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Famous Predatory Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Sexton, Anne
...teen; my first story, my funny failure. 
Maybe Rose, there is always another story, 
better unsaid, grim or flat or predatory. 
Half a mile down the lights of the in-between cities 
turn up their eyes at me. And I remember Betsy's 
story, the April night of the civilian air crash 
and her sudden name misspelled in the evening paper, 
the interior of shock and the paper gone in the trash 
ten years now. She used the return ticket I gave her. 
This was the r...Read more of this...



by Lowell, Robert
...ke skulls against high-voltage wire,
his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,
the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter's moon ascends--
a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes,
my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull's no-nose--
O there's a terrifying innocence in my face
drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...leeter they than any creature,
They are his steeds and not his feature,
Inquisitive, and fierce, and fasting,
Restless, predatory, hasting,—
And they pounce on other eyes,
As lions on their prey;
And round their circles is writ,
Plainer than the day,
Underneath, within, above,
Love, love, love, love.
He lives in his eyes,
There doth digest, and work, and spin,
And buy, and sell, and lose, and win;
He rolls them with delighted motion,
Joy-tides swell their mimic ocean....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...cent around the lanes, mornings and
 evenings; 
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals;
We are two predatory hawks—we soar above, and look down; 
We are two resplendent suns—we it is who balance ourselves, orbic and stellar—we
 are as two comets; 
We prowl fang’d and four-footed in the woods—we spring on prey; 
We are two clouds, forenoons and afternoons, driving overhead; 
We are seas mingling—we are two of those cheerful waves, rolling over each other, ...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...ining
From floor to the ceiling that day.
Upon the silken blanket
A withered arm lay.

And the thrown-over predatory profile
Became horribly heavy and stark,
And one could not hear the breathing
Through the bitten-up lips turned dark.

But suddenly the last bit of strength
Came alive in the eyes of blue:
"It is good that you released me,
Not always kind were you."

And then the face became younger,
And I recognized him once more.
And then ...Read more of this...



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