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Famous Sit In Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Whitman, Walt
..., as it must
 be,
Commencing from this day, surrounded by the world. 

6
And you, Libertad of the world! 
You shall sit in the middle, well-pois’d, thousands of years; 
As to-day, from one side, the nobles of Asia come to you; 
As to-morrow, from the other side, the Queen of England sends her eldest son to you.

7
The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed, 
The ring is circled, the journey is done; 
The box-lid is but perceptibly open’d—nevertheless the perfume pours...Read more of this...



by Dove, Rita
...Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting.
Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert.
Venetian blinds slice up the moon; the tiles quiver in pale strips.

Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as round
As dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines.
They bring the scent of licorice. One sits in the washbowl,

One on the ba...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...> 
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid 
 I'm not sorry. 
I smoke marijuana every chance I get. 
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses 
 in the closet. 
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid. 
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble. 
You should have seen me reading Marx. 
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. 
I won't say the Lord's Prayer. 
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrat...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...you know solitaire?
Fifty-two reds and blacks and only myslef to blame.
My blood buzzes like a hornet's nest. I sit in a kitchen chair
at a table set for one. The silverware is the same
and the glass and the sugar bowl. I hear my lungs fill and expel
as in an operation. But I have no one left to tell.

Once I was a couple. I was my own king and queen
with cheese and bread and rosé on the rocks of Rockport.
Once I sunbathed in the buff, all brow...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...y to end up less boring than the others, 
What's keeping us here? Why not leave at once?
I have to stay here while they sit in there,
Laugh, drink, have fine time. In my day
One lay under the tough green leaves,
Pretending not to notice how they bled into
The sky's aqua, the wafted-away no-color of regions supposed
Not to concern us. And so we too
Came where the others came: nights of physical endurance,
Or if, by day, our behavior was anarchically
Correct, at least b...Read more of this...



by Tagore, Rabindranath
...plant stands.
When it is time for you to go to the river for your bath, step
up to that terrace on the roof.
I sit in the corner where the shadow of the walls meet
together.
Only puss is allowed to come with me, for she know where the
barber in the story lives.
But let me whisper, mother, in your ear where the barber in
the story lives.
It is at the corner of the terrace where the pot of the tulsi
plant stands....Read more of this...

by Corso, Gregory
...caterpillars
 I'd doubt not they'd become butterflies
 There is a hell for bombs
 They're there I see them there
 They sit in bits and sing songs
  mostly German songs
 And two very long American songs
 and they wish there were more songs
 especially Russian and Chinese songs
 and some more very long American songs
 Poor little Bomb that'll never be 
 an Eskimo song I love thee 
 I want to put a lollipop
 in thy furcal mouth
 A wig of Goldilocks on thy baldy bean
 and have y...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...the edge of my temple and bites nip-dizzy. . .
men drive cars and paint their houses,
but they are mad; men sit in barber chairs; buy hats.
Corot. Recollection of Mortefontaine.
Paris, Louvre.
"I must write Kaiser, though I think he's a homosexual."
"Are you still reading Freud?"
"Page 299."
She made a little hat and he fastened two snaps under one
arm, reaching up from the bed like a long feeler from the
snail, and she went to church, and ...Read more of this...

by Brodsky, Joseph
...hat my finest ideas
are second-rate, and may the future take them
as trophies of my struggle against suffocation.
I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out
which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out....Read more of this...

by Thomas, R S
...ce. 

There was Llew Puw, and he was no good. 
Every evening after the ploughing 
With the big tractor he would sit in his chair, 
And stare into the tangled fire garden, 
Opening his slow lips like a snail. 

There was Huw Puw, too. What shall I say? 
I have heard him whistling in the hedges 
On and on, as though winter 
Would never again leave those fields, 
And all the trees were deformed. 

