Famous Teen Poems by Famous Poets

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

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On

by Bob Kaufman
 On yardbird corners of embryonic hopes, drowned in a heroin tear.
On yardbird corners of parkerflights to sound filled pockets in space.
On neuro-corners of striped brains & desperate electro-surgeons.
On alcohol corners of pointless discussion & historical hangovers.
On television corners of cornflakes & rockwells impotent America.
On university corners of tailored intellect & greek letter openers.
On military corners of megathon deaths &...Read more of this...

Lion and Honeycomb

by Howard Nemerov
 He didn't want to do it with skill,
He'd had enough of skill. If he never saw
Another villanelle, it would be too soon;
And the same went for sonnets. If it had been
Hard work learning to rime, it would be much
Harder learning not to. The time came
He had to ask himself, what did he want?
What did he want when he began
That...Read more of this...

The Harvest

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Sun on the mountain,
Shade in the valley,
Ripple and lightness
Leaping along the world,
Sun, like a gold sword
Plucked from the scabbard,
Striking the wheat-fields,
Splendid and lusty,
Close-standing, full-headed,
Toppling with plenty;
Shade, like a buckler
Kindly and ample,
Sweeping the wheat-fields
Darkening and tossing;
There on the world-rim
Winds break and gather
Heaping the mist
For the pyre of the sunset;
And still as a shadow,
In the dim westward,
A cloud sloop of amethyst
Moored...Read more of this...

185. The Humble Petition of Bruar Water

by Robert Burns
 MY lord, I know your noble ear
 Woe ne’er assails in vain;
Embolden’d thus, I beg you’ll hear
 Your humble slave complain,
How saucy Phoebus’ scorching beams,
 In flaming summer-pride,
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,
 And drink my crystal tide. 1


The lightly-jumping, glowrin’ trouts,
 That thro’ my waters play,
If, in their random, wanton spouts,
 They near the margin stray;
If, hapless chance! they...Read more of this...

The Betrothed

by Rudyard Kipling
 "You must choose between me and your cigar."
 -- BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885.


Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarrelled about Havanas -- we fought o'er a good cheroot,
And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box --...Read more of this...

The Dame of Athelhall

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

"Soul! Shall I see thy face," she said, 
 "In one brief hour? 
And away with thee from a loveless bed 
To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower, 
And be thine own unseparated, 
 And challenge the world's white glower? 

II 

She quickened her feet, and met him where 
 They had predesigned: 
And they clasped, and...Read more of this...

The Child Bearers

by Anne Sexton
 Jean, death comes close to us all,
flapping its awful wings at us
and the gluey wings crawl up our nose.
Our children tremble in their teen-age cribs,
whirling off on a thumb or a motorcycle,
mine pushed into gnawing a stilbestrol cancer
I passed on like hemophilia,
or yours in the seventh grade, with her spleen
smacked in by the balance beam.
And we, mothers, crumpled, and...Read more of this...

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