Famous Exorcised Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)

by Anne Sexton
 Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here...Read more of this...

A Life

by Sylvia Plath
 Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year ---
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless threadwork of a tapestry.

Flick the glass with your fingernail:
It will ping like a Chinese chime in the slightest air stir
Though nobody in there looks up or bothers to answer.
The inhabitants are light as...Read more of this...

Ode to the Memory of Burns

by Thomas Campbell
 Soul of the Poet ! wheresoe'er,
Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality ;
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.

And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and Strife, at Burn's name,
Exorcised by his memory ;
For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.

And...Read more of this...

The Way I read a Letters -- this --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Way I read a Letter's -- this --
'Tis first -- I lock the Door --
And push it with my fingers -- next --
For transport it be sure --

And then I go the furthest off
To counteract a knock --
Then draw my little Letter forth
And slowly pick the lock --

Then -- glancing narrow, at the Wall --
And narrow at the...Read more of this...

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