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Famous Real Life Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...Life is real, life is earnest, 
And the shell is not its pen –
“Egg thou art, and egg remainest”
Was not spoken of the hen.

Art is long and Time is fleeting, 
Be our bills then sharpened well, 
And not like muffled drums be beating
On the inside of the shell.

In the world’s broad field of battle, 
In the great barnyard of life, 
Be not like those lazy ca...Read more of this...
by Holmes, Oliver Wendell



...me back to his Kate Carew; 
Of course he should have, as stories go, 
But the worst of it is this story's true: 
And in real life it's a certain rule, 
Whatever poets and authors say 
Of high-toned robbers and all their school, 
These horsethief fellows aren't built that way. 

Come back! Don't hope it -- the slinking hound, 
He sloped across to the Queensland side, 
And sold The Swagman for fifty pound, 
And stole the money, and more beside. 
And took to drink, and by some g...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...om them—from facts, sight, hearing, touch, my
 phrenology, reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like; 
The real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh; 
My body, done with materials—my sight, done with my material eyes;
Proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it is not my material eyes which finally see, 
Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates. 

11
O the farmer’s joys! 
Ohioan’s, Illinoisian...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...he has 
four kids, the youngest one my age, and I find him 
rather unattractive, that I only met him once,
that is, in real life, and that was in a large group 
in which I barely spoke up. He disgusted me 
with his disparaging remarks about women.
He even used the word "Jap"
which I took as a direct insult to my husband who's Asian. 
When we were first dating, I told him
"You were talking in your sleep last night
and I listened, just to make sure you didn't 
call out anyone ...Read more of this...
by Duhamel, Denise
...D PENNANT.
Speak to the child, O bard, out of Manhattan; 
(The war is over—yet never over.... out of it, we are born to real life and
 identity;) 
Speak to our children all, or north or south of Manhattan, 
Where our factory-engines hum, where our miners delve the ground, 
Where our hoarse Niagara rumbles, where our prairie-plows are plowing;
Speak, O bard! point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all—and yet we know
 not
 why; 
For what are we, mere strips of cloth, ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...erfect,
 longeve
 Personality,
And helps its present life to health and happiness—and shapes its Soul, 
For the eternal Real Life to come. 

With latest materials, works, 
Steam-power, the great Express lines, gas, petroleum, 
These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic’s delicate cable,
The Pacific Railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis tunnel; 
Science advanced, in grandeur and reality, analyzing every thing, 
This world all spann’d with iron rails—with lines of steamships 
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...d laminate it 
or ask you to live with me 
on the stairs with the window 
keeping an eye on the maple 
but I think your real life 
would miss you. The story 
here is that all morning
I've thought of the statement 
that art is about loneliness
while watching golden leaves 
become unhinged. 
By ones or in bunches 
they tumble and hang 
for a moment like a dress 
in the dryer.
At the laundromat 
you've seen the arms 
thrown out to catch the shirt 
flying the other way.
Just as y...Read more of this...
by Hicok, Bob
...my life? 
(As if any man really knew aught of my life; 
Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real life;
Only a few hints—a few diffused, faint clues and indirections, 
I seek, for my own use, to trace out here.)...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things