Famous Dont Know Poems by Famous Poets

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

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I Dont Know If Youre Alive Or Dead

by Anna Akhmatova
 I don't know if you're alive or dead.
Can you on earth be sought,
Or only when the sunsets fade
Be mourned serenely in my thought?

All is for you: the daily prayer,
The sleepless heat at night,
And of my verses, the white
Flock, and of my eyes, the blue fire.

No-one was more cherished, no-one tortured
Me more, not
Even the one who betrayed me to torture,
Not...Read more of this...

Stuff

by Ntozake Shange
somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff ?not my poems or a dance i gave up in the street? but somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff

like a kleptomaniac workin hard & forgettin while stealin? this is mine/this aint yr stuff/?now why don’t you put me back & let me hang out in my own self

somebody almost walked...Read more of this...

Dream Song 265: I dont know one damned butterfly from another

by John Berryman
 I don't know one damned butterfly from another
my ignorance of the stars is formidable,
also of dogs & ferns
except that around my house one destroys the other
When I reckon up my real ignorance, pal,
I mumble "many returns"-”

next time it will be nature & Thoreau
this time is Baudelaire if one had the skill
and even those problems O
At the mysterious urging of...Read more of this...

I Dont Know If History Repeats Itself

by Yehuda Amichai
 I don't Know if history repeats itself
But I do know that you don't.

I remember that city was didvided 
Not only between Jews and Arabs,
But Between me and you,
When we were there together.

We made ourselves a womb of dangers
We built ourselves a house of deadening wars
Like men of far north 
Who build themselves a safe warm house of deadening ice.

The...Read more of this...

Dont know about the people

by Kobayashi Issa
 Approaching my village:

 Don't know about the people,
 but all the scarecrows
 are crooked....Read more of this...

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