Famous Stance Poems by Famous Poets

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

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elusive wisdom

by Rg Gregory
 thoth (who became hermes who became mercury)
who was both moon and wisdom to the egyptians
manifested himself mainly as an ibis - a watery bird
a restless creature that could not stop searching
through marshy ground with its sickle-shaped beak

so to the christians the bird became a scavenger
the worst sinner from whom sins sprout forth and grow
sacred ibises have had to learn...Read more of this...

The Floor

by Russell Edson
 The floor is something we must fight against. 
Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human 
stance, it is that place that men fall to.
 I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse; 
the pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face.

 But should I go dizzy I crash down into the floor; 
my face into...Read more of this...

The Good Man

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 The good man.
He is still enhancer, renouncer.
In the time of detachment,
in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,
in the time of oral
grave grave legalities of hate - all real
walks our prime registered reproach and seal.
Our successful moral.
The good man.

Watches our bogus roses, our rank wreath, our
love's unreliable cement, the gray
jubilees of our demondom.
Coherent
Counsel! Good man.
Require of us...Read more of this...

Dream Song 42: O journeyer deaf in the mould insane

by John Berryman
 O journeyer, deaf in the mould, insane
with violent travel & death: consider me
in my cast, your first son.
Would you were I by now another one,
witted, legged? I see you before me plain
(I am skilled: I hear, I see)-”

your honour was troubled: when you wondered-”'No'.
I hear. I think I hear. Now full craze down
across our continent
all storms since you gave...Read more of this...

Night Thoughts Over A Sick Child

by Philip Levine
 Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep, 
I keep night watch. Looking for 
signs to quiet fear, I creep 
closer to his bed and hear 
his breath come and go, holding 
my own as if my own were 
all I paid. Nothing I bring, 
say, or do has meaning here. 

Outside, ice crusts on river 
and pond; wild hare come...Read more of this...

Act of Union

by Seamus Heaney
 I

To-night, a first movement, a pulse,
As if the rain in bogland gathered head
To slip and flood: a bog-burst,
A gash breaking open the ferny bed.
Your back is a firm line of eastern coast
And arms and legs are thrown
Beyond your gradual hills. I caress
The heaving province where our past has grown.
I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder
That you would neither...Read more of this...

The Changeling

by Russell Edson
 A man had a son who was an anvil. And then sometimes 
he was an automobile tire.
 I do wish you would sit still, said the father.
 Sometimes his son was a rock.
 I realize that you have quite lost boundary, where no 
excess seems excessive, nor to where poverty roots hunger to 
need. But should you allow time...Read more of this...

Constantly Risking Absurdity

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce...Read more of this...

The Young Ones Flip Side

by James A Emanuel
 In tight pants, tight skirts,
Stretched or squeezed,
Youth hurts,
Crammed in, bursting out,
Flesh will sing
And hide its doubt
In nervous hips, hopping glance,
Usurping rouge,
Provoking stance.

Put off, or put on,
Youth hurts. And then
It's gone....Read more of this...

The Distant Winter

by Philip Levine
 from an officer's diary during the last war

I 

The sour daylight cracks through my sleep-caked lids. 
"Stephan! Stephan!" The rattling orderly 
Comes on a trot, the cold tray in his hands: 
Toast whitening with oleo, brown tea, 

Yesterday's napkins, and an opened letter. 
"Your asthma's bad, old man." He doesn't answer, 
And turns to the grey windows and the...Read more of this...

Five For Country Music

by Lisel Mueller
 I. Insomnia

The bulb at the front door burns and burns.
If it were a white rose it would tire of blooming
through another endless night. 

The moon knows the routine;
it beats the bushes from east to west
and sets empty-handed. Again the one
she is waiting for has outrun the moon. 

II. Old Money

The spotted hands shake as they polish the coins. 

The...Read more of this...

My Brothers

by Robert William Service
 While I make rhymes my brother John
Makes shiny shoes which dames try on,
And finding to their fit and stance
They buy and wear with elegance;
But mine is quite another tale,--
 For song there is no sale.

My brother Tom a tailor shop
Is owner of, and ladies stop
To try the models he has planned,
And richly pay, I understand:
Yet not even a dingy...Read more of this...

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