And lastly there was the girl: 
Beauty under some spell of the...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ith us, shall curse 
Their frail original, and faded bliss-- 
Faded so soon! Advise if this be worth 
Attempting, or to sit in darkness here 
Hatching vain empires." Thus beelzebub 
Pleaded his devilish counsel--first devised 
By Satan, and in part proposed: for whence, 
But from the author of all ill, could spring 
So deep a malice, to confound the race 
Of mankind in one root, and Earth with Hell 
To mingle and involve, done all to spite 
The great Creator? But their sp...Read more of this...

by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...I sit in one of the divesOn Fifty-second StreetUncertain and afraidAs the clever hopes expireOf a low dishonest decade:Waves of anger and fearCirculate over the brightAnd darkened lands of the earth,Obsessing our private lives;The unmentionable odour of deathOffends the September night. Accurate scholarship canUn...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...to stay.”

“I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow.
This house is frozen brittle, all except
This room you sit in. If you think the wind
Sounds further off, it’s not because it’s dying;
You’re further under in the snow—that’s all—
And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust
It bursts against us at the chimney mouth,
And at the eaves. I like it from inside
More than I shall out in it. But the horses
Are rested and it’s time to say good-night,
And...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng bewinged bedight

In veils and drowned in tears 
Sit in a theatre to see

A play of hopes and fears 
While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.
Mimes in the form of God on high 

Mutter and mumble low 
And hither and thither fly -

Mere puppets they who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro 
Flapping from out their Condor ...Read more of this...

by Graham, Jorie
...us
who saw the plan drawn-out
still here -- who saw the thinking clot-up in the bodies of the greater men,
who saw them sit in silence while the voices in the other room
lit-up with passion, itchings, dreams of landings,
while the solitary ones,
heads in their hands, so still,
the idea barely forming
at the base of that stillness,
the idea like a homesickness starting just to fold and pleat and knot-itself
out of the manyness -- the plan -- before it's thought,
before it's a ...Read more of this...

by Stephens, James
...gone. 

O solitude unspeakable! to be 
For ever with oneself! never see 
An equal face, or feel an equal hand, 
To sit in state and issue reprimand, 
Admonishment or glory, and to smile 
Disdaining what has happenèd the while! 
O to be breast to breast against a foe! 
Against a friend! to strive and not to know 
The laboured outcome: love nor be aware 
How much the other loved, and greatly care 
With passion for that happy love or hate, 
Nor know what joy or dole was hid...Read more of this...

by Baudelaire, Charles
...UNDER the overhanging yews, 
The dark owls sit in solemn state, 
Like stranger gods; by twos and twos 
Their red eyes gleam. They meditate. 

Motionless thus they sit and dream 
Until that melancholy hour 
When, with the sun's last fading gleam, 
The nightly shades assume their power. 

From their still attitude the wise 
Will learn with terror to despise 
All tumult, movement, and unrest...Read more of this...

by Jong, Erica
...h the music
of your mariachi band. 

If the poem won't come,
I say: sneak up on it.
Pretend you don't care.
Sit in your chair
reading Shakespeare, Neruda,
immortal Emily
and let yourself flow
into their music. 

Go to the kitchen
and start peeling onions
for homemade sugo. 

Before you know it,
the poem will be crying
as your ripe tomatoes
bubble away
with inspiration. 

When the whole house is filled
with the tender tomato aroma,
start kneading the pa...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...by his charts and spheres.
"Father," I said, "Father, I cannot play
The harp that thou didst give me, and all day
I sit in idleness, while to and fro
About me thy serene, grave servants go;
And I am weary of my lonely ease.
Better a perilous journey overseas
Away from thee, than this, the life I lead,
To sit all day in the sunshine like a weed
That grows to naught,—I love thee more than they
Who serve thee most; yet serve thee in no way.
Father, I beg of thee a li...Read more of this...

by Ondaatje, Michael
...xpecting this
but I like this more.
I like all your faults
even your purple moods
when you retreat from everyone
to sit in bed under a quilt.
And when I say 'like'
I mean of course 'love'
but that embarrasses you.
You who feel superior to black and white movies
(coaxed for hours to see Casablanca)
though you were moved
by Creature from the Black Lagoon.

One day I'll come swimming
beside your ship or someone will
and if you hear the siren
listen to it. For...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs