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Famous Skinny Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...t looks as if it would never open,

Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny little neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.

To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.
No one ever heard you complain.

You draw your...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.



...eld eleven children 
shaped under the tent of her summer dress. 
I see you in my mother at thirty 
in her flapper gear, skinny legs 
and then you knocking on the tight dress. 
We hand you down like a prize feather quilt. 
You are our female shame and sunburst strength....Read more of this...
by Piercy, Marge
...l.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.
And every time he stood on his head,
Everyone screamed, "Go back to bed!"
And every time he made a le...Read more of this...
by Silverstein, Shel
...Summer grows old, cold-blooded mother. 
The insects are scant, skinny. 
In these palustral homes we only 
Croak and wither. 

Mornings dissipate in somnolence. 
The sun brightens tardily 
Among the pithless reeds. Flies fail us. 
he fen sickens. 

Frost drops even the spider. Clearly 
The genius of plenitude 
Houses himself elsewhwere. Our folk thin 
Lamentably....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...aring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself    imaginary walls collapse    O skinny legions run outside    O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here    O victory forget your underwear we’re free
I’m with you in Rockland
   in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night
 
San Francisco, 1955—1956...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen



...aring hungrily. 
And frightening, too, that one small boy should set 
The sky on fire and choke the stars to heat 
Such skinny limbs and such a little heart 
Which would have been content with one warm kiss 
Had there been anyone to offer this....Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...ng
 another human voice.

It's five o'clock, my dear.
Outside,
 with its dryness,
 eerie whispers,
 mud roof,
and lame, skinny horse
 standing motionless in infinity
-- I mean, it's enough to drive the man inside crazy with grief --
outside, with all its machinery and all its art,
a plains night comes down red on treeless space.

Again today, night will fall in no time.
A light will circle the lame, skinny horse.
And the treeless space, in this hopeless landscape
stretched ou...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim
...arthy, materialistic look,
His, poor darling, is almost fiery.
His wimple, his blunt-prowed face,
His low forehead, his skinny neck, his long, scaled, striving legs,
So striving, striving,
Are all more delicate than she,
And he has a cruel scar on his shell.

Poor darling, biting at her feet,
Running beside her like a dog, biting her earthy, splay feet,
Nipping her ankles,
Which she drags apathetic away, though without retreating into her shell.

Agelessly silent,
And with a ...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.
...A shepherd walked in front of the car, a leafy branch in

his hand, sweeping the sheep aside. He looked like a young,

Skinny Adolf Hitler, but friendly.

 I guess there were a thousand sheep on the road. It was

hot and dusty and noisy and took what seemed like a long

time .

 At the end of the sheep was a covered wagon being pulled

by two horses. There was a third horse, the bellmare, tied

on the back of the wagon. The white canvas rippled in the

wind and the wagon had...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...ticks
to whack them in line They play hungry tricks

Breaking the line and jumping in front 
Into the circle sneaks one skinny runt
Two brothers dance forward on the mud stage
Teh gaurds blow their whistles & chase them in rage

Why are these infants massed in this place
Laughing in play & pushing for space
Why do they wait here so cheerful & dread
Why this is the House where they give children bread

The man in the bread door Cries & comes out
Thousands of boys and girls Tak...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen
...wn alone 
into the death I wanted so badly and for so long, 
the death we said we both outgrew, 
the one we wore on our skinny breasts, 
the one we talked of so often each time 
we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston, 
the death that talked of analysts and cures, 
the death that talked like brides with plots, 
the death we drank to, 
the motives and the quiet deed? 
(In Boston 
the dying 
ride in cabs, 
yes death again, 
that ride home 
with our boy.) 
O Sylvia, I remem...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...the early fall.
When came the late fall,
"Son," she said, "the sight of you
Makes your mother's blood crawl,—

"Little skinny shoulder-blades
Sticking through your clothes!
And where you'll get a jacket from
God above knows.

"It's lucky for me, lad,
Your daddy's in the ground,
And can't see the way I let
His son go around!"
And she made a ***** sound.

That was in the late fall.
When the winter came,
I'd not a pair of breeches
Nor a shirt to my name.

I couldn't go to schoo...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna
...inquisitorial botanist, 
26 And general lexicographer of mute 
27 And maidenly greenhorns, now beheld himself, 
28 A skinny sailor peering in the sea-glass. 
29 What word split up in clickering syllables 
30 And storming under multitudinous tones 
31 Was name for this short-shanks in all that brunt? 
32 Crispin was washed away by magnitude. 
33 The whole of life that still remained in him 
34 Dwindled to one sound strumming in his ear, 
35 Ubiquitous concussion, sla...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace
...knows enough
staunch guys have hitched him in trouble.
thinking his sticks were badges to wear.

4.
Spring rusts on its skinny branch
and last summer's lawn
is soggy and brown.
Yesterday is just a number.
All of its winters avalanche
out of sight. What was, is gone.
Mother, last night I slept
in your Bonwit Teller nightgown.
Divided, you climbed into my head.
There in my jabbering dream
I heard my own angry cries
and I cursed you, Dame
keep out of my slumber.
My good Dame, yo...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...this, mindless,
Or perhaps with another mind, less peculiar;
Or to sink down to the hips in a mossy quagmire;
Or, with skinny knees, to sit astride a wet log,
Believing:
I'll return again,
As a snake or a raucous bird,
Or, with luck, as a lion.

I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.


II
The river turns on it...Read more of this...
by Roethke, Theodore
...ed and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn't mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultur...Read more of this...
by Gorman, Amanda
...de,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye--
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
T...Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...ce of his lynx-like eyes,

Stretches his talons,
On thee falls,
In thy shoulders
Cunningly plants them.

Strong are his skinny arms,
As panther-claws;
He shaketh thee,
And rends thy frame.

Death 'tis to part,
'Tis threefold death
To part, not hoping
Ever to meet again.

Thou wouldst rejoice to leave
This hated land behind,
Wert thou not chain'd to me
With friendships flowery chains.

Burst them! I'll not repine.
No noble friend
Would stay his fellow-captive,
If means of flig...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...t windfalls and tinned sardines-
 they seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet,
 Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets - and yet
 No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough 
 To shout Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
 That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like
 Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
 And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney
 My way of getting
The fam...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip
...In silence the heart raves.It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning.I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled.In a big black Buick,
Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat
In front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing like
Beauty. It stops your heart.It
Thickens your blood.It stops your breath.It

Makes you feel dirty.You need a hot bath.
I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched.
I thou...Read more of this...
by Warren, Robert Penn

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things