Poetry exploring frustration often expresses a sense of exasperation and discontent. Such poems echo with the tension of unmet expectations, stalled progress, or recurring obstacles.
The poet uses vivid imagery and raw language to articulate this vexation, creating a palpable atmosphere of irritability and impatience. These verses enable the reader to connect with the universal experience of frustration, validating their own struggles and offering a cathartic release for pent-up emotions.
The ‘Hymn to Aphrodite’ by Sappho is an ancient lyric in which Sappho begs for Aphrodite’s help in managing her turbulent love life.
Beautiful-throned, immortal Aphrodite,
Daughter of Zeus, beguiler, I implore thee,
Weigh me not down with weariness and anguish
O thou most holy!
‘My Mother Would Be a Falconress’ by Robert Duncan explores a son and mother’s relationship through the lens of a falcon breaking free from his handler.
My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize,
In ‘The Tables Turned,’ Wordsworth invites us to break free from the constraints of modern society and rediscover the natural world’s beauty and wisdom.
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
‘an afternoon nap’ by Arthur Yap explores the lacunae in the modern education system and how it results in anxiety and stress in students.
the ambitious mother across the road
is at it again. proclaming her goodness
she beats the boy. shouting out his wrongs, with raps
she begins with his mediocre report-book grades.
Breaking away from Victorian diction, T.S. Eliot presents the distinct realities of his time in the stream of consciousness by experimenting with poetic form.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
‘Paraphrase on Anacreon: Ode to the Swallow,’ is a translation of a Greek lyric poem in which the speaker explains that love constantly (and annoyingly) inhabits their heart.
Thou indeed, little Swallow,
A sweet yearly comer.
Art building a hollow
New nest every summer.
‘The Blackstone Rangers’ by Gwendolyn Brooks is a stunning poem that plunges earnestly into the daily life of the group in order to uncover some truth about its purpose and necessity.
There they are.
Thirty at the corner.
Black, raw, ready.
Sores in the city
Derek Walcott’s poem ‘The Virgins’ gives a holistic view of the life, economy, and culture of one of the Virgin Islands of the US, Saint Croix.
Down the dead streets of sun-stoned Frederiksted,
the first free port to die for tourism,
strolling at funeral pace, I am reminded
of life not lost to the American dream;
‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a narrative poem about a shipwreck and the dangers of pride in an emergency.
It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,
To bear him company.
Adrienne Rich’s ‘Orion’ explores the emotional depths of relationships and the search for self-identity amidst societal pressures.
Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
‘The Lesson’ by Roger McGough is an interesting and unique satirical poem that depicts the violent result of a teacher’s built-up rage.
Chaos ruled OK in the classroom
as bravely the teacher walked in
the nooligans ignored him
his voice was lost in the din
‘To Life’ by Thomas Hardy is a deeply poignant poem that personifies life as a dreary individual whom the speaker accosts out of sadness.
O Life with the sad seared face,
I weary of seeing thee,
And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,
And thy too-forced pleasantry!
In ‘Ave Maria,’ Frank O’Hara urges mothers to let their children enjoy the guilty pleasures of adolescence. Otherwise, he contends, their kids will become resentful, stunted adults.
Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to
‘Dear heart, why will you use me so’ by James Joyce both revels and despairs the rapturous reign and inevitable sundering that love delivers.
Dear heart, why will you use me so?
Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
Still are you beautiful—but O,
How is your beauty raimented!
‘I saw a man pursuing the horizon’ by Stephen Crane is a short but incredibly moving poem about chasing impossibilities with multiple interpretations.
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
‘Sweeney Erect’ presents the complex and ambiguous state of Sweeney, in turn questioning civilization’s state in the modern world.
And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!
‘I can wade Grief-‘ by Emily Dickinson is a fairly simple poem about strength in the face of sorrow. The speaker describes the detrimental effect of happiness during a period of struggle.
I can wade Grief—
Whole Pools of it—
I'm used to that—
‘Behind Grandma’s House’ by Gary Soto is a short humorous poem about a problematic child who craves attention and their grandma who gives them this attention in the most unexpected way.
At ten I wanted fame. I had a comb
And two coke bottles, a tube of Bryl-creem.
I borrowed a dog, one with
Mismatched eyes and a happy tongue,
In ‘Questions About Angels,’ the speaker wonders why people are not more imaginative or curious in their questions about metaphysical beings. He interrogates religious tradition by envisioning angels in a variety of forms, the last being a single dancer in a jazz bar, whose beautiful form inspires spirituality in the speaker.
Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.
‘Whispers of Immortality’ contemplates yearning for immortality and the power of art amidst the permanence of death.
Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
‘Woodchucks’ by Maxine Kumin is a metaphorical poem which uses the conceit of a farmer hunting woodchucks to uncover the murderous tendencies only a position of power can reveal in humans.
The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling
to the feel of the .22, the bullets' neat noses.
I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace
puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing,
‘Cuddle Doon’ by Alexander Anderson is a poem about a mother trying to persuade her children to go to sleep. It uses Scots dialect to convey the culture of the speaker and her family.
The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht
Wi muckle faught and din.
“Oh try an’ sleep, ye waukrife rogues,
Your faither’s comin’ in.”
‘I Do Not’ by Michael Palmer is a poignant exploration of the limitations imposed by a lack of English proficiency, highlighting the speaker’s isolation, frustration, and longing to communicate and connect with others.
I do not know English.
I do not know English, and therefore I can have nothing to
say about this latest war, flowering through a night-
scope in the evening sky.
‘Invisible Fish’ by Joy Harjo is a beautiful poem that illustrates time’s oppressive persistence on both the natural world and humankind.
Invisible fish swim this ghost ocean now described by waves of sand, by water-worn rock. Soon the fish will learn to walk.
‘I Remember, I Remember’ by Thomas Hood is a poem dedicated to the nostalgic embrace of childhood memory. Hood idolizes his ‘childish ignorance’, painting his memories with beautiful colors and images.
I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
‘Yellow Stars and Ice’ captures the unattainable nature of memory, even when it feels tantalizingly close at hand.
I am as far as the deepest sky between clouds
and you are as far as the deepest root and wound,
and I am as far as a train at evening,
as far as a whistle you can't hear or remember.
‘He loved three things, alive:’ by Anna Akhmatova is a short poem in which the speaker describes her husbands likes and dislikes.
He loved three things, alive:
White peacocks, songs at eve,
And antique maps of America.
Hated when children cried,
‘The City Planners’ by Margaret Atwood is an image-rich poem in which the poet depicts the fundamentally flawed nature of the suburbs.
Cruising these residential Sunday
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
Thomas Hardy’s ‘In a Wood’ explores disillusionment in nature as conflicts and rivalries undermine the speaker’s search for solace.
Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
Bide out your day?
‘Arrivals, Departures’ by Philip Larkin depicts a narrator who is unable to resist the desire to travel. Whenever he’s faced with the choice to leave or stay, he always chooses the former.
Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
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