Famous Ex Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Ex poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous ex poems. These examples illustrate what a famous ex poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Larkin, Philip
...Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
Whatever they are,
As bribes to teach them how to execute
Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and
On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
By private car.
Such uncorrected visions end in church
Or registrar:
A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
Nippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme
With money; illness; a...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...and in dreams.
3
Luck, where did I leave you?
By the paddling pool in Eastend Park,
In the seawave as I explored the green
Springs of my birth, in the bare hedges
Of Knostrop where I began this present
Pilgrimage by Joyce Summersgill’s side
As she ran from the shouting man and in
Disarray began this never-ending flight
And still at fifty-four I run, I know not
Why or where and death cannot be far
From this half-open door.
For luck I count each c...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...le Hill - her savage spirit broods.
I remember trying to teach there, at Bradley, where the head
Was some kind of ex-P.T. teacher, who thought poetry something
You did to children and his workaholic jackass deputy, obsessed
With practical science and lesson preparation and team teaching
And everything on, above and beneath the earth except ‘The Education
Of the Poetic Spirit’ and without that and as an example of what
Pound meant about how a country treats ...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...the posh anthologies
Where Penguin and Picador fill the pages
With the boring poetasters you went for in your rages,
Ex-friends like Harrison who missed you out.
You never could see the envy in their enmity.
Longley was the worst, a hypocrite to boot,
All you said about him never did come out;
I’ve tried myself to nail others of that ilk
Hither and thither they slide and slither
And crawl out of the muck white as brides’
Fat with OBE’s, sinecures and sighs
...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...n.
New rocks and fountains, blocks of carven marble, fluted pillars
uprearing
antique temples, vases and urns in unexpected places, bridges of
stone,
bridges of wood, arbours and statues, and a flood of flowers everywhere,
new flowers, rare flowers, parterre after parterre of flowers. Indeed,
the roses bloom at Malmaison. It is youth, youth untrammeled
and advancing,
trundling a country ahead of it as though it were a hoop. Laughter,
and spur janglings in t...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...school;
Instructed them in warlike trade,
And new manoeuvres of parade,
The true war-dance of Yankee reels,
And manual exercise of heels;
Made them give up, like saints complete,
The arm of flesh, and trust the feet,
And work, like Christians undissembling,
Salvation out, by fear and trembling;
Taught Percy fashionable races,
And modern modes of Chevy-Chases:
From Boston, in his best array,
Great 'Squire M'Fingal took his way,
And graced with ensigns of renown,
Steer'd homew...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...'re grieved---still Niobe's the grander!
You live---there's the Racers' frieze to follow:
You die---there's the dying Alexander.
XIV.
So, testing your weakness by their strength,
Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty,
Measured by Art in your breadth and length,
You learned---to submit is a mortal's duty.
---When I say ``you'' 'tis the common soul,
The collective, I mean: the race of Man
That receives life in parts to live in a whole,
And grow here according...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ings whatsoever ye would that men should
do to you, do ye even so to them . . . There will be no need
for explosives, " they said.
America needs no other proof. The Red shadow of the
Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse has fallen across Ameri-
ca, and San Francisco is its stable.
Obsolete is the mad rapist's legendary piece of candy. At
this very moment, Communist agents are handing out Witness
for trout fishing in America peace tracts to i...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...o laundromat. He was sitting in
his wheelchair with closed eyes staring out the window.
There was a tranquil expression on his face. He almost
looked human. He had probably fallen asleep while he was
having his brains washed in one of the machines.
Weeks passed and we never got around to shipping Trout
Fishing in America Shorty away to Nelson Algren. We kept
putting it off. One thing and another. Then we lost our gold-
en opportunity ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...he sky and they worked their way onto the sun.
Then you almost needed candles to fish by, and foxfire in
your reflexes.
Once I was in there when it started raining. It was dark
and hot and steamy. I was of course on overtime. I had that
going in my favor. I caught seven trout in fifteen minutes.
The trout in those telephone booths were good fellows.
There were a lot of young cutthroat trout six to nine inches
long, perfect pan size fo...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
... It is the
only furniture I have ever seen in my life that looks like baby
food.
