Five of the Best Poems about Writing Poetry
There is a need to discuss the best poems about writing poetry. We Call this poems about poetry composition or poems on poems.
Writing poetry can be intensely rewarding, but unfortunately, the words do not always come. And at some point or another, many poets have found themselves in the grip of writer’s block (something we’ve termed colygraphia, because let’s face it, it’s never going to be taken seriously until it has a Greek name).
The following five poems are all about the struggle to write a poem; they are among the best poems about the real act of writing poetry.
Poems about Poetry Writing
Here are our top five poems about poetry writing:
Recipe for a Good Letter
by Amos Russel Wells
write a good letter, take a handful of grit,
A plenty of time and a little of wit;
Take patience to “set” it, and stir it all up
With the ladle of energy. Then fill a cup
With kind thoughts and helpful thoughts, merry thoughts too.
With bright words, and wise words, and words strong and true.
Mix all these together, and then add for spice
Some good news, some funny news, all news that’s nice.
Then seal with a love kiss and stamp it with care;
Direct to your friend’s heart, and presto! ’tis there.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 Pen
by Amos Russel Wells
Within my pen what words are pent,
What mystery, what merriment!It hath a door, my pen, somewhere,
And what a throng is waiting there!Bright thoughts are standing all about,
And quivering to be let out.O could I find the golden key,
Open the door and set them free!The Letters I Have Not Sent
by Amos Russel Wells
I have written them, keen, and sarcastic, and long,
With righteously wrathful intent,
Not a stroke undeserved nor a censure too strong;
And some, alas! some of them went!I have written them, challenging, eager to fight,
All hot with a merited ire;
And some of them chanced to be kept overnight,
And mailed, the next day—in the fire!Ah, blessed the letters that happily go
On errands of kindliness bent;
But much of my peace and my fortune I owe
To the letters I never have sent.Letters
by Amos Russel Wells
What is a letter? A bridge in the night
From my soul to your soul; and over it go
Envoys of darkness or envoys of light.
Ladings of blessing or burdens of woe.What is a letter? A signal, a flash
Darting directly from your soul to mine,
Meaningless, meaningful, prudent or rash,
Always a boding or jubilant sign.What is a letter? A flip of the pen
Paper and mucilage? That and no more?
Nay; ’tis the fatefulest action of men,
Reaching eternity’s ultimate shore!Burn the old letters? Alas, if you could!
Burn up indifference, malice, or hate?
Once they might burn, or be altered to good,—
Ere they were written! but now is too late.Burn the old letters? the missives of cheer,
Glowing with merriment, pulsing with love?
Nay! though the paper disintegrates here,
They are preserved in the mansions above!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.The Sealing Wax
by Hannah Flagg Gould
Bright guardian o’ the thoughts o’ men!
Sin I maun fasten up, an’ sen’
To either een, the things my pen
Has been about,
I wish ye, just for surety’s sake,
To blaze an’ rin, then stap an’ take
My seal, to bind ye na to break,
An’ let them out.For, be my whimsies great or sma’,
I wad na let them loose, to fa’
Where a’ the idle wins that blaw,
To whirl the stoure,
May toss them round from mou to mou,
Wi’ different nature, form an’ hue,
To come frae ilk they’re hurried through,
An’ a’ ground o’er.This warld’s a curious ane enough;
An’, weel supplied wi’ kindling-stuff,
It winna quench, while it can puff
The reekin flax.
An’ what could pass through smoke an’ flame,
An’ like yoursel, come out the same,
In beauty, virtue, hue an’ name,
My cannie wax?I wadna ca’ the warld unfair,
Or wrang it in a single hair;
But, wha kens maist o’t, kens the mair
How oft it slips,
For want o’ rectitude or thought,
Sae far upon the side o’ faut,
That truth is seldom pure or straught
Between its lips.I winna judge the warld’s intent;
But then, its een are sae asklent,
The fairest things leuk foul an’ bent,
The foulest, fair.
I canna, therefore, now foresee
What sort o’ things my thoughts wad be,
If robbed o’ their identity
By gettin’ air.Gin folk wad kindly let alane
A neighbor’s wark, to tent their ain,
Ye wad na hae to thus sustain
A martyr’s fate,
By bein’ burnt to prove how fast
Ye’ll haud your virtue to the last,
Like precious gowd, until ye’re past
Your distant gate.But, sin I hope the world will men’,
We winna let it ever ken
What I hae whispered as a frien’,
Tho’ strictly true.Gang now, an’ guard these secrets weel!
May ane, who breaks ye, ca’ ye “leal,”
For what, when broken, ye reveal!
Adieu! Adieu!