Poems About Writing

A Literary Miss
by Oliver Marble

There once was a lit'rary miss;
And all that she needed for bliss
Was some ink and a pen,
Reams of paper, and then
Thirty days to describe half a kiss.

The World's Way

by Anonymous

He wrote his soul into a book.

The world refused to turn and look.

He made his faith into a rhyme,

And still the world could spare no time.

But on the day when, dumb and dazed,

Despair-condemned, and blind and crazed,

By means most weird his life he took,

Behold, the world brought out his book!

The Letter

by Emily Dickinson

"Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him —

Tell him the page I didn't write;

Tell him I only said the syntax,

And left the verb and the pronoun out.

Tell him just how the fingers hurried,

Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow;

And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,

So you could see what moved them so.

"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,

You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;

You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,

As if it held but the might of a child;

You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.

Tell him — No, you may quibble there,

For it would split his heart to know it,

And then you and I were silenter.

"Tell him night finished before we finished,

And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'

And you got sleepy and begged to be ended —

What could it hinder so, to say?

Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious,

But if he ask where you are hid

Until to-morrow, — happy letter!

Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!"

Free Verses

by Sarah Kirsch

Last night I awoke knew

That I should say goodbye now

To these verses. That's how it always goes

After a few years. They have to get out

Into the world. It's not possible to keep them

Forever! here under the roof.

Poor things. They must set out for town.

A few will be allowed to return later.

But most of them are still hanging around out there.

Who knows what will become of them. Before they

Find their peace.

Introduction to Poetry

by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

The Art of Poetry

by Jorge Luis Borges

To gaze at a river made of time and water

and remember Time is another river.

To know we stray like a river

and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream

that dreams of not dreaming and that the death

we fear in our bones is the death

that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol

of all the days of man and his years,

and convert the outrage of the years

into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset

a golden sadnesssuch is poetry,

humble and immortal, poetry,

returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there's a face

that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.

Art must be that sort of mirror,

disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,

wept with love on seeing Ithaca,

humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,

a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,

passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same

inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same

and yet another, like the river flowing.

The Author to Her Book

by Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

THOU ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,

Who after birth did'st by my side remain,

Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true

Who thee abroad, expos'd to publick view,

Made thee in raggs, halting to th' press to trudge,

Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).

At thy return my blushing was not small,

My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,

I cast thee by as one unfit for light,

Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight;

Yet being mine own, at length affection would

Thy blemishes amend, of so I could:

I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,

And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.

I stretcht thy joynts to make thee even feet,

Yet still thou run'st more hobling then is meet;

In better dress to trim thee was my mind,

But nought save home-spun Cloth, i'th' house I find.

In this array, 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam,

In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come;

And take thy way where yet thou art not known,

If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none:

And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,

Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.

When I Met My Muse

by William Stafford

I glanced at her and took my glasses

off--they were still singing. They buzzed

like a locust on the coffee table and then

ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the

sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and

knew that nails up there took a new grip

on whatever they touched. "I am your own

way of looking at things," she said. "When

you allow me to live with you, every

glance at the world around you will be

a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

To a Blank Sheet of Paper

by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Wan-visaged thing! thy virgin leaf

To me looks more than deadly pale,

Unknowing what may stain thee yet,—

A poem or a tale.

Who can thy unborn meaning scan?

Can Seer or Sibyl read thee now?

No,— seek to trace the fate of man

Writ on his infant brow.

Love may light on thy snowy cheek,

And shake his Eden-breathing plumes;

Then shalt thou tell how Lelia smiles,

Or Angelina blooms.

Satire may lift his bearded lance,

Forestalling Time's slow-moving scythe,

And, scattered on thy little field,

Disjointed bards may writhe.

Perchance a vision of the night,

Some grizzled spectre, gaunt and thin,

Or sheeted corpse, may stalk along,

Or skeleton may grin!

If it should be in pensive hour

Some sorrow-moving theme I try,

Ah, maiden, how thy tears will fall,

For all I doom to die!

But if in merry mood I touch

Thy leaves, then shall the sight of thee

Sow smiles as thick on rosy lips

As ripples on the sea.

The Weekly press shall gladly stoop

To bind thee up among its sheaves;

The Daily steal thy shining ore,

To gild its leaden leaves.

Thou hast no tongue, yet thou canst speak,

Till distant shores shall hear the sound;

Thou hast no life, yet thou canst breathe

Fresh life on all around.

Thou art the arena of the wise,

The noiseless battle-ground of fame;

The sky where halos may be wreathed

Around the humblest name.

Take, then, this treasure to thy trust,

To win some idle reader's smile,

Then fade and moulder in the dust,

Or swell some bonfire's pile.