Famous Explanation Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Explanation poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous explanation poems. These examples illustrate what a famous explanation poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Charles Bukowski
"They only burn themselves to reach Paradise"
- Mne. Nhu
original courage is good,
motivation be damned,
and if you say they are trained
to feel no pain,
are they
guarenteed this?
is it still not possible
to die for somebody else?
you sophisticates
who lay back and
make statements of explanation,
I have seen the red rose burning
and this means more....Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
I. THE LION
The Lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.
He cuffs his wife and bites her ears
Till she is nearly moved to tears.
Then some explorer finds the den
And all is family peace again.
II. AN EXPLANATION OF THE GRASSHOPPER
The Grasshopper, the grasshopper,
I will explain to you:—
He...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
PREFACE
If---and the thing is wildly possible---the charge of writing
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line
``Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes''
In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal
indignantly to my other writings...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.
it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.
that's
what it
is.
from blank gun silencer - 1991...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
Seems like a long time
Since the waiter took my order.
Grimy little luncheonette,
The snow falling outside.
Seems like it has grown darker
Since I last heard the kitchen door
Behind my back
Since I last noticed
Anyone pass on the street.
A glass of ice-water
Keeps me company
At this table I chose myself
Upon entering.
And a longing,
Incredible longing
To eavesdrop
On the conversation
Of cooks....Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[The following explanation is necessary, in order
to make this ode in any way intelligible. The Poet is supposed to
leave his companions, who are proceeding on a hunting expedition
in winter, in order himself to pay a visit to a hypochondriacal
friend, and also to see the mining in the Hartz mountains. The ode
alternately describes, in a...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands,
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased
when...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
I bought a run a while ago,
On country rough and ridgy,
Where wallaroos and wombats grow --
The Upper Murrumbidgee.
The grass is rather scant, it's true,
But this a fair exchange is,
The sheep can see a lovely view
By climbing up the ranges.
And She-oak Flat's the station's name,
I'm not surprised at that, sirs:
The...Read more of this...
by
Stevie Smith
Christ died for God and me
Upon the crucifixion tree
For God a spoken Word
For me a Sword
For God a hymn of praise
For me eternal days
For God an explanation
For me salvation....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
RUM tiddy um,
tiddy um,
tiddy um tum tum.
My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves.
I feel like tickling you under the chin—honey—and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road?
When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you—honey—put new potatoes and gravy on the table, and there ain’t too much rain or...Read more of this...
by
Fernando Pessoa
When I have sense of what to sense appears,
Sense is sense ere 'tis mine or mine in me is.
When I hear, Hearing, ere I do hear, hears.
When I see, before me abstract Seeing sees.
I am part Soul part I in all I touch--
Soul by that part I hold in common with all,
And I the spoiled part, that doth make sense...Read more of this...
by
Erin Belieu
Writing from Boston, where sky is simply
property, a flourish topping crowds
of condos and historic real estate,
I'm trying to imagine blue sky:
the first time, where it happened,
what I was becoming. Being taken there
by car, from a town so newly born that grass
still accounted all distance, an explanation
drawn in measureless yellows, a tone
stubbling the whole world, ten minutes away.
Consider now how...Read more of this...
by
Belinda Subraman
past the hippies
past Ravi Shankar
eons before
when the first Asian snake
came alive
stiffened with sound
through some empty shell
some hollow wood
some emptiness
the snake
was not so much charmed
as listening intently
to the accidental flute
to that which he knew
must be female
its empty insides
calling him
with breath music
and he joined in
for awhile
finding a rang of sounds
he’d never heard
then peace
and a new religion
practiced in places
where snakes...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
LEADER.
LET no cares now hover o'er us
Let the wine unsparing run!
Wilt thou swell our merry chorus?
Hast thou all thy duty done?
SOLO.
Two young folks--the thing is curious--
Loved each other; yesterday
Both quite mild, to-day quite furious,
Next day, quite the deuce to pay!
If her neck she there was stooping,
He must here needs pull his hair.
I revived their spirits drooping,
And they're now a...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
MANHATTAN’S streets I saunter’d, pondering,
On time, space, reality—on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence.
2
After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence;
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality.
The Soul is of itself;
All verges to it—all has reference to what ensues;
All that a person does,...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Love and Death once ceased their strife
At the Tavern of Man's Life.
Called for wine, and threw -- alas! --
Each his quiver on the grass.
When the bout was o'er they found
Mingled arrows strewed the ground.
Hastily they gathered then
Each the loves and lives of men.
Ah, the fateful dawn deceived!
Mingled arrows each one sheaved;
Death's dread armoury was stored
With the shafts he most...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The farthest Thunder that I heard
Was nearer than the Sky
And rumbles still, though torrid Noons
Have lain their missiles by --
The Lightning that preceded it
Struck no one but myself --
But I would not exchange the Bolt
For all the rest of Life --
Indebtedness to Oxygen
The Happy may repay,
But not the obligation
To Electricity --
It founds the Homes and decks the Days
And every...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong
Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame,
Breathes once and, quenchèd faster than it came,
Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.
Nine months she then, nay years, nine years she long
Within her wears, bears, cares and moulds the same:
The widow of an insight lost she lives, with aim
Now known and hand...Read more of this...
by
James Tate
The new ergonomics were delivered
just before lunchtime
so we ignored them.
Without revealing the particulars
let me just say that
lunch was most satisfying.
Jack and Roberta went with
the corned beef for a change.
Jack believes in alien abduction
and Roberta does not,
although she has had
several lost weekends lately
and one or two unexplained scars
on...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
I--THE EXPLANATION
"You thought we knew," she said, "but we were wrong.
This we can say, the rest we do not say;
Nor do I let you throw yourself away
Because you love me. Let us both be strong,
And we shall find in sorrow, before long,
Only the price Love ruled that we should pay:
The dark is the...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
MY DEAR LADY GRANVILLE,--
THE reluctance which must naturally be felt by any one in
venturing to give to the world a book such as the present, where
the beauties of the great original must inevitably be diminished,
if not destroyed, in the process of passing through the
translator's hands, cannot but be felt in all its force when that
translator has not penetrated beyond...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I asked of ancient gaffers three
The way of their ripe living,
And this is what they told to me
Without Misgiving.
The First: 'The why I've lived so long,
To my fond recollection
Is that for women, wine and song
I've had a predilection.
Full many a bawdy stave I've sung
With wenches of my choosing,
But of the joys that kept me...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A YOUNG fig-tree its form lifts high
Within a beauteous garden;
And see, a goat is sitting by.
As if he were its warden.
But oh, Quirites, how one errs!
The tree is guarded badly;
For round the other side there whirrs
And hums a beetle madly.
The hero with his well-mail'd coat
Nibbles the branches tall so;
A mighty longing feels the goat
Gently to climb up also.
And so,...Read more of this...
by
Heather McHugh
We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. The Italian literati seemed
bewildered by the language of America: they asked us
what does "flat drink" mean? and the mysterious
"cheap date" (no explanation lessened
this one's mystery). Among Italian writers...Read more of this...
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