Famous Collection Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Collection poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous collection poems. These examples illustrate what a famous collection poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Crane, Stephen
...A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices
Which, bawled by boys from mile to mile,
Spreads its curious opinion
To a million merciful and sneering men,
While families cuddle the joys of the fireside
When spurred by tale of dire lone agony.
A newspaper is a court
Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried
By a squalor of honest men.
A newspaper is a market
Where...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...(This fine poem is given by Goethe amongst a
small collection of what he calls Loge (Lodge), meaning thereby
Masonic pieces.)
THE mason's trade
Observe them well,
Resembles life, And
watch them revealing
With all its strife,-- How
solemn feeling
Is like the stir made And
wonderment swell
By man on earth's face. The
hearts of the brave.
Though weal and woe The
voice of the blest,
The ...Read more of this...
by
Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...en I was a boy
I kept a book
to which, from time
to time,
I added pressed flowers
until, after a time,
I had a good collection.
The asphodel,
forebodingly,
among them.
I bring you,
reawakened,
a memory of those flowers.
They were sweet
when I pressed them
and retained
something of their sweetness
a long time.
It is a curious odor,
a moral odor,
that brings me
near to you.
The color
was the first to go.
There had come to me
a challenge,...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...rides’
Fat with OBE’s, sinecures and sighs
And Collected Poems no one buys.
Yet ‘Mainstrem’, your last but one collection,
I had to wait months for, the last borrower
Kept it for two years and likely I’ll do the same
Your poetry’s like no other, no one could tame
Your roaring fury or your searing pain.
You bared your soul in a most unfashionable way
But everything in me says your verse will stay,
Your love for your fourth and final wife,
The last chance...Read more of this...
by
Bowers, Edgar
...d and warm, the soft magnolia bloom
Marked lightly by a slow brown stain—she spread,
For airing, the same small intense collection,
Concert programs, worn trophies, years of yearbooks,
Letters from schoolgirl chums, bracelets of hair
And the same picture: black hair in a bun,
Puzzled eyes in an oval face as young
Or old as innocence, skirt to the ground,
And, seated on the high school steps, the class,
The ones to whom she would have said, “Seigneur,
Donnez-nous la force de s...Read more of this...
by
Doty, Mark
...it seemed the core
of chaos itself--
but no, the junk was arranged
in rough aisles,
someone's intimate
clutter and collection,
no walls but still
a kind of apartment
and a fire ribboned out
of a ruined stove,
and white plates
were laid out
on the table beside it.
White china! Something
was moving, and
--you understand
it takes longer to tell this
than to see it, only
a train window's worth
of actuality--
I knew what moved
was an arm,
the arm of the (...Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
...The premisses tenderly considered, I desire your Excellencies' protection,
And that I may have a share in next Sunday's collection;
And, over and above, that I may have your Excellencies' letter,
With an order for the Chaplain aforesaid, or, instead of him, a better:
And then your poor petitioner, both night and day,
Or the Chaplain (for 'tis his trade,) as in duty bound, shall ever pray....Read more of this...
by
Ayres, Pam
...he reckonin’
It’s methey are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.
Taken from the The Works: The Classic Collection 2008.
© Pam Ayres 2012
Official Website
http://pamayres.com/...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...rm, specimens of the different other
classes of them, such as the Epigrams, Elegies, &c., are added,
as well as a collection of the various Songs found in his Plays,
making a total number of about 400 Poems, embraced in the present
volume.
A sketch of the life of Goethe is prefixed, in order that the
reader may have before him both the Poet himself and the Poet's
offspring, and that he may see that the two are but one--that Goethe
lives in his works, that his ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ty. Maybe a
museum might be started. Trout Fishing in America Shorty
could be the first piece in an important collection.
We would nail him up in a packing crate with a big label
on it.
Contents:
Trout Fishing in America Shorty
Occupation:
Wine
Address:
C/O Nelson Algren
Chicago
And there would be stickers all over the crate, saying:
"GLASS/HANDLE WITH CARE/SPECIAL HANDLING/GLASS
/DON'T SPILL/THIS SIDE UP/HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE
WAS A...Read more of this...
by
Tate, James
...e if it's really wanted.
