Famous Gawky Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Home From Abroad

by Laurie Lee
 Far-fetched with tales of other worlds and ways, 
My skin well-oiled with wines of the Levant, 
I set my face into a filial smile 
To greet the pale, domestic kiss of Kent. 

But shall I never learn? That gawky girl, 
Recalled so primly in my foreign thoughts, 
Becomes again the green-haired queen of love 
Whose wanton form dilates as...Read more of this...

Forest Of Europe

by Derek Walcott
 The last leaves fell like notes from a piano
and left their ovals echoing in the ear;
with gawky music stands, the winter forest
looks like an empty orchestra, its lines
ruled on these scattered manuscripts of snow.

The inlaid copper laurel of an oak
shines though the brown-bricked glass above your head
as bright as whisky, while the wintry breath
of lines from Mandelstam, which you...Read more of this...

98. To Mr. M'Adam of Craigen-Gillan

by Robert Burns
 SIR, o’er a gill I gat your card,
 I trow it made me proud;
“See wha taks notice o’ the bard!”
 I lap and cried fu’ loud.


Now deil-ma-care about their jaw,
 The senseless, gawky million;
I’ll cock my nose abune them a’,
 I’m roos’d by Craigen-Gillan!


’Twas noble, sir; ’twas like yourself’,
 To grant your high protection:
A great man’s smile ye ken...Read more of this...

One Train May Hide Another

by Kenneth Koch
 (sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it...Read more of this...

Craving for Spring

by D. H. Lawrence
 I wish it were spring in the world.

Let it be spring!
Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap!
Come, rush of creation!
Come, life! surge through this mass of mortification!
Come, sweep away these exquisite, ghastly first-flowers,
which are rather last-flowers!
Come, thaw down their cool portentousness, dissolve them:
snowdrops, straight, death-veined exhalations of white and purple crocuses,
flowers of the penumbra, issue of corruption, nourished in mortification,
jets...Read more of this...

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