Famous Ignored Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Rabbi Ben Ezra

by Robert Browning
 Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed 'Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned 'Nor...Read more of this...

James Simmons R.i.p

by Barry Tebb
 You were the one I wanted most to know

So like yet unlike, like fire and snow,

The casual voice, the sharp invective,

The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant

Who never gave a ****, crossed the palms

Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt

For the fakers and the tricksters whose poetry

Deftly bent to fashion’s latest slant.



You wrote from the heart,...Read more of this...

The Lesson

by Roger McGough
 Chaos ruled OK in the classroom
as bravely the teacher walked in
the nooligans ignored him
hid voice was lost in the din

"The theme for today is violence
and homework will be set
I'm going to teach you a lesson
one that you'll never forget"

He picked on a boy who was shouting
and throttled him then and there
then garrotted the girl behind him
(the one with grotty...Read more of this...

Love After Love

by Derek Walcott
 The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you...Read more of this...

starling

by Rg Gregory
 a starling sat on the roof 
(i don't know how young)
croaking in an old man's voice
cross with the dapper world

after five minutes or so
it flew away - its grouse over
it was like its feathers
rough and unperturbed

i don't suppose it was educated
the other birds ignored it
it was being raucous - yes
and probably obscene

it touched me to the heart
straight out of...Read more of this...

Our Son

by Barry Tebb
 Quarter to three: I wake again at the hour of his birth

Thirty years ago and now he paces corridors of dark

In nightmares of self-condemnation where random thoughts

Besiege his fevered imagination – England’s 

Imminent destruction, his own, the world’s…

Sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, unavailing depot injections,

Failed abscondings, failed everything: Eton and Balliol

Hold no sway on ward one, nor even...Read more of this...

Roast Leviathan

by Louis Untermeyer
"Old Jews!" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash!... They were right,
The little goyim, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert...Read more of this...

Boo to Buddha

by Aleister Crowley
 So it is eighteen years,
Helena, since we met!
A season so endears,
Nor you nor I forget
The fresh young faces that once clove
In that most fiery dawn of love.

We wandered to and fro,
Who knew not how to woo,
Those eighteen years ago,
Sweetheart, when I and you
Exchanged high vows in heaven's sight
That scarce survived a summer's night.

What scourge smote from the stars
What madness...Read more of this...

The New Ergonomics

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...

Account

by Czeslaw Milosz
 The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, thought it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I...Read more of this...

Saint Judas

by James Wright
 When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this...Read more of this...

Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 There's a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail's ready to depart,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can't start."
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster's daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble for unless he's very nimble
Then the Night...Read more of this...

Hildrup Tubbs

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I made two fights for the people.
First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon
Of independence, for reform, and was defeated.
Next I used my rebel strength
To capture the standard of my old party --
And I captured it, but I was defeated.
Discredited and discarded, misanthropical,
I turned to the solace of gold
And I used my remnant of power
To fasten myself like a...Read more of this...

Something in me was born before the stars

by Fernando Pessoa
Something in me was born before the stars

And saw the sun begin from far away.

Our yellow, local day on its wont jars,

For it hath communed with an absolute day.

Through my Thought's night, as a worn robe's heard trail

That I have never seen, I drag this past

That saw the Possible like a dawn grow pale

On the lost night before it, mute...Read more of this...

Letter To Kizer From Seattle

by Richard Hugo
 Dear Condor: Much thanks for that telephonic support
from North Carolina when I suddenly went ape
in the Iowa tulips. Lord, but I'm ashamed.
I was afraid, it seemed, according to the doctor
of impending success, winning some poetry prizes
or getting a wet kiss. The more popular I got,
the softer the soft cry in my head: Don't believe them.
You were never good. Then...Read more of this...

Dockery And Son

by Philip Larkin
 'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he?' said the Dean. 'His son's here now.'
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. 'And do
You keep in touch with-' Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
'Our version' of 'these incidents last night'?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell...Read more of this...

My Felisberto

by Edward Taylor
 My felisberto is handsomer than your mergotroid,
although, admittedly, your mergotroid may be the wiser of the two. 
Whereas your mergotroid never winces or quails, 
my felisberto is a titan of inconsistencies.
For a night of wit and danger and temptation 
my felisberto would be the obvious choice.
However, at dawn or dusk when serenity is desired 
your mergotroid cannot be ignored.
Merely...Read more of this...

Sonnet 04

by Alan Seeger
 If I was drawn here from a distant place, 
'Twas not to pray nor hear our friend's address, 
But, gazing once more on your winsome face, 
To worship there Ideal Loveliness. 
On that pure shrine that has too long ignored 
The gifts that once I brought so frequently 
I lay this votive offering, to record 
How sweet your quiet...Read more of this...

The New Ergonomics

by Edward Taylor
 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...

My Felisberto

by James Tate
 My felisberto is handsomer than your mergotroid,
although, admittedly, your mergotroid may be the wiser of the two. 
Whereas your mergotroid never winces or quails, 
my felisberto is a titan of inconsistencies.
For a night of wit and danger and temptation 
my felisberto would be the obvious choice.
However, at dawn or dusk when serenity is desired 
your mergotroid cannot be ignored.
Merely...Read more of this...

The Mercy

by Philip Levine
 The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island 
Eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy." 
She remembers trying to eat a banana 
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
in the hands of a young Scot, a seaman 
who gave her a bite and wiped her mouth for her 
with a red bandana and taught her the...Read more of this...

Casey At The Bat

by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, 
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play. 

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, 
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game. 

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. 
The rest clung to that...Read more of this...

The Imaginary Iceberg

by Elizabeth Bishop
 We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship, 
although it meant the end of travel. 
Although it stood stock-still like cloudy rock 
and all the sea were moving marble. 
We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship; 
we'd rather own this breathing plain of snow 
though the ship's sails were laid upon the sea 
as the snow lies undissolved...Read more of this...

from the Ansty Experience

by Rg Gregory
 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...

Sadism

by Ehsan Sehgal
Who promised to live together,
Side by side in the life journey
Forever
But left me in the midway
Broke the promise
Ignored affection and love
No care of the sensitive heart,
Feelings and the emotions
Just for another target
To put anybody either
Into the fire
It is the sadism
And a great tragedy
We Knowingly accept
Destruction of our life and the destiny
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

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