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Famous Detention Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Raine, Craig
...
Kulygin's part was made for him.

Imagine your life with a 'beak'.
Week after week after week
like homework or detention;
all that standing to attention

whenever his colleagues drop in
for a spot of what's-your-toxin.
Speech Day, matron, tuck-shop, Christ,
you'll find school fees are over-priced

and leave, but not come back to me.
You've done your bit for poetry.
Words, or deeds? You'll stick to youth.
I'm a stickler for the truth--

which makes me ...Read more of this...



by Corso, Gregory
...They deliver the edicts of God

without delay

And are exempt from apprehension

from detention

And with their God-given

Petasus, Caduceus, and Talaria

ferry like bolts of lightning

unhindered between the tribunals

of Space & Time


The Messenger-Spirit

in human flesh

is assigned a dependable,

self-reliant, versatile,

thoroughly poet existence

upon its sojourn in life


It does not knock

or ring the bell

or telephone

When the Mes...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...d is big enough
To wreck the sphere, and too big,
One would think, to weave delicate meshes
That only argue its further detention.
(Big, but not coarse, merely on another scale,
Like a dozing whale on the sea bottom
In relation to the tiny, self-important ship
On the surface.) But your eyes proclaim
That everything is surface. The surface is what's there
And nothing can exist except what's there.
There are no recesses in the room, only alcoves,
And the window ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...steem you for it.-- 
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 
I would he had our daughter: for the rest, 
Our own detention, why, the causes weighed, 
Fatherly fears--you used us courteously-- 
We would do much to gratify your Prince-- 
We pardon it; and for your ingress here 
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 
you did but come as goblins in the night, 
Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head, 
Nor burnt the grange, nor bussed the milking-maid, 
Nor robbe...Read more of this...

by Levis, Larry
...ped beach ball so that Mr. Hirata--
Who was Japanese, who would be sent the next week
To a place called Manzanar, a detention camp
Hidden in stunted pines almost above
The Sierra timberline--could take my picture.
I remember the way he lovingly relished 
Each camera angle, the unwobbling tripod, 
The way he checked each aperture against
The light meter, in love with all things
That were not accidental, & I remember
The care he took when focusing; how
He tried two diff...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...the Crescent?
Neither -- said the Moon --
That is best which is not -- Achieve it --
You efface the Sheen.

Not of detention is Fruition --
Shudder to attain.
Transport's decomposition follows --
He is Prism born....Read more of this...

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