Famous Unique Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Unique poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous unique poems. These examples illustrate what a famous unique poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Lux
A man risked his life to write the words.
A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
holding his legs?) with spray paint
to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
a highway. And his beloved,
the next morning driving to work...?
His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
Does she recognize his handwriting?
Did he hint to her at her doorstep the...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
Some people find out they are Jews.
They can't believe it.
Thy had always hated Jews.
As children they had roamed in gangs on winter nights in the old
neighborhood, looking for Jews.
They were not Jewish, they were Irish.
They brandished broken bottles, tough guys with blood on their
lips, looking for Jews.
They intercepted Jewish boys walking alone and beat them up.
Sometimes they...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Because you came one day so simply along the paths of devotion and took my life into your beneficent hands, I love and praise and thank you with my senses, with my heart and brain, with my whole being stretched like a torch towards your unquenchable goodness and charity.
Since that day, I know what love, pure and bright as the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
You see that sheaf of slender books
Upon the topmost shelf,
At which no browser ever looks,
Because they're by . . . myself;
They're neatly bound in navy blue,
But no one ever heeds;
Their print is clear and candid too,
Yet no one ever reads.
Poor wistful books! How much they cost
To me in time and gold!
I count them now as labour lost,
For none I...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
In the garden of our love, summer still goes on: yonder, a golden peacock crosses an avenue; petals—pearls, emeralds, turquoises —deck the uniform slumber of the green swards.
Our blue ponds shimmer, covered with the white kiss of the snowy water-lilies; in the quincunxes, our currant bushes follow one another in procession; an iridescent insect teases the heart of a flower;...Read more of this...
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...
by
Emily Dickinson
Elijah's Wagon knew no thill
Was innocent of Wheel
Elijah's horses as unique
As was his vehicle --
Elijah's journey to portray
Expire with him the skill
Who justified Elijah
In feats inscrutable --...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
each sunset is unique
so others tell us
fools - with flowers
of envy pushing
through their teeth
i think differently
a feeble skill that
can't repeat itself
i'll have the sun in
for a spell to make
a proper artist of him
by time i finish with
this yellow fickle lout
his sunset will be perfect...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Oh! let the passing hand knock with its futile fingers on the door; our hour is so unique, and the rest—what matters the rest with its futile fingers?
Let dismal, tiresome joy keep to the road and pass on with its rattles in its hand.
Let laughter swell and clatter and die away; let the crowd pass with its thousands of voices.
The...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I went to Heaven --
'Twas a small Town --
Lit -- with a Ruby --
Lathed -- with Down --
Stiller -- than the fields
At the full Dew --
Beautiful -- as Pictures --
No Man drew.
People -- like the Moth --
Of Mechlin -- frames --
Duties -- of Gossamer --
And Eider -- names --
Almost -- contented --
I -- could be --
'Mong such unique
Society --...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
Talking in bed ought ot be easiest
Lying together there goes back so far
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside the wind's incomplete unrest
builds and disperses clouds about the sky.
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more...Read more of this...
by
Czeslaw Milosz
Maidenly lake, fathomless lake,
Stay as you were once, overgrown with rushes,
Idling with a reflected cloud, for my sake
Whom your shore no longer touches.
Your girl was always real to me.
Her bones lie in a city by the sea.
Everything occurs too normally.
A unique love simply wears away.
Girl, hey, girl, we repose in an abyss.
The base of a skull, a rib, a...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention --
A Patent of the Heart --
In unremitting action
Yet never wearing out --
Of this electric Adjunct
Not anything is known
But its unique momentum
Embellish all we own --...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
coupling the ends of streets
to trains of light.
now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
put out the neon shapes
that float and swell and glare
down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLII. Questa Fenice dell' aurata piuma. HE COMPARES HER TO THE PHŒNIX. This wondrous Phœnix with the golden plumesForms without art so rare a ring to deckThat beautiful and soft and snowy neck,That every heart it melts, and mine consumes:Forms, too, a natural diadem which lightsThe air around, whence...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Keep me, I pray, in wisdom's way
That I may truths eternal seek;
I need protecting care to-day,--
My purse is light, my flesh is weak.
So banish from my erring heart
All baleful appetites and hints
Of Satan's fascinating art,
Of first editions, and of prints.
Direct me in some godly walk
Which leads away from bookish strife,
That I with pious...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Son put a poser up to me
That made me scratch my head:
"God made the whole wide world," quoth he;
"That's right, my boy," I said.
Said son: "He mad the mountains soar,
And all the plains lie flat;
But Dad, what did he do before
He did all that?
Said I: "Creation was his biz;
He set the stars to shine;
The sun and moon and...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXXI. Le stelle e 'l cielo e gli elementi a prova. LAURA'S UNPARALLELED BEAUTY AND VIRTUE. The stars, the elements, and Heaven have madeWith blended powers a work beyond compare;All their consenting influence, all their care,To frame one perfect creature lent their aid.Whence Nature views her loveliness display'dWith sun-like...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
Calmly we walk through this April's day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
(This is the school in which we learn...)
Besides the photo and the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I used to think a pot of ink
Held magic in its fluid,
And I would ply a pen when I
Was hoary a a Druid;
But as I scratch my silver thatch
My battered old Corona
Calls out to me as plaintively
As dying Desdemona.
"For old time's sake give me a break:
To you I've been as loyal
As ever could an Underwood,
Or Remington or Royal.
The globe...Read more of this...
by
Bliss Carman
TO the assembled folk
At great St. Kavin’s spoke
Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve;
I give you joy, my friends,
That as the round year ends,
We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave.
On other festal days
For penitence or praise
Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving;
To-night we calendar
The rising of that...Read more of this...
by
Hugo Williams
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls
the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can't remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.
Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore,
To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn't seeking gore;
The which it must have often been, for Major Percy Brown,
According to his story was a hunter of...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Each day I live I thank the Lord
I do the work I love;
And in it find a rich reward,
All price and praise above.
For few may do the work they love,
The fond unique employ,
That fits them as a hand a glove,
And gives them joy.
Oh gentlefolk, do you and you
Who toil for daily hire,
Consider that the...Read more of this...
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