Famous Checking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Canzone X

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 76] CANZONE X. Poichè per mio destino. IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: IN THEM HE FINDS EVERY GOOD, AND HE CAN NEVER CEASE TO PRAISE THEM.  Since then by destinyI am compell'd to sing the strong desire,Which here condemns me ceaselessly to sigh,May Love, whose quenchless fireExcites...Read more of this...

Matins

by Louise Gluck
 You want to know how I spend my time?
I walk the front lawn, pretending
to be weeding. You ought to know
I'm never weeding, on my knees, pulling
clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact
I'm looking for courage, for some evidence
my life will change, though
it takes forever, checking
each clump for the symbolic
leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves...Read more of this...

Axe Handles

by Gary Snyder
 One afternoon the last week in April
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own.
A broken-off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working...Read more of this...

Walking Across The Atlantic

by Billy Collins
 I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet...Read more of this...

My Cat Bytes

by Brian P Cleary
Some cats like to prowl, 
and some even growl,
While others would rather take naps.
But my Mrs. Mittens --
an Internet Kitten -- is
fonder of laptops than laps.

Unlike other cats,
This one downloads and chats
And is constantly checking her email.
An ad she has posted
Has recently boasted
She's a young, single Siamese female.

With paws soft and quick,
She'll type and she'll click,
do some research, or maybe...Read more of this...

Land Mine

by Robert William Service
 A grey gull hovered overhead,
 Then wisely flew away.
'In half a jiffy you'll be dead,'
 I thought I heard it say;
As there upon the railway line,
 Checking an urge to cough,
I laboured to de-fuse the mine
 That had not yet gone off.

I tapped around the time-clock rim,
 Then something worried me.
I heard the singing of a hymn:
 Nearer my...Read more of this...

The Guardian Angel Of The Private Life

by Jorie Graham
 All this was written on the next day's list.
On which the busyness unfurled its cursive roots,
pale but effective,
and the long stem of the necessary, the sum of events,
built-up its tiniest cathedral...
(Or is it the sum of what takes place? )
If I lean down, to whisper, to them,
down into their gravitational field, there where they head busily on
into the woods,...Read more of this...

The Clasp

by Sharon Olds
 She was four, he was one, it was raining, we had colds,
we had been in the apartment two weeks straight,
I grabbed her to keep her from shoving him over on his
face, again, and when I had her wrist
in my grasp I compressed it, fiercely, for a couple
of seconds, to make an impression on her,
to hurt her, our beloved firstborn,...Read more of this...

The Sea to the Shore

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Lo, I have loved thee long, long have I yearned and entreated!
Tell me how I may win thee, tell me how I must woo.
Shall I creep to thy white feet, in guise of a humble lover ?
Shall I croon in mild petition, murmuring vows anew ? 

Shall I stretch my arms unto thee, biding thy maiden coyness,
Under the silver...Read more of this...

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