Famous Prizes Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Prizes poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous prizes poems. These examples illustrate what a famous prizes poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...complete
Since mother's hands first clasped and shod
The little feet.
The little hands that never sought
Earth's prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God's servant, brought
The little hands?
We ask: but love's self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death's dim heaven expands.
Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
The lit...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...with a show
Of strength, yelling "Buggerall,
Buggerall, this is my boat-house
In Laugherne, these are my books,
My prizes, I ride every wave-crest,
My loves are legion. What’s this
You’re saying about fashion?
Others follow where I lead,
Schoolchildren copy my verse,
No anthology omits me
Put me down! Put me down!
George Barker was too far gone
To take them on
And moaned about a list
In a crystal cave of making beneath
The basement of the Regent Street
Po...Read more of this...
by
Scannell, Vernon
...clever, the various shapes and sizes,
But in the autumn shades I find I only
Brood upon death, who carries off all the prizes....Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...hath given the man
A growth, a name that branches o'er the rest,
And strength against all odds, and what the King
So prizes--overprizes--gentleness.
Her likewise would I worship an I might.
I never can be close with her, as he
That brought her hither. Shall I pray the King
To let me bear some token of his Queen
Whereon to gaze, remembering her--forget
My heats and violences? live afresh?
What, if the Queen disdained to grant it! nay
Being so stately-gen...Read more of this...
by
Po, Li
...t brush your hat;
Washed in perfume,
do not shake your coat:
"Knowing the world
fears what is too pure,
The wisest man
prizes and stores light!"
By Bluewater
an old angler sat:
You and I together,
Let us go home....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...ntly
"The cabin," in our old phrase. Well, I do.
I act for, talk for, live for this world now,
As this world prizes action, life and talk:
No prejudice to what next world may prove,
Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge
To observe then, is that I observe these now,
Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile.
Let us concede (gratuitously though)
Next life relieves the soul of body, yields
Pure spiritual enjoyment: well, my friend,
Why lose this lif...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ts highest noon and wantonness,
Is early frugal, like a beggar's child;
Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims
And prizes of ambition, checks its hand,
Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped,
Chilled with a miserly comparison
Of the toy's purchase with the length of life. ...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...wall,
Himself incloses and includes,
Solitude in solitudes:
In like sort his love doth fall.
He is an oligarch,
He prizes wonder, fame, and mark,
He loveth crowns,
He scorneth drones;
He doth elect
The beautiful and fortunate,
And the sons of intellect,
And the souls of ample fate,
Who the Future's gates unbar,
Minions of the Morning Star.
In his prowess he exults,
And the multitude insults.
His impatient looks devour
Oft the humble and the poor,
And, seeing his ...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...the end" Amended
From the Heavenly Clause --
Constancy with a Proviso
Constancy abhors --
"Crowns of Life" are servile Prizes
To the stately Heart,
Given for the Giving, solely,
No Emolument.
--
"Faithful to the end" Amended
From the Heavenly clause --
Lucrative indeed the offer
But the Heart withdraws --
"I will give" the base Proviso --
Spare Your "Crown of Life" --
Those it fits, too fair to wear it --
Try it on Yourself --...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...heir best possessions
whose ear for poetry's so poor
they think fum rhymes with englishman
and so of course they get no prizes
thief and trickster now come rich
poetry's purpose is to hit the jackpot
so great the lust for poetic fame
thousands without a ghost of winning
find poems like mothballs in their drawers
sprinkle them with twinkling stardust
post them off with copperplate cheques
the judges wipe their arses on them
the money's gone to a super cause
everyone knows it...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...our passions brought you to your knees, lashing
At those poetasters when their puffed-up slime
Won the medals and the prizes time after time
And got them all the limelight while your books
Were quietly ignored, the better you wrote,
The fewer got bought.
Belatedly I found a poem of yours ‘Leeds 2’
In ‘Flashpoint’, a paint-stained worn out
School anthology from 1962. Out of the blue
I wrote to you but the letter came back ‘Gone away
N.F.A.’ then I...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...h were beat?
Who treated out the time at Bergen? Pett.
Who the Dutch fleet with storms disabled met,
And rifling prizes, them neglected? Pett.
Who with false news prevented the Gazette,
The fleet divided, writ for Rupert? Pett.
Who all our seamen cheated of their debt,
And all our prizes who did swallow? Pett.
Who did advise no navy out to set,
And who the forts left unrepair?d? Pett.
Who to supply with powder did forget
Languard, Sheerness, Gra...Read more of this...
by
Jeffers, Robinson
...has been good enough to give you a poet
Then listen to him. But for God's sake let him alone until he is dead;
no prizes, no ceremony,
They kill the man. A poet is one who listens
To nature and his own heart; and if the noise of the world grows up
around him, and if he is tough enough,
He can shake off his enemies, but not his friends.
That is what withered Wordsworth and muffled Tennyson, and would have
killed Keats; that is what makes
Hemingway play the fool...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Richard
...> Lord, but I'm ashamed.
I was afraid, it seemed, according to the doctor
of impending success, winning some poetry prizes
or getting a wet kiss. The more popular I got,
the softer the soft cry in my head: Don't believe them.
You were never good. Then I broke and proved it.
Ten successive days I alienated women
I liked best. I told a coed why her poems were bad
(they weren't) and didn't understand a word I said.
Really warped. The phrase "I'll ...Read more of this...
by
Hayden, Robert
..., Calabar;
have watched the artful mongos baiting traps
of war wherein the victor and the vanquished
Were caught as prizes for our barracoons.
Have seen the ****** kings whose vanity
and greed turned wild black hides of Fellatah,
Mandingo, Ibo, Kru to gold for us.
And there was one--King Anthracite we named him--
fetish face beneath French parasols
of brass and orange velvet, impudent mouth
whose cups were carven skulls of enemies:
He'd honor us with dru...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...er suit. To town came Ted Berrigan,
saying, "My idea of a bad poet is Marvin Bell."
But no one has won as many prizes as Philip Levine.
At the restaurant, people were talking about Philip Levine's
latest: the Pulitzer. A toast was proposed by Anne Sexton.
No one saw the stranger, who said his name was Marvin Bell,
pour something into Donna's drink. "In the Walt Whitman
Shopping Center, there you feel free," said Ted Berrigan,
pulling on a Cheste...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...imiles, rhymes;
We convince by our presence.
11
Listen! I will be honest with you;
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes;
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d—you hardly settle yourself to
satisfaction, before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,
You shall...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...fettuoso I;
Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck’d, forbidding, I have arrived,
To be wrestled with as I pass, for the solid prizes of the universe;
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.
17On my way a moment I pause;
Here for you! and here for America!
Still the Present I raise aloft—Still the Future of The States I harbinge,
glad and sublime;
And for the Past, I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines.
The red aborigines!
Leaving natural...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...ll height.He had no power left to bear the weight;A thousand famous prizes hardly gain'dShe took; and thousand glorious palms obtained.Shook from his hands; the fall was not more strangeOf Hannibal, when Fortune pleased to changeHer mind, and on the Roman youth bestowThe favours he enjoy'd; nor wa...Read more of this...
by
Harrison, Tony
...s, use giant signs
to let the people know who's forged their fetters
Like PRI CE O WALES above West Yorkshire mines
(no prizes for who nicked the missing letters!)
The big blue star for booze, tobacco ads,
the magnet's monogram, the royal crest,
insignia in neon dwarf the lads
who spray a few odd FUCKS when they're depressed.
Letters of transparent tubes and gas
in Düsseldorf are blue and flash out KRUPP.
Arms are hoisted for the British ruling class
and clandestine...Read more of this...
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