Famous Drastic Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Love Is A Parallax

by Sylvia Plath
 'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:
train tracks always meet, not here, but only
 in the impossible mind's eye;
horizons beat a retreat as we embark
on sophist seas to overtake that mark
 where wave pretends to drench real sky.' 

'Well then, if we agree, it is not odd
that one man's devil is another's god
 or that the solar spectrum is
a multitude of...Read more of this...

Sams Christmas Pudding

by Marriott Edgar
 It was Christmas Day in the trenches
In Spain in Penninsular War,
And Sam Small were cleaning his musket
A thing as he'd ne're done before.

They'd had 'em inspected that morning
And Sam had got into disgrace,
For when sergeant had looked down the barrel
A sparrow flew out in his face.

The sergeant reported the matter
To Lieutenant Bird then and there.
Said Lieutenant 'How very disgusting'
The...Read more of this...

Lapis Lazuli

by William Butler Yeats
 (For Harry Clifton)

I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet...Read more of this...

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