Famous Paragraph Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Since Feeling is First

by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves 
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh leaning back in...Read more of this...

Marginalia

by Billy Collins
 Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up...Read more of this...

The Higher Unity

by G K Chesterton
 The Rev. Isaiah Bunter has disappeared into the interior of the Solomon Islands, and it is feared that he may have been devoured by the natives, as there has been a considerable revival of religious customs among the Polynesians.--A real paragraph from a real Paper; only the names altered.

It was Isaiah Bunter
Who sailed to the world's end,
And spread religion...Read more of this...

I pay -- in Satin Cash

by Emily Dickinson
 I pay -- in Satin Cash --
You did not state -- your price --
A Petal, for a Paragraph
It near as I can guess --...Read more of this...

Life

by Charlotte Bronte
 I leave the office, take the stairs,
in time to mail a letter
before 3 in the afternoon--the last dispatch.
The red, white and blue air mail
falls past the slot for foreign mail
and hits bottom with a sound
that tells me my letter is alone.
They will have to bring in a plane
from a place of coastline and beaches,
from a climate of fresh figs...Read more of this...

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