Famous Studio Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Living In Sin

by Adrienne Rich
 She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly...Read more of this...

The Municipal Gallery Revisited

by William Butler Yeats
 I

Around me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars,
Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride;
Kevin O'Higgins' countenance that wears
A gentle questioning look that cannot hide
A soul incapable of remorse or rest;
A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed;

 II

An Abbot or Archbishop with an upraised hand
Blessing the Tricolour. 'This is not,'...Read more of this...

Proclamation Without Pretension

by Tristan Tzara
 Art is going to sleep for a new world to be born
"ART"-parrot word-replaced by DADA,
PLESIOSAURUS, or handkerchief

The talent THAT CAN BE LEARNED makes the
poet a druggist TODAY the criticism
of balances no longer challenges with resemblances

Hypertrophic painters hyperaes-
theticized and hypnotized by the hyacinths
of the hypocritical-looking muezzins

CONSOLIDATE THE HARVEST OF EX-
ACT CALCULATIONS

Hypodrome of immortal guarantees: there is
no such thing as importance...Read more of this...

Do You Remember Once . .

by Alan Seeger
 Do you remember once, in Paris of glad faces, 
The night we wandered off under the third moon's rays 
And, leaving far behind bright streets and busy places, 
Stood where the Seine flowed down between its quiet quais? 


The city's voice was hushed; the placid, lustrous waters 
Mirrored the walls across where orange windows burned. 
Out of the starry...Read more of this...

Korean Mums

by James Schuyler
 beside me in this garden
are huge and daisy-like
(why not? are not
oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?),
shrubby and thick-stalked,
the leaves pointing up
the stems from which
the flowers burst in
sunbursts. I love
this garden in all its moods,
even under its winter coat
of salt hay, or now,
in October, more than
half gone over: here
a rose, there a clump
of aconite. This morning
one of the dogs killed
a barn owl....Read more of this...

Call It Music

by Philip Levine
 Some days I catch a rhythm, almost a song
in my own breath. I'm alone here
in Brooklyn Heights, late morning, the sky
above the St. George Hotel clear, clear
for New York, that is. The radio playing
"Bird Flight," Parker in his California
tragic voice fifty years ago, his faltering
"Lover Man" just before he crashed into chaos.
I would guess that outside the recording studio
in...Read more of this...

Death and Fame

by Allen Ginsberg
 When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in 
 Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother 
 96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor...Read more of this...

The Bistro Styx

by Rita Dove
 She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness
as she paused just inside the double
glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape
billowing dramatically behind her.What's this,

I thought, lifting a hand until
she nodded and started across the parquet;
that's when I saw she was dressed all in gray,
from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl

down to the graphite signature of her shoes.
"Sorry I'm late,"...Read more of this...

transformations

by Rg Gregory
 (service resettlement courses at studio fronceri – west wales)

and the swords came in their varying degrees
of shininess and sharpness – some never
having lost their pristine feel – others with blunt 
tips and broken blades – a few so steeped in blood 
a dried rustiness still stained them - and those wilted 
at the hilt (weary of the code that...Read more of this...

In an Artists Studio

by Christina Rossetti
One face looks out from all his canvases,
     One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
     We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
     A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
     A...Read more of this...

The Play House

by Barry Tebb
 We had a new house

And split the decorating.

You took the piled rolls of paper,

While I stacked the cans of gloss,

One to each corner-white-what else?

And when we began our slow labour

We did not even sigh except in some relief

In being there at last.

There were no spaces for our children’s visits

Nor for the children they would never bring.

All rooms sat square...Read more of this...

The Bad Monk

by Charles Baudelaire
 On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed
Murals displaying Truth the saint,
Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails
Brought to an austere chill a warming paint.

In the times when Christ was seeded around,
More than one illustrious monk, today unknown
Took for a studio the funeral grounds
And glorified Death as the one way shown.

—My soul is a tomb, an empty confine
Since eternity...Read more of this...

Emotional Idiot

by Maggie Estep
 Liner Notes - (From Love Is A Dog From Hell)

Emotional Idiocy is obviously
a theme close to my heart since I seem to use the phrase in novels and
CDs alike. My friend and mentor of sorts, Andrew Vachss, upon hearing me
read a rendition of this poem, stated that it ought to be the theme song
for borderline personality disorder. He's right.


I'm...Read more of this...

Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff

by Adrienne Rich
 The autumn feels slowed down,
summer still holds on here, even the light
seems to last longer than it should
or maybe I'm using it to the thin edge.
The moon rolls in the air. I didn't want this child.
You're the only one I've told.
I want a child maybe, someday, but not now.
Otto has a calm, complacent way
of following me with his eyes,...Read more of this...

The Widening Spell Of Leaves

by Larry Levis
 --The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
 --for my brother

Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck
In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it.
But the city was hours away, beyond the hills
Shaped like the bodies of...Read more of this...

I entered the studio of a potter. I watched him work

by Omar Khayyam
I entered the studio of a potter. I watched him work
at his wheel, actively occupied in moulding the necks
and handles of pitchers, forming some of them like the
heads of kings, others like the feet of beggars....Read more of this...

Candle Hat

by Billy Collins
 In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.

But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio
addressing...Read more of this...

Julot The Apache

by Robert William Service
 You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his mome. . . .
Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home.
A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, --
Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache.
From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat,
With every trick of twist and kick, a...Read more of this...

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