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Famous Rooftop Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Hugo, Victor
...You can see it already: chalks and ochers; 
Country crossed with a thousand furrow-lines;
Ground-level rooftops hidden by the shrubbery; 
Sporadic haystacks standing on the grass;
Smoky old rooftops tarnishing the landscape; 
A river (not Cayster or Ganges, though:
A feeble Norman salt-infested watercourse); 
On the right, to the north, bizarre terrain
All angular--you'd think a shovel did it. 
So that's the foreground. An old chapel adds
Its antique ...Read more of this...



by Angelou, Maya
...imes cliched by Repetition. 
Her children, strangers
To childhood's TOYS, play
Best the games of darkened doorways,
Rooftop tag, and know the slick feel of
Other people's property.

Too fat to whore,
Too mad to work,
Searches her dreams for the
Lucky sign and walks bare-handed
Into a den of bereaucrats for her portion.

'They don't give me welfare.
I take it.'...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...ike a pencil the way
The Empire State Building does. What I really want to say
To you, my love, is a whisper on the rooftop lost in the wind
And you turn to me with your rally cap on backwards rooting
For a big inning, the bases loaded, our best slugger up
And no one out, but it doesn't work that way. Like the time
Kirk Gibson hit the homer off Dennis Eckersley to win the game:
It doesn't happen like that in fiction. In fiction, we are 
On a train, listening to a ...Read more of this...

by Amjad, Majeed
...Here she comes, onto her “rooftop-terrace,” smiling

With a muted message in her fleeting glance !

 

This hazy air tinged with dusky reflections,

This desolate path … deserted lane … quiet evening,

The low wall of a house at the street corner,

Upon which is gently laid

A diffuse and silent spell !

 

This rooftop-terrace … familiar

With the sound of someon...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...ttles off complaints metallically
the sparrows beat their beaks more urgently 

and i am thrust at by a stab of sun
the rooftop opposite has a golden cowl
rays slide down and leap into the trees
the breeze desists the leaves play mute
in no time sun has occupied the square

my room's invaded - dark stains are blanched
coolness abandoned for the next few hours
the heat-to-come has come - the spanish day
has no fancy way to sell its onions
you take it or you leave it – sweating...Read more of this...



by Troupe, Quincy
..., chattanooga choochoo
choo choing all the way home, upside walls, under gold eagles
& a gold vaulting girl, naked on a rooftop holding a flag over
her head, like skip rope, surrounded by all manner
of saints & gold madmen, riding emblazoned stallions
snorting like crazed demons at their nostrils
the music swirling like a dancing bear
a beautiful girl, flowers in her hair

the air woven with lilting voices in this grand place of parepets
& crowns, jewels & golden torches stre...Read more of this...

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