Famous Spotlight Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Turns And Movies: Rose And Murray

by Conrad Aiken
 After the movie, when the lights come up, 
He takes her powdered hand behind the wings; 
She, all in yellow, like a buttercup, 
Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings; 
And with a silent, gliding step they move 
Over the footlights, in familiar glare, 
Panther-like in the Tango whirl of love, 
He fawning close on her...Read more of this...

Turns And Movies: Violet Moore And Bert Moore

by Conrad Aiken
 He thinks her little feet should pass 
Where dandelions star thickly grass; 
Her hands should lift in sunlit air 
Sea-wind should tangle up her hair. 
Green leaves, he says, have never heard 
A sweeter ragtime mockingbird, 
Nor has the moon-man ever seen, 
Or man in the spotlight, leering green, 
Such a beguiling, smiling queen.

Her eyes, he says, are stars...Read more of this...

Los Angeles 1954

by David St John
 It was in the old days,
When she used to hang out at a place
Called Club Zombie,
A black cabaret that the police liked
To raid now and then. As she
Stepped through the door, the light
Would hit her platinum hair,
And believe me, heads would turn. Maestro
Loved it; he'd have her by
The arm as he led us through the packed crowd
To a private...Read more of this...

Turns And Movies: Zudora

by Conrad Aiken
 Here on the pale beach, in the darkness; 
With the full moon just to rise; 
They sit alone, and look over the sea, 
Or into each other's eyes. . .

She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand, 
Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand.

'A lovely night,' he says, 'the moon, 
Comes up for you and me. 
Just like...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Children Of The Czar

by Delmore Schwartz
 1

The children of the Czar
Played with a bouncing ball

In the May morning, in the Czar's garden,
Tossing it back and forth.

It fell among the flowerbeds
Or fled to the north gate.

A daylight moon hung up
In the Western sky, bald white.

Like Papa's face, said Sister,
Hurling the white ball forth.

 2

While I ate a baked potato
Six thousand miles apart,

In Brooklyn, in 1916,
Aged two,...Read more of this...

Zudora

by Conrad Aiken
Here on the pale beach, in the darkness; 
With the full moon just to rise; 
They sit alone, and look over the sea, 
Or into each other's eyes. . . 
  
She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand, 
Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand. 
  
'A lovely night,' he says, 'the moon, 
Comes up for...Read more of this...

The Fish

by Marianne Moore
 wade
through black jade.
 Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
 adjusting the ash-heaps;
 opening and shutting itself like

an
injured fan.
 The barnacles which encrust the side
 of the wave, cannot hide
 there for the submerged shafts of the

sun,
split like spun
 glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness
 into the crevices—
 in and out, illuminating

the
turquoise sea
 of bodies. The water drives a wedge
...Read more of this...

Turns And Movies: Dancing Adairs

by Conrad Aiken
 Behold me, in my chiffon, gauze, and tinsel, 
Flitting out of the shadow into the spotlight, 
And into the shadow again, without a whisper!— 
Firefly's my name, I am evanescent.

Firefly's your name. You are evanescent. 
But I follow you as remorselessly as darkness, 
And shut you in and enclose you, at last, and always, 
Till you are lost,—as a...Read more of this...

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