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Famous Inventory Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...en know all ye whom it concerns,
Subscripsi huic, ROBERT BURNS.MOSSGIEL, February 22, 1786.


 Note 1. The “Inventory” was addressed to Mr. Aitken of Ayr, surveyor of taxes for the district. [back]
Note 2. Kilmarnock.—R. B. [back]...Read more of this...



by Cheney-Coker, Syl
...'s children,
we shall plant a eureka supported by a blood knot.
And remorse not being theirs to feel,
I offer an inventory of abuse by these men,
with this wretched earth on my palms,
so as to remind them of our stilted growth
the length of a cutlass, or if you prefer
the size of our burnt-out brotherhood....Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...stetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter or son;
Here's the phenomenon all complete,
It's got two hands, it's got two feet,
Only natural, but pleasing, because
For months you have dreamed of flippers or claws.
Furthermore, it is full...Read more of this...

by Parker, Dorothy
...Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye....Read more of this...

by Padel, Ruth
...d, blood-tufted,

rushes over him like a white bowl
at the end of things, the little safe horizon
of a pilot's dial,
an inventory of therapeutic gems....Read more of this...



by Boland, Eavan
...ce here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
 Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved....Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...I have a pack of letters,
I have a pack of memories.
I could cut out the eyes of both.
I could wear them like a patchwork apron.
I could stick them in the washer, the drier,
and maybe some of the pain would float off like dirt?
Perhaps down the disposal I could grind up the loss.
Besides -- what a bargain -- no expensive phone calls.
No...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...therwise employed,
Stole in and took a strict survey
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
An inventory follows here.
And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the arm-pits well besmeared.
Strephon, the rogue, displayed it wide
And turned it round on every side.
On such a point few words are best,
And Strephon bids us guess the rest;
And swears how damnably the men lie
In calling Celia sweet and cleanly.
Now listen while he next produ...Read more of this...

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