Famous Writes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Bridge

by Russell Edson
 In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones. 
Before crossing he writes a letter to his mother: Dear mother, 
guess what? the ape accidentally bit off one of his hands while 
eating a banana. Just now I am at the foot of a bone bridge. I 
shall be crossing it shortly. I don't know if...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 6. One writes that Other Friends Rem

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 One writes, that "Other friends remain," 
That "Loss is common to the race"--
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more.
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
Who pledgest now thy gallant son,
A shot, ere half thy draught be...Read more of this...

182. The Libeller's Self-reproof

by Robert Burns
 RASH 1 mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name
Shall no longer appear in the records of Fame;
Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible,
Says, the more ’tis a truth, sir, the more ’tis a libel!


 Note 1. These are rhymes of dubious authenticity.—Lang. [back]...Read more of this...

The Apology

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes...Read more of this...

Live

by Anne Sexton
 Live or die, but don't poison everything...

Well, death's been here
for a long time --
it has a hell of a lot
to do with hell
and suspicion of the eye
and the religious objects
and how I mourned them
when they were made obscene
by my dwarf-heart's doodle.
The chief ingredient
is mutilation.
And mud, day after day,
mud like a ritual,
and the baby on the platter,
cooked but still human,
cooked...Read more of this...

To A Husband

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 This is to the crown and blessing of my life,
The much loved husband of a happy wife;
To him whose constant passion found the art
To win a stubborn and ungrateful heart,
And to the world by tenderest proof discovers
They err, who say that husbands can't be lovers.
With such return of passion, as is due,
Daphnis I love, Daphinis my thoughts pursue;
Daphnis, my...Read more of this...

Genesis

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 In the outer world that was before this earth,
That was before all shape or space was born,
Before the blind first hour of time had birth,
Before night knew the moonlight or the morn;

Yea, before any world had any light,
Or anything called God or man drew breath,
Slowly the strong sides of the heaving night
Moved, and brought forth the strength of life...Read more of this...

Come up from the Fields Father

by Walt Whitman
 1
COME up from the fields, father, here’s a letter from our Pete; 
And come to the front door, mother—here’s a letter from thy dear son. 

2
Lo, ’tis autumn; 
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder, 
Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the...Read more of this...

The Pannikin Poet

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There's nothing here sublime, 
But just a roving rhyme, 
Run off to pass the time, 
With nought titanic in. 
The theme that it supports, 
And, though it treats of quarts, 
It's bare of golden thoughts -- 
It's just a pannikin. 

I think it's rather hard 
That each Australian bard -- 
Each wan, poetic card -- 
With thoughts galvanic in...Read more of this...

Octaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I 

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel -- 
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand. 

II 

Tumultuously void of a clean...Read more of this...

The Black Art

by Anne Sexton
 A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.

A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren't enough; as...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
   Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
   By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
   Thou madest Life in man and brute;
   Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast...Read more of this...

Questions of Travel

by Elizabeth Bishop
 There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams 
hurry too rapidly down to the sea, 
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops 
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, 
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. 
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, 
aren't waterfalls yet, 
in a quick age or so,...Read more of this...

The Loving One Writes

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress

The pledge thy lips to mine convey,--the kiss,--

He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this,
Can he in aught beside find happiness?

Removed from thee, friend-sever'd, in distress,

These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss:

They still return to that one hour of bliss,
The only one; then tears my grief confess.

But unawares the tear...Read more of this...

An EPISTLE from Alexander to Hephaestion In His Sickness

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 WITH such a Pulse, with such disorder'd Veins, 
Such lab'ring Breath, as thy Disease constrains; 
With failing Eyes, that scarce the Light endure, 
(So long unclos'd, they've watch'd thy doubtful Cure) 
To his Hephaestion Alexander writes, 
To soothe thy Days, and wing thy sleepless Nights, 
I send thee Love: Oh! that I could impart, 
As well my vital Spirits...Read more of this...

Your Dad Did What?

by Sophie Hannah
 Where they have been, if they have been away,
or what they've done at home, if they have not -
you make them write about the holiday.
One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what?

That's not a sentence. Never mind the bell.
We stay behind until the work is done.
You count their words (you who can count and spell);
all the assignments...Read more of this...

Astrophel and Stella: III

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine,
That, bravely mask'd, their fancies may be told;
Or, Pindar's apes, flaunt they in phrases fine,
Enam'ling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold.
Or else let them in statelier glory shine,
Ennobling newfound tropes with problems old;
Or with strange similes enrich each line,
Of herbs or beasts which Ind or Afric hold.
For me, in sooth, no...Read more of this...

In This Place (An American Lyric)

by Amanda Gorman
There’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
where America writes a lyric
you must whisper to say.

There’s a poem in this place—
in the heavy grace,
the lined face of this noble building,
collections burned and reborn twice.

There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square
where protest chants
tear through the...Read more of this...

Clementes Images

by Robert Creeley
 1)

Sleeping birds, lead me,
soft birds, be me

inside this black room,
back of the white moon.

In the dark night
sight frightens me.


2)

Who is it nuzzles there
with furred, round headed stare?

Who, perched on the skin,
body's float, is holding on?

What other one stares still,
plays still, on and on?


3)

Stand upright, prehensile,
squat, determined,

small guardians of the painful
outside coming in --

in stuck in vials with needles,
bleeding life...Read more of this...

All My Pretty Ones

by Anne Sexton
 Father, this year's jinx rides us apart 
where you followed our mother to her cold slumber; 
a second shock boiling its stone to your heart,
leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber
you from the residence you could not afford:
a gold key, your half of a woolen mill,
twenty suits from Dunne's, an English Ford,
the love and legal verbiage of another will,...Read more of this...

Authorship

by Rabindranath Tagore
 You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don't
understand.
He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really
make out what he meant?
What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can't father
write like that, I wonder?
Did he never hear from his own mother stories of giants and
fairies and princesses?
Has he forgotten...Read more of this...

Hero

by Siegfried Sassoon
 'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the Mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read. 
'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke
In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant...Read more of this...

The Fathers

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Snug at the club two fathers sat, 
Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. 
One of them said: ‘My eldest lad 
Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. 
But Arthur’s getting all the fun
At Arras with his nine-inch gun.’ 

‘Yes,’ wheezed the other, ‘that’s the luck! 
My boy’s quite broken-hearted, stuck 
In England training all this year. 
Still, if there’s truth in...Read more of this...

Victory

by Adrienne Rich
 Something spreading underground won't speak to us
under skin won't declare itself
not all life-forms want dialogue with the
machine-gods in their drama hogging down
the deep bush clear-cutting refugees
from ancient or transient villages into
our opportunistic fervor to search
 crazily for a host a lifeboat

Suddenly instead of art we're eyeing
organisms traced and stained on cathedral transparencies
cruel blues embroidered purples succinct yellows
a beautiful tumor

•

I...Read more of this...

Autopsychography

by Fernando Pessoa
The poet is a faker.
Pretends so completely
That comes to pretend that is pain 
The pain that he really feels.

And those who read what he writes,
In the pain read they feel right ,
Not the two that he had,
But only the one which they have not.

And so on the wheel rails
It spins to entertain the reason,
This train of rope
Called heart....Read more of this...

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