Famous Unusual Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Unusual poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous unusual poems. These examples illustrate what a famous unusual poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...e.
In this fashion I have become a tree.
I have become a vase you can pick up or drop at will,
inanimate at last. What unusual luck! My body
passively resisting. Part of the leftovers. Part of the kill.
Angels of flight, you soarer, you flapper, you floater,
you gull that grows out of my back in the drreams I prefer,
stay near. But give me the totem. Give me the shut eye
where I stand in stone shoes as the world's bicycle goes by.
4. ANGEL OF HOPE AND CALENDARS
Angel of...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...up amidst the woods,
And filled the air with barbarous dissonance;
At which I ceased, and listened them awhile,
Till an unusual stop of sudden silence
Gave respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds
That draw the litter of close-curtained Sleep.
At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound
Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even Silence
Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might
Deny her nature, and be never more,
Still to be so displaced....Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...e lived unnoticed till he died
Had not ambition entered Henry's life.
He met her in the lounge of an hotel -
A most unusual place for him to go -
But there he was and there she was as well
Sitting alone. He ordered beers for two.
She was so large a girl that when they came
He gave the waiter twice the usual tip.
She smiled without surprise, told him her name,
And as the name trembled on Henry's lip,
His parched soul, swelling like a desert root,
Broke out its de...Read more of this...
by
Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...loneliness: he felt assur'd
Of happy times, when all he had endur'd
Would seem a feather to the mighty prize.
So, with unusual gladness, on he hies
Through caves, and palaces of mottled ore,
Gold dome, and crystal wall, and turquois floor,
Black polish'd porticos of awful shade,
And, at the last, a diamond balustrade,
Leading afar past wild magnificence,
Spiral through ruggedest loopholes, and thence
Stretching across a void, then guiding o'er
Enormous chasms, where, all foa...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...st convinced of his freedom,A few thousand will think of this dayAs one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual. What instruments we have agreeThe day of his death was a dark cold day.
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:The parish of rich women, physical decay,Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,For poetry makes nothing happen: it survivesIn the valley of its making where exec...Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings-
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.
But the skies that angel trod
Where deep thoughts are a duty-
Where Love's a grown-up God-
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.
Therefore thou art not wrong
Israfeli who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong
Best bard because the wisest!
Merrily live and l...Read more of this...
by
Poe, Edgar Allan
...ncrease,
And he divined 'twas England or the Peace.
Express him startling next with listening ear,
As one that some unusual noise does hear.
With cannon, trumpets, drums, his door surround--
But let some other painter draw the sound.
Thrice did he rise, thrice the vain tumult fled,
But again thunders, when he lies in bed.
His mind secure does the known stroke repeat
And finds the drums Louis's march did beat.
Shake then the room, and all his curtains tear
And wit...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...turbate sometimes she always picked her nose when upset she liked to sit with silence in the dark sadness is not an unusual state for the black woman or writers she took to sneaking drinks a habit which displeased her both for its effects and taste yet eventually sleep would wrestle her in triumph onto the bed ...Read more of this...
by
Giovanni, Nikki
...Mungojerrie--or Rumpelteazer!"-- And most of the time
they left it at that.
Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer had a very unusual gift of the
gab.
They were highly efficient cat-burglars as well, and
remarkably smart at smash-and-grab.
They made their home in Victoria Grove. They had no regular
occupation.
They were plausible fellows, and liked to engage a friendly
policeman in conversation.
When the family assembled for Sunday dinner,
With their minds made up that the...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...th' midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights--if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue as when the force
Of subterranean wind transprots a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...but they were all gone
now. He told us that he used to spend his spare time in sec-
ondhand bookstores buying old and unusual books when he
was in show business, traveling from city to city across
America. Some of them were very rare autographed books,
he told us, but he had bought them for very little and was
forced to sell them for very little.
They'd be worth a lot of money now, " he said.
The ***** woman sat there very quietly studying her
brandy. A couple of ti...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...if you cannot do it
I will collect your child.
The queen sent messengers
throughout the land to find names
of the most unusual sort.
When he appeared the next day
she asked: Melchior?
Balthazar?
But each time the dwarf replied:
No! No! That's not my name.
The next day she asked:
Spindleshanks? Spiderlegs?
But it was still no-no.
On the third day the messenger
came back with a strange story.
He told her:
As I came around the corner of the wood
where the fox says good night to...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it's a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you've done already is a wonderful thing."...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
...d this might have had something to do with it.
"Drink?" I asked.
"Sure, why not?"
I don't suppose there was anything unusual in our conversation that night, it was
simply in the feeling Cass gave. She had chosen me and it was as simple as that. No
pressure. She liked her drinks and had a great number of them. She didn't seem quite of
age but they served he anyhow. Perhaps she had forged i.d., I don't know. Anyhow, each
time she came back from the restroom and sat down next...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...s Thought,
By Passion sway'd, and glorious Woman taught,
A Queen she's made, than Michal seated higher,
Whilst light unusual Airs prophane the hallow'd Lyre.
Where art thou Nathan? where's that Spirit now,
Giv'n to brave Vice, tho' on a Prince's Brow?
In what low Cave, or on what Desert Coast,
Now Virtue wants it, is thy Presence lost?
But lo! he comes, the Rev'rend Bard appears,
Defil'd with Dust his awful silver Hairs,
And his rough Garment, wet with falling Te...Read more of this...
by
Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...and leaned his head
Against a sorrowing angel’s breast, and said:
‘You’d think so much bereavement would have made
‘Unusual big demands upon my trade.
‘The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk;
‘Unless the fighting stops I’ll soon be broke.’
He eyed the Cemetery across the road.
‘There’s scores of bodies out abroad, this while,
‘That should be here by rights. They little know’d
‘How they’d get buried in such wretched style.’
I told him with a sympathetic grin,
T...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...fined.That soft attractive glance that won my heartWhen first my bosom felt unusual smart,Now beams, now glories, in the realms above,Fed by the eternal source of light and love.Then shall I see her as I first beheld,But lovelier far, and by herself excell'd;And I distinguish'd in the bands aboveShall h...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...ur fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.
From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed---
Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!
Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!
And as, in sparkling majesty, a ...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...more the
coquette
than ever.
she is a
child
and a mannequin
and death.
I can't hate
that.
she didn't do
anything
unusual.
I only wanted her
to....Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...e river as drunk as I can be. I have many debts for wine all over the place, For men to live to seventy has always been unusual. I see the butterflies go deeper and deeper between the flowers, And dragonflies in leisured flight between drops of water. As we're told, passing time is always on the move, So little time to know each other: we should not be apart....Read more of this...
by
Fu, Du
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