Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Talking About Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Taylor, Edward
...it's the afterlife they want to talk about.
"Ouch," I say, "did you see that grape leaf
skeletonizer?" Then they're talking about
redemption and the chosen few sitting right by
His side. "Doing what?" I ask. "Just sitting?" I
am surrounded by burned up zombies. "Let's
have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday
at the 3 Dog Bakery." But they want to talk about
my soul. I'm getting drowsy and see butterflies
everywhere. "Would you gentlemen like ...Read more of this...



by Tate, James
...it's the afterlife they want to talk about.
"Ouch," I say, "did you see that grape leaf
skeletonizer?" Then they're talking about
redemption and the chosen few sitting right by
His side. "Doing what?" I ask. "Just sitting?" I
am surrounded by burned up zombies. "Let's
have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday
at the 3 Dog Bakery." But they want to talk about
my soul. I'm getting drowsy and see butterflies
everywhere. "Would you gentlemen like ...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...are 3 men with heads
and necks
like ostriches all getting into one
car.
they each have a toothpick and now
they are talking about women.
they drive away first
they drive away fast.
they're best i guess.
it's an unberably hot day.
there's a first-stage smog alert.
all the birds and plants are dead
or dying.

you start the engine....Read more of this...

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
....
You have heard me quote from Plato
A thousand times no doubt;
Well, I have discovered he did not know
What he was talking about.

You think I am speaking strangely?
You cannot understand?
Well, let me look down into your eyes,
And let me take your hand.
I am running away from danger –
I am flying before I fall;
I am going because with heart and soul
I love you – that is all.

There, now, you are white with anger.
I knew it would be so.
You should not...Read more of this...

by Cavafy, Constantine P
...Apollonius was talking about
proper education and conduct with a young
man who was building a luxurious
house in Rhodes. "As for me" said the Tyanian
at last, "when I enter a temple
however small it may be, I very much prefer
to see a statue of ivory and gold
than a clay and vulgar one in a large temple".--

The "clay" and "vulgar"; the detestable:
that already som...Read more of this...



by Mansfield, Katherine
...ack with a voice like a Protestant bell
Roared--"Particulars! Farmhouse! At 10 quid a year!"
"I dunno wot place you are talking about."
Said the deaf old man.
Said Jack, "What the Hell!"
But the deaf old man took a pin from his desk, picked
a piece of wool the size of a hen's egg from his ear,
had a good look at it, decided in its favour and re-
placed it in the aforementioned organ....Read more of this...

by Nemerov, Howard
...he sounds of things.

He asked himself, poor moron, because he had
Nobody else to ask. The others went right on
Talking about form, talking about myth
And the (so help us) need for a modern idiom;
The verseballs among them kept counting syllables.

So there he was, this forty-year-old teen-ager
Dreaming preposterous mergers and divisions
Of vowels like water, consonants like rock
(While everybody kept discussing values
And the need for values), for words that woul...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...n and stay a while
I'll photograph you emerging from the revolving door
like Frank O'Hara dating the muse of modern art
Talking about the big Pollock show is better
than going to it on a dismal Saturday afternoon
when my luncheon partner is either the author or the subject
of The Education of Henry Adams at a hard-to-get-
a-table-at restaurant on Cornelia Street
just what is chaos theory anyway
I'm not sure but it helps explain "Autumn Rhythm"
the closest thing to chaos witho...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...nue and went out there for the first time.

 There were two ***** boys sitting behind me on the bus.

They were talking about Chubby Checker and the Twist. They

thought that Chubby Checker was only fifteen years old be-

cause he didn't have a mustache. Then they talked about some

other guy who did the twist forty-four hours in a row until

he saw George Washington crossing the Delaware.

 "Man, that's what I call twisting, " one of the kids said.

 ...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...ut Fishing in America Shorty lay there below, his

face spread out like a fan in the grass.

 A friend and I got to talking about Trout Fishing in Ameri

ca Shorty one afternoon. We decided the best thing to do witl:

him was to pack him in a big shipping crate with a couple of

cases of sweet wine and send him to Nelson Algren.