And the Lysol sits asleep next to an old Italian pensioner
who listens to the heavy ticking of the clock and dreams of
eternity's golden pasta, sweet basil and Jesus Christ.
The Chinese are always doing something to the hotel. One
week they paint a lower banister and the next week they put
some new wallpaper on part of the third floor.
No matter how many times you ...Read more of this...
by
Alger, Julie Hill
...t her finger
on the picture of the water buffalo
and spoke its Khmer name once more.
So today, when someone (my ex-
husband) sends me a shiny picture
of a church in Santa Cruz that lost
its steeple in the recent earthquake
there's no reason at all
for my throat to ache at the sight
of a Pacific-blue sky and an old church
three thousand miles away, because
if I can only save enough money
I can go back there any time
and stay as long as I want.
-Julie Alg...Read more of this...
by
Tzara, Tristan
...s hyperaes-
theticized and hypnotized by the hyacinths
of the hypocritical-looking muezzins
CONSOLIDATE THE HARVEST OF EX-
ACT CALCULATIONS
Hypodrome of immortal guarantees: there is
no such thing as importance there is no transparence
or appearance
MUSICIANS SMASH YOUR INSTRUMENTS
BLIND MEN take the stage
THE SYRINGE is only for my understanding. I write because it is
natural exactly the way I piss the way I'm sick
ART NEEDS AN OPERATION
Art is a PRETENSION warme...Read more of this...
by
Edgar, Marriott
...e'd been a King's sergeant,
Kind of rankled... you know what I mean.
He said "I come back to the Army,
Expecting my country's thanks,
And the first thing I find when I get here,
Is that I've been reduced to the ranks.
He found all the lads sympathetic,
They agreed that 'twere a disgrace,
Except one old chap in the corner,
With a nutcracker kind of a face.
Said the old fella, "Who do you think you are?
The last to appear on the scene,
And you start o...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...Re-visited’)
What was it Janice Simmons said to me as James lay dying in Ireland?
“Phone Peter Pegnall in Leeds, an ex-pupil of Jimmy’s. He’s organising
A benefit reading, he’d love to hear from you and have your help.”
‘Like hell he would’ I thought but I phoned him all the same
At his converted farmhouse at Barswill, a Lecturer in Creative Writing
At the uni. But what’s he written, I wondered, apart from his CV?
“Well I am organising a reading but o...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.
shot down like an ex-pug selling
dailies on the corner.
taken by tears like
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.
a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.
the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail---
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.
and ever...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...white flowers, beautiful to view.
Amongst those present at the interment were Mr Marjoribanks, M.P.,
Also ex-Provost Ballingall from Bonnie Dundee;
Besides the Honourable W. G. Colville, representing the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh,
While in every one's face standing at the grave was depicted sorrow.
The funeral service was conducted in the Church of Cockpen
By the Rev. J. Crabb, of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, town of Brechin;
And ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...retched
Full straight and even lay his jolly shode*. *head of hair
His rode* was red, his eyen grey as goose, *complexion
With Paule's windows carven on his shoes
In hosen red he went full fetisly*. *daintily, neatly
Y-clad he was full small and properly,
All in a kirtle* of a light waget*; *girdle **sky blue
Full fair and thicke be the pointes set,
And thereupon he had a gay surplice,
As white as is the blossom on the rise*. *twig
A merry child he was, ...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...l fondly, dote, on the past.
8. Souter: cobbler; Scottice, "sutor;"' from Latin, "suere," to
sew.
9. "Ex sutore medicus" (a surgeon from a cobbler) and "ex
sutore nauclerus" (a seaman or pilot from a cobbler) were both
proverbial expressions in the Middle Ages.
10. Half past prime: half-way between prime and tierce; about
half-past seven in the morning.
11. Set his hove; like "set their caps;" as in the description of
the Manciple in the Pr...Read more of this...
by
Xavier, Emanuel
...rape women
and blame them for their weaknesses
Children are still molested
by the perversion of Catholic guilt
My ex-boyfriend still takes comfort
in the other white powder-
the one used solely to destroy himself
and those around him
Not the one used to ignite and create carnage
or mailbox fear
5.
It is said when skin is cut,
and then pressed together, it seals
but what about acid-burned skulls
engraved with the word ‘******’,
a foot bone with flesh
...Read more of this...
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