Famous Competition Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Competition poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous competition poems. These examples illustrate what a famous competition poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ht Sonata;
There is a thunder note
In an angry sky.
Sound unbound by nature
Becomes bounded by art.
There is no competition of sounds
Between a nightingale and a violin.
Nature rewards and punishes
By offering unpredictable ways;
Art is apotheosis;
Often, the complaint of beauty.
Nature is an outcry,
Unpolished truth;
The art—a euphemism—
Tamed wilderness. ...Read more of this...
by
Stojanovic, Dejan
...on, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
O...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...youth again and bubble with
its springs - opening worn valves
to give such flow their own direction
there's no need of competition
no wish to prove that one of us
holds keys the others don't to the
sacral chambers - no want to find
consensus in technique or drench
the rites of words in orthodox
belief - difference is essential
and delightful (integrity's all)
quality's a private quarrel
between the poem and the poet - taste
the private hang-up of receivers
mostly migraine...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...cannot meet the Spring unmoved --
I feel the old desire --
A Hurry with a lingering, mixed,
A Warrant to be fair --
A Competition in my sense
With something hid in Her --
And as she vanishes, Remorse
I saw no more of Her....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...I send Two Sunsets --
Day and I -- in competition ran --
I finished Two -- and several Stars --
While He -- was making One --
His own was ampler -- but as I
Was saying to a friend --
Mine -- is the more convenient
To Carry in the Hand --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...rong,
For I am in charge of the lower deck with all that doth belong --
Which they would not give to a lunatic, and the competition so strong!...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...nsequence
Like the remembering it be nought
A Period from hence
But Contemplation for
Contemporaneous Nought
Our Single Competition
Jehovah's Estimate....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...s a Prophecy receive: for God,
Nothing more certain, will not long defer
To vindicate the glory of his name
Against all competition, nor will long
Endure it, doubtful whether God be Lord,
Or Dagon. But for thee what shall be done?
Thou must not in the mean while here forgot
Lie in this miserable loathsom plight
Neglected. I already have made way
To some Philistian Lords, with whom to treat
About thy ransom: well they may by this
Have satisfi'd thir utmost of revenge
By pains...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...,
Or, hanging pictures, be the rookie wizard
Who fills the parlor with a plaster blizzard.
He'll not again be called to competition
With decorator or with electrician.
At last it dawns upon his patient spouse
He's better at his desk than round the house....Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...false witness; let the lie
Have time on its own wings to fly:
Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
Approves all forms of competition....Read more of this...
by
Clough, Arthur Hugh
..., had leading parts in the
mysteries or religious plays; Herod was one of these parts,
which may have been an object of competition among the
amateurs of the period.
23 ."The nighe sly maketh oft time the far lief to be loth": a
proverb; the cunning one near at hand oft makes the loving one
afar off to be odious.
24. Kyked: Looked; "keek" is still used in some parts in the
sense of "peep."
25. Saint Frideswide was the patroness of a considerable priory
at Oxford, and held ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...nail can' t crawl on the straight
razor and live. I'm innocent.
(This poem was Commended in the 1992 National Poetry Competition)...Read more of this...
by
Padel, Ruth
...line extendiing,
Shout the joyful news;
Down they drop like snow descending,
Clouds of cockatoos.
At their husking competition
Hear them screech and yell.
On a gum tree's high position
Sits a sentinel.
Soon the boss goes boundary riding;
But the wise old bird,
Mute among the branches hiding,
Never says a word.
Then you hear the strident squalling:
"Here's the boss's son,
Through the garden bushes crawling,
Crawling with a gun.
May the shiny cactus bristles
...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...et on faster at the top than at the bottom because
there are more people at the bottom than at the top so naturally the competition
at the bottom is stiffer.
If you need any further proof that my theory works
Well, nobody can deny that presidents get paid more than vice-presidents and
vice-presidents get paid more than clerks.
Stop looking at me quizzically;
I want to add that you will never achieve fortune in a job that makes you
uncomfortable physically.
When anybody tells ...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...ss unabated
Informed the hour had come
With no remiss of triumph
The autumn started home
Her home to be with Nature
As competition done
By influential kinsmen
Invited to return --
In supplements of Purple
An adequate repast
In heavenly reviewing
Her residue be past --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
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