Famous Highschool Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Belle Isle 1949

by Philip Levine
 We stripped in the first warm spring night
and ran down into the Detroit River
to baptize ourselves in the brine
of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles,
melted snow. I remember going under
hand in hand with a Polish highschool girl
I'd never seen before, and the cries
our breath made caught at the same time
on the cold, and rising through the layers
of darkness into...Read more of this...

Death and Fame

by Allen Ginsberg
 When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in 
 Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother 
 96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor...Read more of this...

Of All The Ships

by Mihai Eminescu
Of all the ships the ocean rolls 
   How many find untimely graves 
Piled high by you upon the shoals, 
   O waves and winds, o winds and waves? 

  
How many a bird that leaves its bower 
   And o'er the sky in autumn draves 
You beat and blindly  overpower, 
...Read more of this...

Thinking For Berky

by William Stafford
 In the late night listening from bed
I have joined the ambulance or the patrol
screaming toward some drama, the kind of end
that Berky must have some day, if she isn't dead.

The wildest of all, her father and mother cruel,
farming out there beyond the old stone quarry
where highschool lovers parked their lurching cars,
Berky learned to love in that dark school.

Early her...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Highschool poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace