Famous Upset Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Moon And The Yew Tree

by Sylvia Plath
 This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to...Read more of this...

Landscape of a Pissing Multitude

by Federico García Lorca
 The men kept to themselves:
they were waiting for the swiftness of the last cyclists.
The women kept to themselves:
they were expecting the death of a boy on a Japanese schooner.
They all kept to themselves-
dreaming of the open beaks of dying birds,
the sharp parasol that punctures
a recently flattened toad,
beneath silence with a thousand ears
and tiny mouths of water
in the canyons that...Read more of this...

Symptoms

by Sophie Hannah
 Although you have given me a stomach upset,
Weak knees, a lurching heart, a fuzzy brain,
A high-pitched laugh, a monumental phone bill,
A feeling of unworthiness, sharp pain
When you are somewhere else, a guilty conscience,
A longing, and a dread of what’s in store,
A pulse rate for the Guinness Book of Records -
Life now is better than it was before.

Although you have...Read more of this...

The Aftermath

by Robert William Service
 Although my blood I've shed
 In war's red wrath,
Oh how I darkly dread
 Its aftermath!
Oh how I fear the day
 Of my release,
When I must face the fray
 Of phoney peace!

When I must fend again
 In labour strife;
And toil with sweat and strain
 For kids and wife.
The world is so upset
 I battled for,
That grimly I regret
 The peace...Read more of this...

Poem With Refrains

by Robert Pinsky
 The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog
Uncurling over the tainted city river,
A young girl rowing and her anxious father
Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever
Abandoned orphan. The great athletic killer
Sulking in his tent. As though all stories began
With someone dying.

 When her mother died,
My mother refused to attend the funeral--
In fact, she sulked in her tent all through the...Read more of this...

The Plea of the Simla Dancers

by Rudyard Kipling
  Too late, alas! the song
 To remedy the wrong; --
The rooms are taken from us, swept and
 garnished for their fate.
 But these tear-besprinkled pages
 Shall attest to future ages
That we cried against the crime of it --
 too late, alas! too late!


"What have we ever done to bear this grudge?"
 Was there no room save only in...Read more of this...

The Disturber

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh, what shall I do? I am wholly upset;
I am sure I 'll be jailed for a lunatic yet.
I 'll be out of a job—it's the thing to expect
When I 'm letting my duty go by with neglect.
You may judge the extent and degree of my plight
When I 'm thinking all day and a-dreaming all night,
And a-trying my hand at...Read more of this...

Thou hast put in us an irresistible passion (which is

by Omar Khayyam
Thou hast put in us an irresistible passion [which is
equivalent to an order from Thee], and, on the other
hand, forbiddest us to give way to it. Poor human
beings are in extreme embarrassment between this order
and this prohibition, for it is as if Thou commandest me
to upset the cup but refrain from spilling the contents....Read more of this...

Life Cycles

by Nikki Giovanni
Life Cyclesshe realized  she wasn't one  of life's winners  when she wasn't sure  life to her was some dark  dirty secret that  like some unwanted child  too late for an abortion  was to be borne  alone    she had so many private habits  she would masturbate sometimes  she...Read more of this...

Renascence

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line 
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from; 
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains...Read more of this...

Sams Christmas Pudding

by Marriott Edgar
 It was Christmas Day in the trenches
In Spain in Penninsular War,
And Sam Small were cleaning his musket
A thing as he'd ne're done before.

They'd had 'em inspected that morning
And Sam had got into disgrace,
For when sergeant had looked down the barrel
A sparrow flew out in his face.

The sergeant reported the matter
To Lieutenant Bird then and there.
Said Lieutenant 'How very disgusting'
The...Read more of this...

The Watchman

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 My Claudia, it is long since we have met, 
So kissed, so held each other heart to heart! 
I thought to greet thee as a conqueror comes, 
Bearing the trophies of his prowess home, 
But Jove hath willed it should be otherwise­
Jove, say I? Nay, some mightier stranger-god 
Who thus hath laid his heavy hand on me, 
No victor,...Read more of this...

To a soubrette

by Eugene Field
 'Tis years, soubrette, since last we met;
And yet--ah, yet, how swift and tender
My thoughts go back in time's dull track
To you, sweet pink of female gender!
I shall not say--though others may--
That time all human joy enhances;
But the same old thrill comes to me still
With memories of your songs and dances.

Soubrettish ways these latter days
Invite my praise, but never get...Read more of this...

Popcorn Glass Balls and Cranberries

by Vachel Lindsay
 I. THE LION

The Lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.

He cuffs his wife and bites her ears
Till she is nearly moved to tears.
Then some explorer finds the den
And all is family peace again.


II. AN EXPLANATION OF THE GRASSHOPPER

The Grasshopper, the grasshopper,
I will explain to you:— 
He...Read more of this...

In Abbot Zan's Room at Dayun Temple: Four Poems (4)

by Du Fu
 Boy draw water well shining Agile container rise hand Wet sprinkle not soak earth Sweep surpass like without broom Bright rosy clouds shining again pavilion Clear mist lift high window Lean fill cover path flower Dance end steps willow Difficulty world affair compel Hide away right time after Meet talk agree deep heart How can all restrain...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...

Like tulips in the Spring your cups lift up,

by Omar Khayyam
Like tulips in the Spring your cups lift up,
And, with a tulip-cheeked companion, sup
With joy your wine, or e'er this azure wheel
With some unlooked-for blast upset your cup....Read more of this...

Sestina Of The Tramp-Royal

by Rudyard Kipling
 Speakin' in general, I'ave tried 'em all 
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world. 
Speakin' in general, I'ave found them good 
For such as cannot use one bed too long, 
But must get 'ence, the same as I'ave done, 
An' go observin' matters till they die. 

What do it matter where or 'ow we die, 
So long...Read more of this...

In Plaster

by Sylvia Plath
 I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now:
This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one,
And the white person is certainly the superior one.
She doesn't need food, she is one of the real saints.
At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality --
She lay in bed with me like a dead body
And...Read more of this...

The Death Of Santa Claus

by Charles Webb
 He's had the chest pains for weeks,
but doctors don't make house
calls to the North Pole,

he's let his Blue Cross lapse,
blood tests make him faint,
hospital gown always flap

open, waiting rooms upset
his stomach, and it's only
indigestion anyway, he thinks,

until, feeding the reindeer,
he feels as if a monster fist
has grabbed his heart and won't

stop squeezing. He can't
breathe, and the beautiful white
world he...Read more of this...

All night in deep bewilderment I fret,

by Omar Khayyam
All night in deep bewilderment I fret,
With tear-drops big as pearls my breast is wet;
I cannot fill my cranium with wine,
How can it hold wine, when 'tis thus upset?...Read more of this...

Allegory

by Thomas Hood
 I had a gig-horse, and I called him Pleasure 
Because on Sundays for a little jaunt 
He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure; 
Although he sometimes kicked and shied aslant. 
I had a chaise, and christened it Enjoyment, 
With yellow body and the wheels of red, 
Because it was only used for one employment, 
Namely, to go...Read more of this...

Still I Rise

by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want...Read more of this...

The name -- of it -- is Autumn --

by Emily Dickinson
 The name -- of it -- is "Autumn" --
The hue -- of it -- is Blood --
An Artery -- upon the Hill --
A Vein -- along the Road --

Great Globules -- in the Alleys --
And Oh, the Shower of Stain --
When Winds -- upset the Basin --
And spill the Scarlet Rain --

It sprinkles Bonnets -- far below --
It gathers...Read more of this...

Bokardo

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Well, Bokardo, here we are; 
Make yourself at home. 
Look around—you haven’t far 
To look—and why be dumb? 
Not the place that used to be,
Not so many things to see; 
But there’s room for you and me. 
And you—you’ve come. 

Talk a little; or, if not, 
Show me with a sign
Why it was that you forgot 
What was yours...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Upset poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace