Famous Letter Poems by Famous Poets

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• Letter Poems by Members
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• Letter Quotes

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...the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr.
Daniel's house.
"Let's post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box."
"Let's write things in the snow."
"Let's write, 'Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel' all over his lawn."
Or we walked on the white shore. "Can the fishes see it's snowing?"

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills,
and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks rou...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan

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...
There was a large tin box 
Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, 
Of the Declaration of Independence 
And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. 
There were also several packets of stamps, 
Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, 
Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, 
Indians and Men-of-war 
From the United States, 
And the green and red portraits 
Of King Francobello 
Of Italy. 

V 

I don't believe in God. 
I do believe in avenging gods 
Wh...Read more of this...

by Aldington, Richard

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...outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—

441

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me—
The simple News that Nature told—
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see—
For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—
Judge tenderly—of Me.

448

This was a Poet—It is That
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings—
And Attar so immense

From the familiar species
That pe...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily

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...Four-letter word JAZZ:
naughty, sexy, cerebral,
but solarplexy....Read more of this...

by Emanuel, James A

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...t, 
they want bee stings). 
Toot, toot, tootsy don't cry. 
Toot, toot, tootsy good-bye. 
If you don't get a letter then 
you'll know I'm in jail... 
Remember that, Skeezix, 
our first song? 

Who's thinking those things? 
Ms. Dog! She's out fighting the dollars. 
Milk is the American drink. 
Oh queens of sorrows, 
oh water lady, 
place me in your cup 
and pull over the clouds 
so no one can see. 
She don't want no dollars. 
She done...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne

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...African freedom movement was speaking
To elderly Jews. The speaker's own right arm
Had been blown off by right-wing letter-bombers.

He told his listeners they had to cast their ballots
For the ANC--a group the old Jews feared
As "in with the Arabs." But they started weeping

As the old one-armed fighter told them their country
Needed them to vote for what was right, their vote
Could make a country their children could return to

From London and Chicago. The m...Read more of this...

by Pinsky, Robert

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...Love, the world
Suddenly turns, turns color. The streetlight
Splits through the rat's tail
Pods of the laburnum at nine in the morning.
It is the Arctic,

This little black
Circle, with its tawn silk grasses - babies hair.
There is a green in the air,
Soft, delectable.
It cushions me lovingly.

I am flushed and warm.
I think I may b...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia

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...mies
must be handled carefully --
`the crumbs from a lion's meal,
a couple of shins and the bit of an ear';
turn to the letter M
and you will find
that `a wife is a coffin,'
that severe object
with the pleasing geometry
stipulating space and not people,
refusing to be buried
and uniquely disappointing,
revengefully wrought in the attitude
of an adoring child
to a distinguished parent."
She says, "This butterfly,
this waterfly, this nomad
that has `proposed
to settle on my...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne

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...full-pinioned one himself 
526 Out of her botches, hot embosomer. 
527 The third one gaping at the orioles 
528 Lettered herself demurely as became 
529 A pearly poetess, peaked for rhapsody. 
530 The fourth, pent now, a digit curious. 
531 Four daughters in a world too intricate 
532 In the beginning, four blithe instruments 
533 Of differing struts, four voices several 
534 In couch, four more person?, intimate 
535 As buffo, yet divers, four mirrors ...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace

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...d less weariful than before.
Hark! a step on the garret stair, a postman knocks at the flimsy door.
"Registered letter!" Brown thrills with fear; opens, and reads, then bends above:
"Glorious tidings! Egypt, dear! The book is accepted -- life and love."...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William

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...king that clep'd was All',
How that this blissful tiding is befall,
And other tidings speedful for to say
He* hath the letter, and forth he go'th his way. *i.e. the messenger

This messenger, to *do his avantage,* *promote his own interest*
Unto the kinge's mother rideth swithe,* *swiftly
And saluteth her full fair in his language.
"Madame," quoth he, "ye may be glad and blithe,
And thanke God an hundred thousand sithe;* *times
My lady queen hath child, witho...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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...nowing our pain 
 is not theirs or caused by them.

