Famous Meant Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Meant poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous meant poems. These examples illustrate what a famous meant poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Audre Lorde
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Outer -- from the Inner
Derives its Magnitude --
'Tis Duke, or Dwarf, according
As is the Central Mood --
The fine -- unvarying Axis
That regulates the Wheel --
Though Spokes -- spin -- more conspicuous
And fling a dust -- the while.
The Inner -- paints the Outer --
The Brush without the Hand --
Its Picture publishes -- precise --
As is the inner Brand --
On...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Some good people, daring & subtle voices
and their tense faces, as I think of it
I see sank underground.
I see. My radar digs. I do not dig.
Cool their flushing blood, them eyes is shut-”
eyes?
Appalled: by all the dead: Henry brooded.
Without exception! All.
ALL.
The senior population waits. Come down! come down!
A ghastly & flashing pause, clothed,
life called; us do.
In a madhouse heard...Read more of this...
by
Mark Doty
The priest never used blueprints, but worked all
the many designs out of his head.
Father Wilerus,
transplanted Alsatian,
built around
this plain Wisconsin
redbrick church
a coral-reef en-
crustation--meant,
the brochure says,
to glorify America
and heaven simul-
taneously. Thus:
Mary and Columbus
and the Sacred Heart
equally enthroned
in a fantasia of quartz
and seashells, broken
dishes, stalactites
and stick-shift knobs--
no separation
of nature and art
for Father Wilerus!
He's built fabulous blooms
--bristling mosaic tiles
bunched into chipped,
permanent roses---
and more...Read more of this...
by
James Tate
Napoleon's hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous
hat, but that's not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for
show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all hon-
esty wasn't much different than the one any jerk might buy at a
corner drugstore now, except for two minor eccentricities. The
first...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Somebody who should have been born
is gone.
Just as the earth puckered its mouth,
each bud puffing out from its knot,
I changed my shoes, and then drove south.
Up past the Blue Mountains, where
Pennsylvania humps on endlessly,
wearing, like a crayoned cat, its green hair,
its roads sunken in like a gray washboard;
where, in truth, the ground...Read more of this...
by
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
My Lady (Español)
Perdite, señora, quiero
de mi silencio perdón,
si lo que ha sido atención
le hace parecer grosero.
Y no me podrás culpar
si hasta aquí mi proceder,
por ocuparse en querer,
se ha olvidado de explicar.
Que en mi amorosa pasión
no fue desuido, ni mengua,
quitar el uso a la lengua
por dárselo al corazón.
...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
This was the way of it, don't you know --
Ryan was "wanted" for stealing sheep,
And never a trooper, high or low,
Could find him -- catch a weasel asleep!
Till Trooper Scott, from the Stockman's Ford --
A bushman, too, as I've heard them tell --
Chanced to find him drunk as a lord
Round at the...Read more of this...
by
Lisel Mueller
Such insignificance: a glance
at your record on the doctor's desk
or a letter not meant for you.
How could you have known? It's not true
that your life passes before you
in rapid motion, but your watch
suddenly ticks like an amplified heart,
the hands freezing against a white
that is a judgment. Otherwise nothing.
The face in the mirror is still yours.
Two men pass on the...Read more of this...
by
Anna Akhmatova
I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . .
"Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?"
-- Because I have made my loved one drunk
with an astringent sadness.
I'll never forget. He went out, reeling;
his mouth was twisted, desolate. . .
I ran downstairs, not touching the banisters,
and followed him as far as the gate.
And shouted, choking: "I meant it all
in...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Hence, vain deluding Joys,
............The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested
............Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
............And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
............As the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
............The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
In Lake Forest, a suburb of Chicago,
a woman sits at her desk to write
me a letter. She holds a photograph
of me up to the light, one taken
17 years ago in a high school class
in Providence. She sighs, and the sigh
smells of mouthwash and tobacco.
If she were writing by candlelight
she would now be in the dark, for
a living flame would...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
Old man in the crystal morning after snow,
Your throat swathed in a muffler, your bent
Figure building the snow man which is meant
For the grandchild's target,
do you know
This fat cartoon, his eyes pocked in with coal
Nears you each time your breath smokes the air,
Lewdly grinning out of a private nightmare?
He is the white cold shadow of your soul.
You build...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I meant to have but modest needs --
Such as Content -- and Heaven --
Within my income -- these could lie
And Life and I -- keep even --
But since the last -- included both --
It would suffice my Prayer
But just for One -- to stipulate --
And Grace would grant the Pair --
And so -- upon this wise -- I prayed...Read more of this...
by
Jonathan Swift
As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I meant to find Her when I came --
Death -- had the same design --
But the Success -- was His -- it seems --
And the Surrender -- Mine --
I meant to tell Her how I longed
For just this single time --
But Death had told Her so the first --
And she had past, with Him --
To wander -- now --...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
had a song
wound up inside her
she'd had it taped
on a silken spool
this was the song
she sang as a rule
o little fly
come be my friend
i have fly's gold
for you to spend
i'll wrap you in silks
to make you pretty
if you refuse
then more's the pity
the silk-voice warbled
through the wood
the best bird-song
didn't seem so good
but no flies came
they were...Read more of this...
by
John Milton
Aug. 14. 1653.
Upon The Words Of Chush The Benjamite Against Him.
Lord my God to thee I flie
Save me and secure me under
Thy protection while I crie
Least as a Lion (and no wonder)
He hast to tear my Soul asunder
Tearing and no rescue nigh.
Lord my God if I have thought
Or done this, if wickedness
Be in my hands, if I have wrought
Ill...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Behold I bring you tidings of great joy-”
especially now that the snow & gale are still-”
for Henry is delivered.
Not only is he delivered from the gale
but he has a little one. He's out of jail
also. It is a boy.
Henry's pleasure in this unusual event
reminds me of the extra told at Hollywood & Vine
that TV cameras
were focussed on him personally...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I
He bends his travel-tarnished feet
To where she wastes in clay:
From day-dawn until eve he fares
Along the wintry way;
From day-dawn until eve repairs
Unto her mound to pray.
II
"Are these the gravestone shapes that meet
My forward-straining view?
Or forms that cross a window-blind
In circle, knot, and queue:...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
I was only eight years old;
And before I grew up and knew what it meant
I had no words for it, except
That I was frightened and told my Mother;
And that my Father got a pistol
And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,
Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.
Nevertheless the story clung to me.
But the man who married me,...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
for Daniel Weissbort
Some poems meant only for my eyes
About a grief I can’t let go
But I want to, want to throw
It away like an old worn-out cloak
Or screw up like a ball of over-written
Trash and toss into the corner bin.
I said it must come up or out
I don't know which but either way
Will do, I know I can't write...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
That grace and favour at the first, what meant it?
That lavishing of joy and peace, what meant it?
But now thy purpose is to grieve my heart;
What did I do to cause this change? What meant it?...Read more of this...
by
Bertolt Brecht
When the Academy of Arts demanded freedom
Of artistic expression from narrow-minded bureaucrats
There was a howl and a clamour in its immediate vicinity
But roaring above everything
Came a deafening thunder of applause
From beyond the Sector boundary.
Freedom! it roared. Freedom for the artists!
Freedom all round! Freedom for all!
Freedom for the exploiters! Freedom for the warmongers!
Freedom for the Ruhr cartels! Freedom for Hitler's...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
The miller's wife had waited long,
The tea was cold, the fire was dead;
And there might yet be nothing wrong
In how he went and what he said:
"There are no millers any more,"
Was all that she had heard him say;
And he had lingered at the door
So long that it seemed yesterday.
Sick with a fear that had no form
She knew that she...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Meant poems.