Famous Out Of Focus Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Evening With John Heath-stubbs

...Alone in Sutton with Fynbos my orange cat

A long weekend of wind and rain drowning

The tumultuous flurry of mid-February blossom

A surfeit of letters to work through, a mountain

Of files to sort, some irritation at the thought

Of travelling to Kentish Town alone when

My mind was flooded with the mellifluous voice

Of Heath-Stubbs on tape reading ‘The...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry


Any Man Speaks

...I, after difficult entry through my mother's blood
And stumbling childhood (hitting my head against the world);
I, intricate, easily unshipped, untracked, unaligned;
Cut off in my communications; stammering; speaking
A dialect shared by you, but not you and you;
I, strangely undeft, bereft; I searching always
For my lost rib (clothed in laughter yet unders...Read more of this...
by Tessimond, A S J

At The Other End Of The Telescope

...the people are very small and shrink,
dwarves on the way to netsuke hell
bound for a flea circus in full
retreat toward sub-atomic particles--
 difficult to keep in focus, the figures
at that end are nearly indistinguishable,
generals at the heads of minute armies
differing little from fishwives,
emperors the same as eskimos
huddled under improvisations of...Read more of this...
by Bradley, George

Be Kind

...indliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is....Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

Christmas Eve

...r the house went to bed, 
I sat up drinking the Christmas brandy, 
watching your picture, 
letting the tree move in and out of focus. 
The bulbs vibrated. 
They were a halo over your forehead. 
Then they were a beehive, 
blue, yellow, green, red; 
each with its own juice, each hot and alive 
stinging your face. But you did not move. 
I continued to watch, forcing myself, 
waiting, inexhaustible, thirty-five. 

I wanted your eyes, like the shadows 
of two small birds, to chang...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne


Deer Dancer

...Nearly everyone had left that bar in the middle of winter except the
hardcore.It was the coldest night of the year, every place shut down, but
not us.Of course we noticed when she came in.We were Indian ruins.She
was the end of beauty.No one knew her, the stranger whose tribe we
recognized, her family related to deer, if that's who she was, a people
accust...Read more of this...
by Harjo, Joy

Dream Song 25: Henry edged decidedly made up stories

...Henry, edged, decidedly, made up stories
lighting the past of Henry, of his glorious
present, and his hoaries,
all the bight heals he tamped-” -”Euphoria,
Mr Bones, euphoria. Fate clobber all.
-”Hand me back my crawl,

condign Heaven. Tighten into a ball
elongate & valved Henry. Tuck him peace.
Render him sightless,
or ruin at high rate his crampon focus,
...Read more of this...
by Berryman, John

From The Last Island: To Lady Elisabeth Verreet

...Oval mirror of the sea,
age-warped isle waved and cloudy,
each angle crystalline and salty.
my lens into reality.

Point of space just visible,
focus of beams ineffable,
swith of signals transmissible,
receiver of voices inaudible

At time's edge. No need have I to shout
in fear about this death of mine.
And any creature here is glad
to offer you a glass o...Read more of this...
by Derieva, Regina

Long Sight In Age

...They say eyes clear with age, 
As dew clarifies air 
To sharpen evenings, 
As if time put an edge 
Round the last shape of things 
To show them there; 
The many-levelled trees, 
The long soft tides of grass 
Wrinkling away the gold 
Wind-ridden waves- all these, 
They say, come back to focus 
As we grow old....Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip

Manteau Three

...In the fairy tale the sky
 makes of itself a coat
because it needs you
 to put it 
on. How can it do this?
 It collects its motes. It condenses its sound-
track, all the pyrric escapes, the pilgrimages
 still unconsummated, 
the turreted thoughts of sky it slightly liquefies
 and droops, the hum of the yellowest day alive,

office-holders in their books, t...Read more of this...
by Graham, Jorie

One Blessing had I than the rest

...One Blessing had I than the rest
So larger to my Eyes
That I stopped gauging -- satisfied --
For this enchanted size --

It was the limit of my Dream --
The focus of my Prayer --
A perfect -- paralyzing Bliss --
Contented as Despair --

I knew no more of Want -- or Cold --
Phantasms both become
For this new Value in the Soul --
Supremest Earthly Sum --

Th...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Recovering Amid The Farms

...Every morning the sad girl brings her three sheep 
and two lambs laggardly to the top of the valley, 
past my stone hut and onto the mountain to graze. 
She turned twelve last year and it was legal 
for the father to take her out of school. She knows 
her life is over. The sadness makes her fine, 
makes me happy. Her old red sweater makes 
the whole valley...Read more of this...
by Gilbert, Jack

Requiem

...Not under foreign skies
 Nor under foreign wings protected -
 I shared all this with my own people
 There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
 [1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was ...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

Safety-Clutch

...Once I seen a human ruin
In a elevator-well.
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.

And I says, apostrophisin'
That uncommon woful wreck:
"Your position's so surprisin'
That I tremble for your neck!"

Then that ruin, smilin' sadly
And impressive, up and spoke:
"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
For it's been a fortnight broke."

The...Read more of this...
by Bierce, Ambrose

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

...As Parmigianino did it, the right hand
Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer
And swerving easily away, as though to protect
What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams,
Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together
In a movement supporting the face, which swims
Toward and away like the hand
Except that it is in repose. It is what is
Sequestered...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

Still

...I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to gi...Read more of this...
by Ammons, A R

The Flight Of The Duchess

...I.

You're my friend:
I was the man the Duke spoke to;
I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;
So here's the tale from beginning to end,
My friend!

II.

Ours is a great wild country:
If you climb to our castle's top,
I don't see where your eye can stop;
For when you've passed the cornfield country,
Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,
And...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

To Brenda Williams ‘writing Against The Grain'

...It was Karl Shapiro who wrote in his ‘Defence of Ignorance’ how many poets

Go mad or seem to be so and the majority think we should all be in jail

Or mental hospital and you have ended up in both places - fragile as bone china,

Your pale skin taut, your fingers clasped tight round a cup, sitting in a pool

Of midnight light, your cats stretched flat on ...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

We pray -- to Heaven

...We pray -- to Heaven --
We prate -- of Heaven --
Relate -- when Neighbors die --
At what o'clock to heaven -- they fled --
Who saw them -- Wherefore fly?

Is Heaven a Place -- a Sky -- a Tree?
Location's narrow way is for Ourselves --
Unto the Dead
There's no Geography --

But State -- Endowal -- Focus --
Where -- Omnipresence -- fly?...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

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