HENRI BRUETTE: 
from a hospital in Algiers

 Dear Suzanne: this letter will 
 not reach you because I can't 
 write it; I have no pencil, 
 no paper, only the blunt 
 end of my anger. My dear, 
 if I had words how could I 
 report the imperfect failure 
 for which I began to die? 

 I might begin by saying 
 that it was for clarity, 
 though I did not find it in 
 terror: dubiously 
 entered each act, unsure 
 of who...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip

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...ad to part a mass of green

To touch the door, the window-panes opaque with dirt, sills choked with 

 books,

A rusted letter-box, cracked lintel, lichened roof-slates caving in,

A ‘Sold’ board hammered firmly into place.



2

There was no solace in the parsonage, no solace there at all,

The staff found it odd, my wanting to park my heavy bag and trudge

From room to room. The couch Emily died on, so shabby and so faded,

Patrick’s hat and sticks like stage props,...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry

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...loved, was reading
the story of another life.
She imagine a bare parlor,
a cold fireplace, a man sitting
writing a letter to a woman
who has sacrificed her life for love."
If there were a perfect moment in the book,
it would be the last.
The book never discusses the causes of love.
It claims confusion is a necessary good.
It never explains. It only reveals.

6
The day goes on.
We study what we remember.
We look into the mirror across the r...Read more of this...

by Strand, Mark

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...ear! 
'Tis, that what Junius we are wont to call 
Was really, truly, nobody at all. 

LXXXI 

I don't see wherefore letters should not be 
Written without hands, since we daily view 
Them written without heads; and books, we see, 
Are fill'd as well without the latter too: 
And really till we fix on somebody 
For certain sure to claim them as his due, 
Their author, like the Niger's mouth, will bother 
The world to say if there be mouth or author. 

LXXXII 

'And who ...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)

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.... Gutterdsammerung, III. i: the
Rhine-daughters.
279. V. Froude, Elizabeth, Vol. I, ch. iv,
letter of De Quadra
to Philip of Spain:
"In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river.
(The queen) was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the poop,
when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert
at last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why they
should not be married if the queen pleased."
29...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

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...rs in wartime 
 Better understand 
The fullness of living, 
 With death close at hand. 

XXIV 
My father wrote me a letter— 
My father, scholarly, indolent, strong, 
Teaching Greek better 
Than high-school students repay— 
Teaching Greek in the winter, but all summer long 
Sailing a yawl in Narragansett Bay; 
Happier perhaps when I was away, 
Free of an anxious daughter, 
He could sail blue water 
Day after day, 
Beyond Brenton Reef Lightship, and Beavertail, 
Past Cuttyh...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer

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...rees, a deprivation.
I could not believe it. Is it so difficult
For the spirit to conceive a face, a mouth?
The letters proceed from these black keys, and these black keys proceed
From my alphabetical fingers, ordering parts,

Parts, bits, cogs, the shining multiples.
I am dying as I sit. I lose a dimension.
Trains roar in my ears, departures, departures!
The silver track of time empties into the distance,
The white sky empties of its promise, like a cup.<...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia

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...
When on the mountain slopes I went
Along hot pathway made of stone.



x x x

Every evening I receive
A letter like a bride
To my friend I give
Response late at night.

"I'll be guest of the white death
On my journey down.
You, my tender one, don't do
Harm to anyone."

And there stands a giant star
Between two wood beams,
With such calmness promising
To fulfil your dreams.



x x x

Divine angel, who betrothed us
Secretly o...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna

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...er with blazing eyes! Darth Vader
From Star Wars. She's trapped, in a house she didn't realize
Was burning. Her letter was a gate to the inferno.
........
(This poem appeared in Pushkin: An Anthology, ed. E. Feinstein, Carcanet 1999)...Read more of this...

by Padel, Ruth

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