Famous Shredded Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Shredded poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous shredded poems. These examples illustrate what a famous shredded poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...fers to you:
All life has known,
Seeds withered unsown,
Hopes turning quick to fears,
Laughter which dies in tears.
The shredded remnant of a man
Is all the span
And compass of my offering to you.
"Empty and silent, I
Kneel before your pure, calm majesty.
On this stone, in this urn
I pour my heart and watch it burn,
Myself the sacrifice; but be
Still unmoved: Divinity."
From the altar, bathed in moonlight,
The smoke rose straight in the quiet night....Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...he world will I to living wight
Give over, air my mind
To anyone,
Hang out its ancient secrets in the strong wind
To be shredded and faded—
Oh, me, invaded
And sacked by the wind and the sun!...Read more of this...
by
St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...1992
1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.
2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of
course I do not remember this.
3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.
4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building
with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.
5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and eart...Read more of this...
by
Hecht, Anthony
...nd strew faint sweetness from some old
Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
From closet long to quiet vowed,
With mothed and dropping arras hung,
Mouldering her lute and books among,
As when a queen, long dead, was young....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...ages of love that mortals write,
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April, and before the Maytime
Shredded and flown, playthings for the winds' playtime.
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress to despair,
To flirt with flowers, as tender and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to Butterflies.
A...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...Torn into light, you woke wriggling
on a woman's palm. Halved, quartered,
shredded to the wind, you were the life
that thrilled along the underbelly
of a stone. Stilled in the frozen pond
you rinsed heaven with a sigh.
How much earth is a man.
A wall fies down and roses
rush from its teeth; in the fists
of the hungry, cucumbers sleep
their lives away, under your nails
the ocean moans in its bed.
How much earth.
The gr...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...owing us off a little perhaps,
leaning back into their gossamer ripeness,
him touching her storm, the petticoat,
the shredded coat left mid-air, just above us,
the coat in which the teller's plot
entered this atmosphere, this rosy sphere of hope and lack,
this windiness of middle evening,
so green, oh what difference could it have made
had the teller needed to persuade her
further — so green
this torn hem in the first miles — or is it inches? — of our night,
so ful...Read more of this...
by
Graham, Jorie
...on.
Day three day four day ten
the seventh step
a veiled door leading to my golden
anniversary
flameproofed free-paper shredded
in the teeth of a pillaging dog
never to dream of spiders
and when they turned the hoses upon me
a burst of light....Read more of this...
by
Lorde, Audre
...the scented vine,
It breathes of Beatrice through all his blades,
North, East or West, Guelph-wind or Ghibelline,
'Tis shredded into music down the shades;
All sea-breaths, land-breaths, systol, diastol,
Sway, minstrels of that grief-melodious Soul....Read more of this...
by
Lanier, Sidney
...ice Day in Lancaster, Pa.
The open cars overflowed, girls cried,
the tubas and trombones went dumb,
the floral displays shredded, the gutters
clogged with petals. Afterwards had ham
on buttered whole-wheat bread, ham
and butter for the first time
on the same day in Zanesville with snow
forecast, snow, high winds, closed roads,
solid darkness before 5 p.m. These were not
the labors of Hercules, these were not
of meat or moment to anyone but me
or destined for story or to learn...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...es of broken sinks.
Remember, you were afraid
of the great hissing jugs.
There were stories of burnings,
of flesh shredded to lace.
On other nights men spoke
of rats as big as dogs.
Women spoke of men
who trapped them in corners.
Always there was grease that hid
the faces of worn faucets, grease
that had to be eaten one
finger-print at a time,
there was oil, paint, blood,
your own blood sliding across
your nose and running over
your lips with that brig...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...strew faint sweetness from some old
Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unroll'd;
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
From closet long to quiet vow'd,
With moth'd and dropping arras hung,
Mouldering her lute and books among,
As when a queen, long dead, was young....Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...t hoghood
must
Thus wholly engross
The great grandam!--our marvel blazoned a knight,
Helmed, in cuirass,
Unhorsed and shredded in the grove of combat
By a grisly-bristled
Boar, fabulous enough to straddle that sow's heat.
But our farmer whistled,
Then, with a jocular fist thwacked the barrel nape,
And the green-copse-castled
Pig hove, letting legend like dried mud drop,
Slowly, grunt
On grunt, up in the flickering light to shape
A monument
Prodigious in gluttonies as tha...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...breasts will console some orphans,
but Sierra Leone won't be worth a raped woman's cry,
despite her broken back, this shredded garment,
her hands swimming like horrors of red corals.
But do you, O Sea, long-suffering mistress,
have the balm to heal the wound of her children,
hand to foot the axe, alluvial river flowing into you?...Read more of this...
by
Cheney-Coker, Syl
...he messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...Pastures fair:
Praise Him, ye climbing Fires, the Emblems of our Pray'r.
Praise Him, ye Waters petrify'd above,
Ye shredded Clouds that fall in Snow,
Praise Him, for that you so divided move;
Ye Hailstones, that you do no larger grow.
Nor, in one solid Mass, oppress the World below.
Praise Him, ye soaring Fowls, still as you fly,
And on gay Plumes your Bodies raise;
You Insects, which in dark Recesses lie,
Altho' th' extremest Distances you try,
Be reconcil'd in...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...n an empty house not lately
battered by storms, I looked
for nothing. On the surface
of the rain barrel, the paled,
shredded blossoms floated....Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
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