Famous Readers Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Readers poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous readers poems. These examples illustrate what a famous readers poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Burns, Robert
...r groans!
Your pardon, sir, for this digression:
I maist forgat my Dedication;
But when divinity comes ’cross me,
My readers still are sure to lose me.
So, sir, you see ’twas nae daft vapour;
But I maturely thought it proper,
When a’ my works I did review,
To dedicate them, sir, to you:
Because (ye need na tak it ill),
I thought them something like yoursel’.
Then patronize them wi’ your favor,
And your petitioner shall ever——
I had amaist said, ever pray,
But...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...with volleys of impertinence.
--But now 'tis time I should some pity show
To Chloe, since I cannot choose but know
Readers must reap the dullness writers sow.
But the next post such stories I will tell
As, joined with these, shall to a volumn swell,
As true as heaven, more infamous than hell.
But you are tired, and so am I.
Farewell....Read more of this...
by
Berry, Wendell
...Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is....Read more of this...
by
Schwartz, Delmore
...e fell down the well
Of the great darkness under the slick glitter,
And he was only one among eight million riders and
readers.
And all the while under his empty smile the shaking drum
Of the long determined passage passed through him
By his body mimicked and echoed. And then the train
Like a suddenly storming rain, began to rush and thresh--
The silent or passive night, pressing and impressing
The patients' foreheads with a tightening-like image
Of the rushing engi...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...power
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get f...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...ospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my
studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas
City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsm...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...ut eyes men without faces
who would take away my hours
break them
piss on them.
now I work for the editors the readers the
critics
but still hang around and drink with
Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the
Bee
some buddies
some men
sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in....Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...Honest a house, for life, rent free.
Now, I must leave Jack Honest and his mother in fresh found glory,
Hoping my readers will feel interested in this story,
And try always to imitate the hero-- Jack Honest--
And I'm sure they will find it the safest and the best!...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...he government killing forty of her soft-eyed Jersey cows; through the newspapers she wept over her loss for millions of readers in the Great Northwest.
SEVENSThe lady who has had seven lawful husbands has written seven years for a famous newspaper telling how to find love and keep it: seven thousand hungry girls in the Mississippi Valley have read the instructions seven years and found neither illicit loves nor lawful husbands.
PROFITEERI who saw ten strong young me...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...ds for depositions come;
Who must have writ them; for how else
Could they each speech verbatim tell 's?
And though some readers of romances
Are apt to strain their tortured fancies,
And doubt (when lovers all alone
Their sad soliloquies do groan,
Grieve many a page, with no one near 'em,
And nought, but rocks and groves, to hear 'em)
What sprite infernal could have tattled,
And told the authors all they prattled;
Whence some weak minds have made objection
That what they scrib...Read more of this...
by
Moore, Thomas
...kes poetry quite a Law case."
Art. 3 -"Upon Fallacies", Jeremy's own --
(Chief Fallacy being, his hope to find readers); -
Art. 4 - "Upon Honesty", author unkown; --
Art. 5 - (by the young Mr. M--) "Hints to Breeders".
Oh, Sultan, oh, Sultan, though oft for the bag
And the bowstring, like thee, I am tempted to call --
Though drowning's too good for each blue-stocking hag,
I would bag this she Benthamite first of them all!
And, lest she should ever a...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...d?
Just Heav'n Thee, like Tiresias, to requite,
Rewards with Prophesie thy loss of Sight.
Well might thou scorn thy Readers to allure
With tinkling Rhime, of thy own Sense secure;
While the Town-Bays writes all the while and spells,
And like a Pack-Horse tires without his Bells.
Their Fancies like our bushy Points appear,
The Poets tag them; we for fashion wear.
I too transported by the Mode offend,
And while I meant to Praise thee, must Commend.
Thy verse cre...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...past
In fabricating sonnets I
Have fulminated: 'Blast!'
I know I shock the sober folk
Who doubt my lyric sanity,
And readers of my rhyme provoke
By publishing profanity,
But oh a hale and hearty curse
Is very dear to me,
And so I end this bit of verse
With d-- and d-- and d--!...Read more of this...
by
Owen, Wilfred
...forgot
The greatest glory will be theirs who fought,
Who kept this nation in integrity."
Nation? -- The half-limbed readers did not chafe
But smiled at one another curiously
Like secret men who know their secret safe.
This is the thing they know and never speak,
That England one by one had fled to France
(Not many elsewhere now save under France).
Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,
And people in whose voice real feeling rings
Say: How they smile! The...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...ant gallery,
Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
Far from the halls and corridors where throng
The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above, below, on every side, high shelved
From careless grasp of transient interest,
Stand books we can but dimly see, their charm
Much greater that their titles are unread;
While on a level with the dusty floor
O...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...THE READERS of the Boston Evening Transcript
Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.
When evening quickens faintly in the street,
Wakening the appetites of life in some
And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript,
I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning
Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,
If the street were time an...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...nal Hush, the Lullaby of Streams.
Which still, he cries, their even Measures keep,
Till both the Writers, and the Readers sleep.
But urge thy Pen, if thou wouldst move our Thoughts,
To shew us private, or the publick Faults.
Display the Times, High-Church or Low provoke;
We'll praise the Weapon, as we like the Stroke,
And warmly sympathizing with the Spite
Apply to Thousands, what of One you write.
Then, must that single Stream the Town supply,
The ...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...h in and out,
double-crossing out lives with doubt,
leaving us separate now, fogy with rage.
But then I've told my readers what I think
and scrubbed out the remainder with my shrink,
have placed my bones in a jar as if possessed,
have pasted a black wing over my left breast,
have washed the white out of the moon at my sink,
have eaten The Cross, have digested its lore,
indeed, have loved that eggless man once more,
have placed my own head in the kettle because
in the en...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...valets with them -- just to give their boots a rub
Ere they started operations on the Geebung Polo Club.
Now my readers can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed,
When the Geebung boys got going it was time to clear the road;
And the game was so terrific that ere half the time was gone
A spectator's leg was broken -- just from merely looking on.
For they waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead,
While the score was kept so even that they nei...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...on't think that there is much more to say at present.
QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS
P.S. — It is possible that some readers may object, in these objectionable times, to the freedom with which saints, angels, and spiritual persons discourse in this 'Vision.' But, for precedents upon such points, I must refer him to Fielding's 'Journey from the World to the next,' and to the Visions of myself, the said Quevedo, in Spanish or translated. The reader is also requested ...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Readers poems.