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Famous Theater Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...There was once a hog theater where hogs performed 
as men, had men been hogs.

 One hog said, I will be a hog in a field which has 
found a mouse which is being eaten by the same hog 
which is in the field and which has found the mouse, 
which I am performing as my contribution to the 
performer's art.

 Oh let's just be hogs, cried an old hog.

 And so the hogs stre...Read more of this...
by Edson, Russell



...unks of still-mortared brick
In shapes like bits of puzzle strew the bottom
Where the landing was for Price's Hotel and Theater.
And here's where boats blew two blasts for the keeper
To shunt the iron swing-bridge. He leaned on the gears
Like a skipper in the hut that housed the works
And the bridge moaned and turned on its middle pier
To let them through. In the middle of the summer
Two or three cars might wait for the iron trusswork
Winching aside, with maybe a ...Read more of this...
by Pinsky, Robert
...n my temples repeats 
the same unchanging syllable of blood. 

The light turns the indifferent wall 
into a ghostly theater of reflections. 

I find myself in the middle of an eye, 
watching myself in its blank stare. 

The moment scatters. Motionless, 
I stay and go: I am a pause....Read more of this...
by Paz, Octavio
...y the sea naked.

Some evenings, however, we found ourselves
Unsure of what comes next.
Like tragic actors in a theater on fire,
With birds circling over our heads,
The dark pines strangely still,
Each rock we stepped on bloodied by the sunset.

We were back on our terrace sipping wine.
Why always this hint of an unhappy ending?
Clouds of almost human appearance
Gathering on the horizon, but the rest lovely
With the air so mild and the sea untroubled.

The...Read more of this...
by Simic, Charles
...ts, 
they move like sea creatures. 
A voice will crackle from out 
there where no voices are 
speaking of the great theater 
of conquest, of advancing 
beyond the simple miracles 
of flight, the small ventures 
of birds and beasts. The President 
will answer with words she 
cannot remember having 
spoken ever to anyone.

THE PHONE CALL

She calls Chicago, but no one 
is home. The operator asks 
for another number but still 
no one answers. Together 
they t...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip



...Speed's, nor Camden's learned History; 
2.3 Eliza's works, wars, praise, can e're compact, 
2.4 The World's the Theater where she did act. 
2.5 No memories, nor volumes can contain, 
2.6 The nine Olymp'ades of her happy reign, 
2.7 Who was so good, so just, so learn'd, so wise, 
2.8 From all the Kings on earth she won the prize. 
2.9 Nor say I more than truly is her due. 
2.10 Millions will testify that this is true. 
2.11 S...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne
...sband's jests;
If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott,
And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot;
They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious diary can,
But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American.
I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them,
I shudder as I think...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden
...ed by my friends' dumb remarks,
or even my own, though admittedly that's the hardest part,
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn't even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. Well he's 
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him--
this thing works both ways, you know. You can't always
be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself
at the same time.That wou...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...I've seen you many times in many places--
Theater, bus, train, or on the street;
Smiling in spring rain, in winter sleet,
Eyes of any hue in myriad faces;
Midnight black, all shades of brown your hair,
Long, short, bronze or honey-fair.
Instantly have I loved, have never spoken;
Slowly a truck passed, a light changed,
A door closed--all seemingly pre-arranged--
Then you were gone forever, the sp...Read more of this...
by Williams, John
...no sense of humor.

 There's always a single feature, a double feature and an

eternal feature playing at the Great Theater in Mooresville,

Indiana: the John Dillinger capital of America.






GRIDER CREEK





I had heard there was some good fishing in there and it was

running clear while all the other large creeks were running

muddy from the snow melting off the Marble Mountains.

 I also heard there were some Eastern brook trout in there,

high up in the mo...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...know what you mean, " I said. "The other people in

Great Falls did not share my enthusiasm for Deanna Durbin,

The theater was always empty. There was a darkness to that

theater different from any theater I've been in since. Maybe

it was the snow outside and Deanna Durbin inside. I don't

know what it was."

 "What was the name of the movie?" Trout Fishing in Am-

erica said.

 "I don't know, " I said. "She sang a lot. Maybe she was a

choru...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...
She opened her house door at five o'clock,
A short half-hour before her husband's knock.

Part Third
The `Residenz-Theater' sparked and hummed
With lights and people. Gebnitz was to sing,
That rare soprano. All the fiddles strummed
With tuning up; the wood-winds made a ring
Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting
Of sharp, red brass pierced every ear-drum; patting
From muffled tympani made a dark slatting
Across the silver shimmering of flutes;
A bassoon grunted,...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...ereas last night 
the cock knew its way home, 
as stiff as a hammer, 
battering in with all 
its awful power. 
That theater. 
Today it is tender, 
a small bird, 
as soft as a baby's hand. 
She is the house. 
He is the steeple. 
When they **** they are God. 
When they break away they are God. 
When they snore they are God. 
In the morning thet butter the toast. 
They don't say much. 
They are still God. 
All the cocks of the world ar...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...br>
Oh look at you.
What is it you hold back? What piece of time is it the list
won't cover? You down there, in the theater of
operations -- you, throat of the world -- so diacritical -- 
(are we all waiting for the phone to ring?) -- 
(what will you say? are you home? are you expected soon?) -- 
oh wanderer back from break, all your attention focused
 -- as if the thinking were an oar, this ship the last of some
original fleet, the captains gone but some of us
who saw th...Read more of this...
by Graham, Jorie
...ie Fisher,
the star I was in love with that year, was so rude
he never even said "excuse me." Then we went into the theater
sat in the front row. the stage sprang into colored light, and
the glittery costumes, the singing, the magical story,
drew me in, made me feel in that moment,
that I would learn again and again,
the miraculous language, the music of it.
My life, turning away from the constricted world
of the 19th Street tenement, formed a line 
almost perpend...Read more of this...
by Gillan, Maria Mazziotti
...er
A girl and I came into
Being together
To the faint muttering
Of unthinkable
Troubadours and radios.

The emerald
Theater, the night.
Another time,
I devised a left-hander
Even more gifted
Than Whitey Ford: A Dodger.
People were amazed by him.
Once, when he was young,
He refused to pitch on Yom Kippur....Read more of this...
by Pinsky, Robert
...her pleasure, driving against it: it's the same river
someone else will see
somewhere else downstream -- same play,
new theater, different set.
Wide, shallow, fairly fast,
roundy-stone streambed, rocky-land river,
it turns there or here -- the ground
telling it so -- draining dull
mountains to the north,
migrating, feeding a few hard-fleshed fish
who live in it. One small sandbar splits
the river, then it loops left,
the road right, and the river's silver
slips under ...Read more of this...
by Lux, Thomas
...eps for other things;
the praise of the public and the Sophists,
the hard-won and inestimable Well Done;
the Agora, the Theater, and the Laurels.
How can Artaxerxes give you these,
where will you find these in a satrapy;
and what life can you live without these....Read more of this...
by Cavafy, Constantine P
...e fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind?
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mixed in that wat'ry theater,
And taste thou them as saltless there,
As in their channel first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdoms of the deep;
Or fetch me back that cloud again,
Beshivered into seeds of rain.
Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and spears
Of corn, when summer shakes his ears;
Show me that world of stars, and whence
They ...Read more of this...
by Herrick, Robert

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