Famous Practicing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Strange Love Song of T. S. Eliot

by Dejan Stojanovic
At twenty-six, I was inexperienced; 
Still, I knew much about love 
In the waste land, reasoning, 
It's not important when you start 
Practicing, rather when you start searching; 
And I committed myself to finding 
It before others even knew it existed, 'breeding 

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing' 
My thoughts, my longings, my love 
For something that didn't need...Read more of this...

Musics Empire

by Andrew Marvell
 First was the world as one great cymbal made, 
Where jarring winds to infant Nature played. 
All music was a solitary sound, 
To hollow rocks and murm'ring fountains bound.

Jubal first made the wilder notes agree; 
And Jubal tuned music's Jubilee; 
He call'd the echoes from their sullen cell, 
And built the organ's city where they dwell.

Each sought a consort...Read more of this...

The Testing-Tree

by Stanley Kunitz
 1

On my way home from school
up tribal Providence Hill
past the Academy ballpark
where I could never hope to play
I scuffed in the drainage ditch
among the sodden seethe of leaves
hunting for perfect stones
rolled out of glacial time
into my pitcher’s hand;
then sprinted lickety-
split on my magic Keds
from a crouching start,
scarcely touching the ground
with my flying skin
as I poured it on
for the prize...Read more of this...

Habits

by Nikki Giovanni
Habitsi haven't written a poem in so long  i may have forgotten how  unless writing a poem  is like riding a bike  or swimming upstream  or loving you  it may be a habit that once aquired  is never lost    but you say i'm foolish  of course you love me...Read more of this...

The Cellist

by Galway Kinnell
 At intermission I find her backstage
still practicing the piece coming up next.
She calls it the "solo in high dreary."
Her bow niggles at the string like a hand
stroking skin it never wanted to touch.
Probably under her scorn she is sick
that she can't do better by it. As I am,
at the dreary in me, such as the disparity
between all the tenderness...Read more of this...

October 12

by David Lehman
 My bag was missing at the airport
"Just one bag?" "Yes, but it meant a lot to me"
I had seen the bartender before, but where?
"You didn't tell me you had been to Oxford"
"Yes, I was at Magdalen College for two years"
"What did you do there?" "Drugs."
"Did you know that in Hindi the same word
(kal, pronounced 'kull') means both
yesterday and tomorrow?"...Read more of this...

We play at Paste

by Emily Dickinson
 We play at Paste --
Till qualified, for Pearl --
Then, drop the Paste --
And deem ourself a fool --

The Shapes -- though -- were similar --
And our new Hands
Learned Gem-Tactics --
Practicing Sands --...Read more of this...

Meditation By The Stove

by Linda Pastan
 I have banked the fires
of my body
into a small but steady blaze
here in the kitchen
where the dough has a life of its own,
breathing under its damp cloth
like a sleeping child;
where the real child plays under the table,
pretending the tablecloth is a tent,
practicing departures; where a dim
brown bird dazzled by light
has flown into the windowpane
and lies stunned on the pavement--
it...Read more of this...

Inheritance—His

by Audre Lorde
 I. 
My face resembles your face
less and less each day. When I was young
no one mistook whose child I was.
Features build coloring
alone among my creamy fine-boned sisters
marked me Byron's daughter.

No sun set when you died, but a door
opened onto my mother. After you left
she grieved her crumpled world aloft
an iron fist sweated with business symbols
a printed blotter dwell in...Read more of this...

Ace Shaw

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I never saw any difference
Between playing cards for money
And selling real estate,
Practicing law, banking, or anything else.
For everything is chance.
Nevertheless
Seest thou a man diligent in business?
He shall stand before Kings!...Read more of this...

The Disquieting Muses

by Sylvia Plath
 Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?

Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into...Read more of this...

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