Or I could do a little now
and then return to listing later.
It kicked the scrimshaw collection,
yes it did. It kicked the ocelot,
which was rude and uncalled for,
and yes hurtful. It kicked
the guacamole right out of its bowl,
which made for a grubby
and potentially dangerous workplace.
I was out testing the new speed bump
when it kicked the Viscountess,
which she probably deserved,
and I was happy, needless to say,
to...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...ight
Involve calling attention to oneself
Which would augment the dread of not getting out
Before having seen the whole collection
(Except for the sculptures in the basement:
They are where they belong).
Our time gets to be veiled, compromised
By the portrait's will to endure. It hints at
Our own, which we were hoping to keep hidden.
We don't need paintings or
Doggerel written by mature poets when
The explosion is so precise, so fine.
Is there any point even i...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...of his eyes rolled sideways,
His head lolled and he keeled over.”
The title of the reading was from Jimmy’s best collection
‘With Energy To Burn’
with energy to burn....Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...woman didn't take off her underpants
If she didn't like you. She said Australia,
And he saw last summer's seashell collection
In a plastic bag on a shelf in the mud room
With last summer's sand. The cycle of sexual captivity
Beginning in romance and ending in adultery
Was now in the late middle phases, the way America
Had gone from barbarism to amnesia without
A period of high decadence, which meant something,
But what? A raft on the rapids? The violinist
At the gate...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...thou canst invent
Either to please me, or torment:
For thou alone to people me,
Art grown a num'rous colony;
And a collection choicer far
Than or Whitehall's, or Mantua's were.
But, of these pictures and the rest,
That at the entrance likes me best;
Where the same posture, and the look
Remains, with which I first was took:
A tender shepherdess, whose hair
Hangs loosely playing in the air,
Transplanting flowers from the green hill,
To crown her head, and bo...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...that spilled a golden glow
I saw a name, my name, upon a bill.
"A Sale of Famous Pictures," so it read,
"A Notable Collection, each a gem,
Distinguished Works of Art by painters dead."
The folks were going in, I followed them.
I stood upon the outskirts of the crowd,
I only hoped that none might notice me.
Soon, soon I heard them call my name aloud:
"A `David Strong', his Fete in Brittany."
(A brave big picture that, the best I've done,
It glowed and kind...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...meetings (Oh, narrow souls were theirs!)
To advertise their little selves and Joseph's own affairs.
They got up a collection for Joseph unawares.
They looked up his connections and rivals by the score –
The wife who had divorced him some twenty years before,
And several politicians he'd made feel very sore.
They sent him down to Coolan, a long train ride from here,
Because of his grey hairs and "pomes" and painted blondes – and beer.
(I mean to say t...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...y’re
Bound to be. Budding Roddy Lumsdens, (Has anyone read a Roddy
Lumsden
Poem?) “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” his first collection short-listed here and
there -
The sheer hype’s enough to put me off for life.
I still write at bus-stops and avoid competitions like the plague.
I’m not lucky that way, I’ve still to win a single literary prize.
Is there one for every day of the year? And as for James Kirkup,
My mentor of forty-odd years, his name evokes blank...Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
...cks;
Bright Phyllis mending ragged smocks:
And radiant Iris in the pox.
These are the goddesses enrolled
In Curll's collection, new and old,
Whose scoundrel fathers would not know 'em,
If they should meet them in a poem.
True poets can depress and raise,
Are lords of infamy and praise;
They are not scurrilous in satire,
Nor will in panegyric flatter.
Unjustly poets we asperse;
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,
And all the fictions they pursue
Do but insinua...Read more of this...
by
Dunn, Stephen
...if you believe nothing is always what's left
after a while, as I did,
If you believe you have this collection
of ungiven gifts, as I do (right here
behind the silence and the averted eyes)
If you believe an afternoon can collapse
into strange privacies-
how in your backyard, for example,
the shyness of flowers can be suddenly
overwhelming, and in the distance
the clear goddamn of thunder
personal, like a voice,
If you believe there's no correct response
t...Read more of this...
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