Famous Eccentric Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Made to Order Smile

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 When a woman looks up at you with a twist about her eyes, 
And her brows are half uplifted in a nicely feigned surprise 
As you breathe some pretty sentence, though she hates you all the while, 
She is very apt to stun you with a made to order smile. 

It's a sublte combination of a sneer and a...Read more of this...

Mummys Curse

by Charles Simic
 Befriending an eccentric young woman
The sole resident of a secluded Victorian mansion.
She takes long walks in the evening rain,
And so do I, with my hair full of dead leaves.

In her former life, she was an opera singer.
She remembers the rich Neapolitan pastries,
Points to a bit of fresh whipped cream
Still left in the corner of her lower lip,
Tells me she...Read more of this...

Interim

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 The room is full of you!—As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!—

Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,—
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death—
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
And...Read more of this...

The Irish Unionists farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922

by John Betjeman
 Golden haired and golden hearted
I would ever have you be,
As you were when last we parted
Smiling slow and sad at me.
Oh! the fighting down of passion!
Oh! the century-seeming pain-
Parting in this off-hand fashion
In Dungarvan in the rain.

Slanting eyes of blue, unweeping
Stands my Swedish beauty where
Gusts of Irish rain are sweeping
Round the statue in the square;
Corner boys against the walling
Watch...Read more of this...

Emily Dickinson

by Linda Pastan
 We think of hidden in a white dress
among the folded linens and sachets
of well-kept cupboards, or just out of sight
sending jellies and notes with no address
to all the wondering Amherst neighbors.
Eccentric as New England weather
the stiff wind of her mind, stinging or gentle,
blew two half imagined lovers off.
Yet legend won't explain the sheer sanity
of vision, the serious mischief
of language,...Read more of this...

Feb. 29 1958

by Allen Ginsberg
 Last nite I dreamed of T.S. Eliot
welcoming me to the land of dream
Sofas couches fog in England
Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows
curtains on his windows, fog seeping in
the chimney but a nice warm house 
and an incredibly sweet hooknosed
Eliot he loved me, put me up,
gave me a couch to sleep on,
conversed kindly, took me serious
asked my opinion on Mayakovsky
I...Read more of this...

A Sign-Seeker

by Thomas Hardy
 I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry,
The day-tides many-shaped and hued;
I see the nightfall shades subtrude,
And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by.

I view the evening bonfires of the sun
On hills where morning rains have hissed;
The eyeless countenance of the mist
Pallidly rising when the summer droughts are done.

I have seen the lightning-blade, the leaping star,
The caldrons of...Read more of this...

Mr. Mistoffelees

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 You ought to know Mr. Mistoffelees!
The Original Conjuring Cat--
(There can be no doubt about that).
Please listen to me and don't scoff. All his
Inventions are off his own bat.
There's no such Cat in the metropolis;
He holds all the patent monopolies
For performing suprising illusions
And creating eccentric confusions.
At prestidigitation
And at legerdemain
He'll defy examination
And deceive you again.
The greatest magicians have something to learn
From...Read more of this...

Gyroscope

by Howard Nemerov
 This admirable gadget, when it is
Wound on a string and spun with steady force,
Maintains its balance on most any smooth
Surface, pleasantly humming as it goes.
It is whirled not on a constant course, but still
Stands in unshivering integrity
For quite some time, meaning nothing perhaps
But being something agreeable to watch,
A silver nearly silence gleaning a still-
ness out of speed, composing unity
From...Read more of this...

the adventures (from frederick and the enchantress – dance drama)

by Rg Gregory
  (i) introduction

  his home in ruins
  his parents gone
  frederick seeks
  to reclaim his throne

   to the golden mountain
   he sets his path
   the enchantress listening
   schemes with wrath

  four desperate trials
  which she takes from store
  to silence frederick
  for ever...Read more of this...

If Nature smiles -- the Mother must

by Emily Dickinson
 If Nature smiles -- the Mother must
I'm sure, at many a whim
Of Her eccentric Family --
Is She so much to blame?...Read more of this...

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