrink says, "Everything depends
on how many stuffed animals you had
as a boy," and my mother tells me my
father was left-handed and so is my son
and they're both named Joe whose favorite 
stuffed animal was a bear called Sweetheart
while I, the sole constant in this dream,
am carrying a little girl who has a gun
in her hand as I climb...Read more of this...

Manuelzinho

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or...Read more of this...

The Hog The Sheep And Goat Carrying To A FAIR

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Who does not wish, ever to judge aright, 
And, in the Course of Life's Affairs, 
To have a quick, and far extended Sight, 
Tho' it too often multiplies his Cares? 
And who has greater Sense, but greater Sorrow shares? 

This felt the Swine, now carrying to the Knife; 
And whilst the Lamb and silent Goat 
In the same fatal...Read more of this...

Baile And Aillinn

by William Butler Yeats
 ARGUMENT. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the
Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land
among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so
that their hearts were broken and they died.

 I hardly hear the curlew cry,
 Nor thegrey rush when the wind is high,
 Before my thoughts begin to run
...Read more of this...

Cherry- Tree Inn

by Henry Lawson
 The rafters are open to sun, moon, and star, 
Thistles and nettles grow high in the bar -- 
The chimneys are crumbling, the log fires are dead, 
And green mosses spring from the hearthstone instead. 
The voices are silent, the bustle and din, 
For the railroad hath ruined the Cherry-tree Inn. 

Save the glimmer of stars, or the moon's...Read more of this...

Wedding Wind

by Philip Larkin
 The wind blew all my wedding-day,
And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind;
And a stable door was banging, again and again,
That he must go and shut it, leaving me
Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain,
Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick,
Yet seeing nothing. When he came back
He said the horses were restless, and I was sad
That any man or...Read more of this...

Clouds Gathering

by Charles Simic
 It seemed the kind of life we wanted.
Wild strawberries and cream in the morning.
Sunlight in every room.
The two of us walking by the sea naked.

Some evenings, however, we found ourselves
Unsure of what comes next.
Like tragic actors in a theater on fire,
With birds circling over our heads,
The dark pines strangely still,
Each rock we stepped on bloodied by the sunset.

We were...Read more of this...

Bored

by Margaret Atwood
 All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding the log
while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured, boards,
distances between things, or pounded
stakes into the ground for rows and rows
of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)
weeded. Or sat in the back
of the car, or sat still in boats,
sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel
he drove,...Read more of this...

The City of the Dead XX

by Kahlil Gibran
 Yesterday I drew myself from the noisome throngs and proceeded into the field until I reached a knoll upon which Nature had spread her comely garments. Now I could breathe. 

I looked back, and the city appeared with its magnificent mosques and stately residences veiled by the smoke of the shops. 

I commenced analyzing man's mission, but could conclude...Read more of this...

Skin

by Philip Larkin
 Obedient daily dress,
You cannot always keep
That unfakable young surface.
You must learn your lines -
Anger, amusement, sleep;
Those few forbidding signs

Of the continuous coarse
Sand-laden wind, time;
You must thicken, work loose
Into an old bag
Carrying a soiled name.
Parch then; be roughened; sag;

And pardon me, that
I Could find, when you were new,
No brash festivity
To wear you at, such as
Clothes are entitled to
Till the fashion...Read more of this...

Poem Reaching For Something

by Quincy Troupe
 we walk through a calligraphy of hats slicing off foreheads
ace-deuce cocked, they slant, razor sharp, clean through imagination, our
spirits knee-deep in what we have forgotten entrancing our bodies now to
dance, like enraptured water lilies
the rhythm in liquid strides of certain looks
eyeballs rippling through breezes
riffing choirs of trees, where a trillion slivers of sunlight prance across
filigreeing leaves, a zillion voices...Read more of this...

The Neighbor

by Marge Piercy
 Man stomping over my bed in boots 
carrying a large bronze church bell 
which you occasionally drop: 
gross man with iron heels 
who drags coffins to and fro at four in the morning, 
who hammers on scaffolding all night long, 
who entertains sumo wrestlers and fat acrobats--
I pass you on the steps, we smile and nod. 
Rage swells in...Read more of this...

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

by Robert Browning
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who...Read more of this...

What Forgotten Realm?

by Alain Bosquet
 Let me introduce to you
my poetry: it's an island flying
from book to book
searching for
the page where it was born,
then stops at my house, both wings wounded,
for its meals of flesh and cold phrases.

I paid dearly for the poem's visit!
My best words lie down to sleep in the nettles,
my greenest syllables dream
of a silence as young as themselves.

Offer me the...Read more of this...

To Bessie Drennan

by Mark Doty
 Because she could find no one else to paint a picture of the old family place where she and her sisters lived. . .she attended an adult education class in Montpelier. In one evening Bessie Drennan learned everything she would need to accomplish her goals. . .
The Vermont Folklife Center Newsletter


Bessie, you've made space dizzy
with your perfected technique for...Read more of this...

The Burial of Mr. Gladstone

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! the people now do sigh and moan
For the loss of Wm. Ewart Gladstone,
Who was a very great politician and a moral man,
And to gainsay it there's few people can. 

'Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 19th of May,
When his soul took its flight for ever and aye,
And his body was interred in Westminster Abbey;
But I...Read more of this...

Butch Weldy

by Edgar Lee Masters
 After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
To heat the soldering irons.
And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
One morning, as I stood there pouring,
The air grew still...Read more of this...

On A Wedding Anniversary

by Dylan Thomas
 The sky is torn across
This ragged anniversary of two
Who moved for three years in tune
Down the long walks of their vows.

Now their love lies a loss
And Love and his patients roar on a chain;
From every tune or crater
Carrying cloud, Death strikes their house.

Too late in the wrong rain
They come together whom their love parted:
The windows pour into their heart
And...Read more of this...

To the Pay Toilet

by Marge Piercy
 You strop my anger, especially
when I find you in restaurant or bar
and pay for the same liquid, coming and going.
In bus depots and airports and turnpike plazas
some woman is dragging in with three kids hung off her
shrieking their simple urgency like gulls.
She's supposed to pay for each of them
and the privilege of not dirtying the corporate floor.
Sometimes a woman...Read more of this...

The Dance Of Death

by Charles Baudelaire
 CARRYING bouquet, and handkerchief, and gloves, 
Proud of her height as when she lived, she moves 
With all the careless and high-stepping grace, 
And the extravagant courtesan's thin face. 

Was slimmer waist e'er in a ball-room wooed? 
Her floating robe, in royal amplitude, 
Falls in deep folds around a dry foot, shod 
With a bright flower-like shoe that gems...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Carrying poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace