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Famous Intelligent Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...But
  O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
  It's so elegant
  So intelligent                                                          130
  "What shall I do now? What shall I do?"
  I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
  "With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
  "What shall we ever do?"
                                       The hot water at ten.
  And if it rains, a closed car at four.
  And w...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)



...and an out?

How did I ever fall for a paper-clip?
How could I ever listen to office gossip
even in bed and find it so intelligent?
Was is straight biological bent?

I suppose you go jogging together?
Tackle the Ridgeway in nasty weather?
Face force 55 gales and chat about prep
or how you bested that Birmingham rep?

He must be mad with excitement.
So must you. What an incitement
to lust all those press-ups must be.
Or is it just the same? PE?

Tell me, I'm curious. Is it fu...Read more of this...
by Raine, Craig
...il,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man, -- and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions ; yet, obtuse to me, 
Of me, incurious ! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion, -- ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness, --
Too light a book for a grave man's reading ! Go,
Auror...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...andy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs. 

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs. 

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up. 

In ...Read more of this...
by Piercy, Marge
...the historic funeral
Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-
 hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased
who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive

 February 22, 1997...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen



...wn, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned....Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...opinion on Mayakovsky
I read him Corso Creeley Kerouac
advised Burroughs Olson Huncke
the bearded lady in the Zoo, the
intelligent puma in Mexico City
6 chorus boys from Zanzibar
who chanted in wornout polygot
Swahili, and the rippling rythyms
of Ma Rainey and Vachel Lindsay.
On the Isle of the Queen
we had a long evening's conversation
Then he tucked me in my long 
red underwear under a silken 
blanket by the fire on the sofa
gave me English Hottie
and went off sadly to his...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...orgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! 
 bodies! suffering! magnanimity! 
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent 
 kindness of the soul! 

 Berkeley 1955...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,
who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,
who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filt...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...the autumn I'll put up jellies
and preserves, against the winter cold and futility,
and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well.
I won't be embarrassed by my friends' dumb remarks,
or even my own, though admittedly that's the hardest part,
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn't even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. Well he's 
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a c...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...lucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine....Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo
...lucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine....Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo
...tops their eyries build: 
Part loosely wing the region, part more wise 
In common, ranged in figure, wedge their way, 
Intelligent of seasons, and set forth 
Their aery caravan, high over seas 
Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing 
Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane 
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; the air 
Floats as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes: 
From branch to branch the smaller birds with song 
Solaced the woods, and spread their painted w...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ir tongues, and be their talk?
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise—
His lot who dares be singularly good.
The intelligent among them and the wise
Are few, and glory scarce of few is raised.
This is true glory and renown—when God, 
Looking on the Earth, with approbation marks
The just man, and divulges him through Heaven
To all his Angels, who with true applause
Recount his praises. Thus he did to Job,
When, to extend his fame through Heaven and Earth,
As thou to thy...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ily be obtained from a white cat.

 Then they decided that the fleas that lived on Siamese

Cats would probably be more intelligent than the fleas that

lived on just ordinary alley cats. It only made sense that

drinking intelligent blood would make intelligent fleas.

 And so it went on until it was exhausted and we went and

bought another fifth of port wine and returned to the trees

and Benjamin Franklin.

 Now it was close to sunset and the earth was beginning to

cool ...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...h and big feet, men
who look like frogs, hyenas, men who walk
as if melody had never been invented, men
who think it is intelligent to hire and fire and
profit, men with expensive wives they possess
like 60 acres of ground to be drilled
or shown-off or to be walled away from
the incompetent, men who'd kill you
because they're crazy and justify it because
it's the law, men who stand in front of
windows 30 feet wide and see nothing,
men with luxury yachts who can sail around
th...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles
...ding there like a gray stone toga as the whole wheel
Of recorded history flashes past, struck dumb, unable to 
utter an intelligent
Comment on the most thought-provoking element in its train.
Only love stays on the brain, and something these people,
These other ones, call life. Singing accurately
So that the notes mount straight up out of the well of
Dim noon and rival the tiny, sparkling yellow flowers
Growing around the brink of the quarry, encapsulizes
The different weight...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...eyes.
"Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?"
 But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag -
It's so elegant
So intelligent 
"What shall I do now? What shall I do?"
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
"With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
"What shall we ever do?"

The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
When Lil's husband got dem...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...unk told me about troutfishing. When he could talk,

 he had a way of describing trout as if they were a precious

 and intelligent metal.

 Silver is not a good adjective to describe what I felt when

he told me about trout fishing.

 I'd like to get it right.

 Maybe trout steel. Steel made from trout. The clear

snow-filled river acting as foundry and heat.

 Imagine Pittsburgh.

 A steel that comes from trout, used to make buildings,

 trains and tunnels.

 The Andrew Car...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...e do what prisoners do, 
And what the jobless do: 
We cultivate hope. 

*** 
A country preparing for dawn. We grow less intelligent 
For we closely watch the hour of victory: 
No night in our night lit up by the shelling 
Our enemies are watchful and light the light for us 
In the darkness of cellars. 

*** 
Here there is no "I". 
Here Adam remembers the dust of his clay. 

*** 
On the verge of death, he says: 
I have no trace left to lose:
Free I am so close to my liberty. M...Read more of this...
by Darwish, Mahmoud

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things