Famous Exceptional Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Against Writing about Children

...hink of the many people
who privately despise children,
I can't say I'm completely shocked,

having been one. I was not
exceptional, uncomfortable as that is
to admit, and most children are not

exceptional. The particulars of
cruelty, sizes Large and X-Large,
memory gnawing it like

a fat dog, are ordinary: Mean Miss
Smigelsky from the sixth grade;
the orthodontist who

slapped you for crying out. Children
frighten us, other people's and
our own. They reflect

the virused fi...Read more of this...
by Belieu, Erin


Bishop Blougrams Apology

...shade's so much more potent than your flesh. 
What's your reward, self-abnegating friend? 
Stood you confessed of those exceptional 
And privileged great natures that dwarf mine-- 
A zealot with a mad ideal in reach, 
A poet just about to print his ode, 
A statesman with a scheme to stop this war, 
An artist whose religion is his art-- 


I should have nothing to object: such men 
Carry the fire, all things grow warm to them, 
Their drugget's worth my purple, they beat me. 
B...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Henry Clays Mouth

...Senator, statesman, speaker of the House,
exceptional dancer, slim,
graceful, ugly. Proclaimed, before most, slavery
an evil, broker
of elections (burned Jackson
for Adams), took a pistol ball in the thigh
in a duel, delayed, by forty years,
with his compromises, the Civil War,
gambler ("I have always
paid peculiar homage to the fickle goddess"),
boozehound, ladies' man -- which leads us
to his mout...Read more of this...
by Lux, Thomas

I Have Lived With Shades

...n,"
I said, "Of man
So commonplace."

IV

"He moves me not at all:
I note no ray or jot
Of rareness in his lot,
Or star exceptional.
Into the dim
Dead throngs around
He'll sink, nor sound
Be left of him."

V

"Yet," said they, "his frail speech,
Hath accents pitched like thine --
Thy mould and his define
A likeness each to each --
But go! Deep pain
Alas, would be
His name to thee,
And told in vain!"...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

I Have Lived With Shades

...said, "Of man 
 So commonplace. 

IV 

"He moves me not at all; 
I note no ray or jot 
Of rareness in his lot, 
Or star exceptional. 
 Into the dim 
 Dead throngs around 
 He'll sink, nor sound 
 Be left of him." 

V 

"Yet," said they, "his frail speech, 
Hath accents pitched like thine - 
Thy mould and his define 
A likeness each to each - 
 But go! Deep pain 
 Alas, would be 
 His name to thee, 
 And told in vain!" 

"O memory, where is now my youth, 
Who used to say that ...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas


Next Day

...d, operated-on, dressed body
Were my face and body.
As I think of her and I hear her telling me

How young I seem; I am exceptional;
I think of all I have.
But really no one is exceptional,
No one has anything, I'm anybody,
I stand beside my grave
Confused with my life, that is commonplace and solitary....Read more of this...
by Jarrell, Randall

Three Women

...requently.
I have papered his room with big roses,
I have painted little hearts on everything.

I do not will him to be exceptional.
It is the exception that interests the devil.
It is the exception that climbs the sorrowful hill
Or sits in the desert and hurts his mother's heart.
I will him to be common,
To love me as I love him,
And to marry what he wants and where he will.

THIRD VOICE:
Hot noon in the meadows. The buttercups
Swelter and melt, and the lovers
Pass by, pass ...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

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