Famous Label Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Label poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous label poems. These examples illustrate what a famous label poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ted the drab role
Life assigned me, an actor playing
To the past's audience upon a stage
Of earth and stone; the absurd label
Of birth, of race hanging askew
About my shoulders. I was in prison
Until you came; your voice was a key
Turning in the enormous lock
Of hopelessness. Did the door open
To let me out or yourselves in?...Read more of this...
by
Thomas, R S
...sea;
Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.
This is a face of bitter herbs—this an emetic—they need no label;
And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog’s-lard.
This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry,
Its veins down the neck distended, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites,
Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn’d-in nails,
The man falls struggling and foaming to the gro...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...a state
the lonely cannot reach
it carries a grandeur
that doesn't fit into
bed-sitters or rejected
ideas - it's the label stuck
on the bottle after
the tables have gone...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...yes, to keep from scaring her.
On her dresser is one of those old glass bottles
of Jergen's Lotion with the black label, a little round
bottle of Mum deodorant, a white plastic tray
with Avon necklaces and earrings, pennies, paper clips,
and a large black coat button. I appear to be very
interested in these objects, even interested in the sun
through the blinds. It falls across her face, and not,
as she changes the bed. She would rather have clean sheets...Read more of this...
by
Brown, Fleda
...I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep my eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember t...Read more of this...
by
Brooks, Gwendolyn
...erica Shorty
could be the first piece in an important collection.
We would nail him up in a packing crate with a big label
on it.
Contents:
Trout Fishing in America Shorty
Occupation:
Wine
Address:
C/O Nelson Algren
Chicago
And there would be stickers all over the crate, saying:
"GLASS/HANDLE WITH CARE/SPECIAL HANDLING/GLASS
/DON'T SPILL/THIS SIDE UP/HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE
WAS AN ANGEL"
And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, grumbling, puking
and cu...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...
Thought I: To sell these pictures two
I never will be able;
There's only one thing I can do,
That's change around the label.
The rotund one I called a Sphere,
The cornered one a Square . . .
And yet, I thought: It's very *****,
Unbought they linger there.
Then strange as it may well appear,
Derision did I bare,
And blandly dubbed the Square a Sphere
And tabbed the Sphere a Square.
Behold the answer I had found,
For to my glad dismay
The curious came crowding round:
A sold ...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...Oh how it would enable me
To titillate my vanity
If you should choose to label me
A Poet of Profanity!
For I've been known with vulgar slang
To stoke the Sacred Fire,
And even used a word like 'hang',
Suggesting ire.
Yea, I've been slyly told, although
It savours of inanity,
In print the ladies often show
A failing for profanity.
So to delight the dears I try,
And often in the past
In fabricating sonnets I
Have fulminated...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ed bone,
The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters
Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,
The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt....Read more of this...
by
Pinsky, Robert
...seldom.
I am the man they call the nation's backbone,
Who am boneless - playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.
I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.
I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round...Read more of this...
by
Tessimond, A S J
...said it were in the ab-domain
And not in the stummick at all.
He sent up a bottle of physick,
With instructions on t' label to say,
'To be taken in a recumbent posture,
One teaspoon, three times a day.'
As Ma stood there reading the label
Pa started to fidget about.
He said 'Get a teaspoon and dose him,
Before he gets better without.'
'I can manage the teaspoon' said Mother
A look of distress on her face.
'It's this 'ere recumbent posture...
I haven't got one in the place...Read more of this...
by
Edgar, Marriott
...Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez,
The little white dog on the Victor label
Listens long and hard as he is able.
It's all in a day's work, whatever plays.
From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained.
He even listens earnestly to Bloch,
Then builds a church upon our acid rock.
He's man's--no--he's the Leiermann's best friend,
Or would be if hearing and listening were the same.
Does he hear?I fancy he rather smells
Those le...Read more of this...
by
Merrill, James
...teen green bottles with nothing inside.
It never bleeds, it never heals, it is a soup can left on the back shelf,
the label worn off.
It is the corner of a house, the beginning of a wall.
At night it changes shape, it lies on one side, casting jagged shadows.
It brightens where my tongue touches it.
Richard's eyes were this color, a pale fruit, honeydew.
When I swing it over my head I swear it could lift me.
If I jump from a bridge it would drag me down, the current c...Read more of this...
by
Flynn, Nick
...fancy shooting a man dead for an old label
but think
if there weren't any old labels
nobody would ever be shot dead
and all those poor people
whose livelihood depends on making guns
would have to be left to starve
make up your mind
who would you sooner see living
men with bullets in them
or thousands of ordinary people
going about their decent business
there's a lot to thank old labels f...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...with stumps chalked on the coal-grate for our wicket,
and every one bought now by 'coloured chaps',
dad's most liberal label as he felt
squeezed by the unfamiliar, and fear
of foreign food and faces, when he smelt
curry in the shop where he'd bought beer.
And growing frailer, 'wobbly on his pins',
the shops he felt familiar with withdrew
which meant much longer tiring treks for tins
that had a label on them that he knew.
And as the shops that stocked his favourites receded...Read more of this...
by
Harrison, Tony
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