Famous Houston Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Night Words

by Philip Levine
 after Juan Ramon 


A child wakens in a cold apartment. 
The windows are frosted. Outside he hears 
words rising from the streets, words he cannot 
understand, and then the semis gear down 
for the traffic light on Houston. He sleeps 
again and dreams of another city 
on a high hill above a wide river 
bathed in sunlight, and the...Read more of this...

Suitcase

by Charles Webb
 Its silver clasp looks like a man grasping
his hands above his head in victory;
the latches, like twin hatchbacks headed away.

There are no wheels, just four steel nipples for sliding.
A hexagonal seal announces the defunct
"U.S. Trunk Company." The frame is wood—

big, heavy, cheap—covered with imitation leather,
its blue just slightly darker than Mom's eyes.
"It's beautiful. Much too expensive," she told Dad,

and...Read more of this...

Cloud

by Sandra Cisneros
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. 
-Thich Nhat Hanh 

Before you became a cloud, you were an ocean, roiled and
murmuring like a mouth. You were the shadows of a cloud cross-
ing over a field of tulips. You were the tears of a man who cried
into a...Read more of this...

The Death Of Santa Claus

by Charles Webb
 He's had the chest pains for weeks,
but doctors don't make house
calls to the North Pole,

he's let his Blue Cross lapse,
blood tests make him faint,
hospital gown always flap

open, waiting rooms upset
his stomach, and it's only
indigestion anyway, he thinks,

until, feeding the reindeer,
he feels as if a monster fist
has grabbed his heart and won't

stop squeezing. He can't
breathe, and the beautiful white
world he...Read more of this...

I Sing The Body Electric

by Philip Levine
 People sit numbly at the counter 
waiting for breakfast or service. 
Today it's Hartford, Connecticut 
more than twenty-five years after 
the last death of Wallace Stevens. 
I have come in out of the cold 
and wind of a Sunday morning 
of early March, and I seem to be 
crying, but I'm only freezing 
and unpeeled. The waitress brings 
me...Read more of this...

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