 Nelson Algren is always writing about Railroad Shorty, a

hero of the Neon Wilderness (the reason for "The Face on

the Barroom Floor")...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...IS MY EARTHLY FAILURE-- holding the

dead fish by the tail, the fish taking all the bows like a young

Jewish comedian talking about Adlai Stevenson.

 The third-year student in engineering at the University of

Montana took a tin can and punched an elaborate design of

holes in the can, the design running around and around in

circles, like a dog with a fire hydrant in its mouth. Then he

attached some string to the can and put a huge salmon egg

and a piece of Swis...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...Sometimes that's all you need. "

 "Yeah, " I said. "You're right there. "

 I cast out again and continued talking about Great Falls.

 Then in correct order I recited the twelve least important

things ever said about Great Falls, Montana. For the twelfth

and least important thing of all, I said, "Yeah, the telephone

would ring in the morning. I'd get out of bed. I didn't have to

answer the telephone. That had all been taken care of, years...Read more of this...

by Muldoon, Paul
...ng from. As if the open hand 
might, for once, put paid 
to the hand-grenade 
in one corner of the planet. 
I'm talking about pineapples—right?—not pomegranates....Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...bad poet is Marvin Bell."
But no one has won as many prizes as Philip Levine. 

At the restaurant, people were talking about Philip Levine's
latest: the Pulitzer. A toast was proposed by Anne Sexton. 
No one saw the stranger, who said his name was Marvin Bell, 
pour something into Donna's drink. "In the Walt Whitman 
Shopping Center, there you feel free," said Ted Berrigan, 
pulling on a Chesterfield. Everyone laughed, except T. S. Eliot. ...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...h a spoon.
His name was in the newspapers that day
Spelled out in tall black headlines
And thousands of people were talking about him.

 When I saw him,
He sat bending his head over a plate
Putting soup in his mouth with a spoon....Read more of this...

by Edson, Russell
...sister that.
 Finally the man said, but what about you, dear breast?
 And so the breast spent the rest of the night talking about
herself.
 It was the same as when she talked about her sister: herself
this and herself that.
 Finally the man kissed her nipple and said, I'm sorry, and
fell asleep. . ....Read more of this...

by Berman, David
...nglasses
after a long drive and realize it's earlier
and lighter out than you had accounted for.

You know what I'm talking about,

and that's the kind of fellowship that's taking place in town, out in
the public spaces. You won't overhear anyone using the words
"dramaturgy" or "state inspection today. We're too busy getting along.

It occurs to me that the laws are in the regions and the regions are
in the laws, and it feels good to say this, something that I...Read more of this...

by Butler, Ellis Parker
...days
And go to the home of played-out shays.

“Logic is logic.” Just figure this out—
For I know just what I’m talking about:—
If a one-hoss vehicle, genus shays,
Will stand our pressure twenty days,
Then, vice versa, a twenty-hoss shay
Should stand the pressure just one day;—
Well, mine is a logical automobile,
From rubber tire to steering wheel.
I bought it one morning at just 10.42,
And the very next morning what did it do,
Right on the second, but up and ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ou shine 
Like your own trumpet. By the way, my own 
Has more of brass in it, and is as well blown. 

CI 

'But talking about trumpets, here's my Vision! 
Now you shall judge, all people; yes, you shall 
Judge with my judgment, and by my decision 
Be guided who shall enter heaven or fall. 
I settle all these things by intuition, 
Times present, past, to come, heaven, hell, and all, 
Like King Alfonso(2). When I thus see double, 
I save the Deity some worlds of...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...e remains asleep and very warm.

When she says tomorrow she means in three or four weeks.
When she says, "We're talking about me now,"
he stops talking. Her best friend comes over and says,
"Did somebody die?"

When a woman loves a man, they have gone
to swim naked in the stream
on a glorious July day
with the sound of the waterfall like a chuckle
of water ruching over smooth rocks,
and there is nothing alien in the universe.

Ripe apples fall about them.
...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Talking About poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs