Famous Write Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Witchs Life

by Anne Sexton
 When I was a child
there was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch.
All day she peered from her second story
window
from behind the wrinkled curtains
and sometimes she would open the window
and yell: Get out of my life!
She had hair like kelp
and a voice like a boulder.

I think of her sometimes now
and wonder if I am becoming...Read more of this...

If It Is True What the Prophets Write

by William Blake
 If it is true, what the Prophets write,
That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones,
Shall we, for the sake of being polite,
Feed them with the juice of our marrow-bones?

And if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew
What the finger of God pointed to their view,
Shall we suffer the Roman and Grecian rods
To compel us to worship them as gods?

They stole them...Read more of this...

Sonnet 80: O how I faint when I of you do write

by William Shakespeare
 O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVIII: How Can My Muse Want Subject to Invent

by William Shakespeare
 How can my muse want subject to invent,
While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thy self dost give invention light? 
Be thou the tenth...Read more of this...

I Write My Mother a Poem

by Fleda Brown
Sometimes I feel her easing further into her grave, 
resigned, as always, and I have to come to her rescue. 
Like now, when I have so much else to do. Not that 

she'd want a poem. She would have been proud, of course, 
of all its mystery, involving her, but scared a little. 
Her eyes would have filled with tears....Read more of this...

115. The Farewell to the Brethren of St. James's Lodge Tarbolton

by Robert Burns
 ADIEU! a heart-warm fond adieu;
 Dear brothers of the mystic tie!
Ye favourèd, enlighten’d few,
 Companions of my social joy;
Tho’ I to foreign lands must hie,
 Pursuing Fortune’s slidd’ry ba’;
With melting heart, and brimful eye,
 I’ll mind you still, tho’ far awa.


Oft have I met your social band,
 And spent the cheerful, festive night;
Oft, honour’d with supreme command,
 Presided o’er...Read more of this...

Corn Hut Talk

by Carl Sandburg
 WRITE your wishes
 on the door
 and come in.

Stand outside
 in the pools of the harvest moon.

Bring in
 the handshake of the pumpkins.

There’s a wish
 for every hazel nut?
There’s a hope
 for every corn shock?
There’s a kiss
 for every clumsy climbing shadow?

Clover and the bumblebees once,
high winds and November rain now.

Buy shoes
 for rough weather in November.
Buy shirts
 to...Read more of this...

For A Lady Who Must Write Verse

by Dorothy Parker
 Unto seventy years and seven,
Hide your double birthright well-
You, that are the brat of Heaven
And the pampered heir to Hell.

Let your rhymes be tinsel treasures,
Strung and seen and thrown aside.
Drill your apt and docile measures
Sternly as you drill your pride.

Show your quick, alarming skill in
Tidy mockeries of art;
Never, never dip your quill in
Ink that rushes from your heart.

When your...Read more of this...

How To Write The Great American Indian Novel

by Sherman Alexie
All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms.
Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food.

The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably
from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory.

If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slender
and...Read more of this...

Sonnet 134: So now I have confessed that he is thine

by William Shakespeare
 So, now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still.
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind,
He learned but surety-like to write for me
Under that bond that him as fist...Read more of this...

Every Man Should have a Rifle

by Henry Lawson
 So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb, 
Seeing visions "over yonder" of the war I know must come. 
In the corner - not a vision - but a sign for coming days 
Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize. 
And in this, the living present, let the word...Read more of this...

Trying To Write

by Elizabeth Smart
 That day i finished
A small piece
For an obscure magazine
I popped it in the box

And such a starry elation
Came over me
That I got whistled at in the street
For the first time in a long time.

I was dirty and roughly dressed
And had circles under my eyes
And far far from flirtation
But so full of completion
Of a deed duly done
An act of consummation
That...Read more of this...

In memory of that excellent person Mrs. Mary Lloyd of Bodidrist in Denbigh-shire

by Katherine Philips
 I CANNOT hold, for though to write were rude, 
Yet to be silent were Ingratitude, 
And Folly too; for if Posterity 
Should never hear of such a one as thee, 
And onely know this Age's brutish fame, 
They would think Vertue nothing but a Name. 
And though far abler Pens must her define, 
Yet her Adoption hath engaged mine:...Read more of this...

On Being Challenged to Write an Epigram in the Manner of Herrick

by Sir Walter Raleigh
 To Griggs, that learned man, in many a bygone session, 
His kids were his delight, and physics his profession;
Now Griggs, grown old and glum, and less intent on knowledge,
Physics himself at home, and sends his kids to college....Read more of this...

The Man Who Could Write

by Rudyard Kipling
 Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,
Is a dismal failure -- is a Might-have-been.
In a luckless moment he discovered men
Rise to high position through a ready pen.

Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore -- "I,
With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high."
Only he did not possess when he made the trial,
Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L--l.

[Men who spar with Government need, to...Read more of this...

Tonight I Can Write

by Pablo Neruda
 Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again...Read more of this...

Goliath Of Gath

by Phillis Wheatley
 SAMUEL, Chap. xvii.

YE martial pow'rs, and all ye tuneful nine,
Inspire my song, and aid my high design.
The dreadful scenes and toils of war I write,
The ardent warriors, and the fields of fight:
You best remember, and you best can sing
The acts of heroes to the vocal string:
Resume the lays with which your sacred lyre,
Did then the poet and the sage...Read more of this...

The Days Go By

by Barry Tebb
 for Daniel Weissbort

Some poems meant only for my eyes

About a grief I can’t let go

But I want to, want to throw

It away like an old worn-out cloak

Or screw up like a ball of over-written

Trash and toss into the corner bin.

I said it must come up or out

I don't know which but either way

Will do, I know I can't write...Read more of this...

There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left

by Kenneth Patchen
 I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a
temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest.

For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the
world. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I
cover her against any hurt.

Using the pen of rivers and mountaintops I store her
pillow with singing.

Upon her hair I...Read more of this...

Write My News To Your Agency

by Ahmet Yalcinkaya
i lost my mind
since the moment i have seen you
i found me a way
go and go
you have the scope, you have the light
you have the compass
to where i do not know

some will say mad
Saint some will say
the look like penetrating souls
of the gloom in my eyes
has a meaning or is going to have
be one knowing my sorrow
may not have a...Read more of this...

To All, To Whom I Write

by Ben Jonson
IX. ? TO ALL TO WHOM I WRITE.      May none whose scatter'd names honor my book, For strict degrees of rank or title look : 'Tis 'gainst the manners of an epigram ; And I a poet here, no herald am. ...Read more of this...

All the letters I can write

by Emily Dickinson
 All the letters I can write
Are not fair as this --
Syllables of Velvet --
Sentences of Plush,
Depths of Ruby, undrained,
Hid, Lip, for Thee --
Play it were a Humming Bird --
And just sipped -- me --...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXI. Anima, che diverse cose tante. HE REJOICES AT BEING ON EARTH WITH HER, AS HE IS THEREBY ENABLED BETTER TO IMITATE HER VIRTUES.  Soul! with such various faculties enduedTo think, write, speak, to read, to see, to hear;My doting eyes! and thou, my faithful ear!Where drinks my heart her counsels...Read more of this...

Ode For Mrs. William Settle

by Philip Levine
 In Lake Forest, a suburb of Chicago,
a woman sits at her desk to write
me a letter. She holds a photograph
of me up to the light, one taken
17 years ago in a high school class
in Providence. She sighs, and the sigh
smells of mouthwash and tobacco.
If she were writing by candlelight
she would now be in the dark, for
a living flame would...Read more of this...

Why I Write Not Of Love

by Ben Jonson
  I. — WHY I WRITE NOT OF LOVE.                   Can poets hope to fetter me ? It is enough, they once did get             5 Mars and my mother, in their net : I wear not these my wings in vain. With which he fled me ;  and again, Into my rhymes could ne'er be got By any art :  then wonder not,            10 That...Read more of this...

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