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Famous Criss Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Lowell, Amy
...akes fine-drawn lines with its point.
Down the long, white paper it makes little lines,
Just lines -- up -- down -- criss-cross.
My heart is strained out at the pin-point of my quill;
It is thin and writhing like the marks of the pen.
My hand marches to a squeaky tune,
It marches down the paper to a squealing of fifes.
My pen and the trumpet-flowers,
And Washington's armies away over the smoke-tree to the Southwest.
"Yankee Doodle," my Darling! It is you a...Read more of this...



by Lowell, Amy
...I
Hoops
Blue and pink sashes,
Criss-cross shoes,
Minna and Stella run out into the garden
To play at hoop.
Up and down the garden-paths they race,
In the yellow sunshine,
Each with a big round hoop
White as a stripped willow-wand.
Round and round turn the hoops,
Their diamond whiteness cleaving the yellow sunshine.
The gravel crunches and squeaks beneath them,
And a large peb...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...gs yesterday and the day before
Scruffing my shoe leather and scraping the tough gnomic stuff
Of stones woven on a cold criss-cross so long ago?
Have I not sat there … watching the white foam up,
The hoarse white lines coming to curve, foam, slip back?
Didn’t I learn then how the call comes, “Hai, hai, hai”?...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...of adenese
collapses spews
they roll about him
in a dark pool

the sun moves off
as we do

streets squashed with shops
criss-cross of customers
a rush of people nightwards
a white woman
striding like a cliff
dirt - goats in the gutter
crunched beggars
a small to breed a fungus
cafes with open mouths
men like broken teeth
or way back in the dark
like tonsils

an air of shapeless threat
fluffs in our pulse
a boundary crossed
the rules are not the same
brushed by eyes
the touch...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...sea foam

Flecked like the marble Leonardo

Chipped for his ‘Moses’.

And my tears came as suddenly

In that dream, criss-crossed

With memory and desire.

Grandad Nicky had worked

Down the pits for a pittance

To bring up his six children

But nothing left over for more

Than a few nuts and an orange

For six Christmas stockings

So hopefully hung, weighted by pennies,

Stretched across the black mantle.

So Lawrence-like and yet not, grandad

A strict Methodist...Read more of this...



by Sandburg, Carl
....
The oats in the valley run a mile.
Between are the green and marching potato vines.
The lightning bugs go criss-cross carrying a zigzag of fire: the potato bugs are asleep under their stiff and yellow-striped wings: here romance stutters to the western stars, “Excuse … me…”. . .
Old foundations of rotten wood.
An old barn done-for and out of the wormholes ten-legged roaches shook up and scared by sunlight.
So a pickax digs a long tooth with a...Read more of this...

by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...re young I would try a new alignment— 
alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye!— 
Childhood companions linked two and two 
criss-cross: four, three, two, one. 
Back into self, tentacles withdrawn. 
Feel about in warm self-flesh. 
Since childhood, since childhood! 
Childhood is a toad in the garden, a 
happy toad. All toads are happy 
and belong in gardens. A toad to Diana! 

Lean forward. Punch the steerman 
behind the ear. Twirl the wheel! 
Over the ...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...Or the ooze by the strand, 
 Or the bent-bearded slope of the land, 
Whose base took its rest amid everlong motion 
 Of criss-crossing tides. 

III 

 Soon from out of the Southward seemed nearing 
 A whirr, as of wings 
 Waved by mighty-vanned flies, 
 Or by night-moths of measureless size, 
And in softness and smoothness well-nigh beyond hearing 
 Of corporal things. 

IV 

 And they bore to the bluff, and alighted - 
 A dim-discerned train 
 Of sprites without moul...Read more of this...

by Wignesan, T
...r>

la la la step stepping
Each in his own inordinate step
Shuffling the terang bulan.
Blindly buzzes the bee
Criss-crossing
Weep, rain tree, weep
The grass untrampled with laughter
In the noonday sobering shade.

Go Cheena-becha Kling-qui Sakai

V
Has it not occurred to you how I sat with you
dear sister, counting the chicking back of the
evening train by the window sill and then
got up to wind my way down the snake infested rail
to shoo shoo the co...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...r-hill.

Against the breeze the breakers haste,
Against the tide their ridges run
And all the sea's a dappled waste
Criss-crossing underneath the sun.

Far down the beach the ripples drag
Blown backward, rearing from the shore,
And wailing gull and shrieking shag
Alone can pierce the ocean roar.

Unheard, a mongrel hound gives tongue,
Unheard are shouts of little boys;
What chance has any inland lung
Against this multi-water noise?

Here where the cliffs alone pre...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things