Concrete Poem Examples

A concrete poem is a poem that is written so that the shape of the words on the page matches the subject of the poem. Sometimes, concrete poetry is called "shape" poetry.

While the term concrete poem did not originate until the 1950s, poets as far back as ancient Greece were arranging words and letters on the page to enhance the meaning of the writing.

Stairs
I
climb.
Every day.
A different priority.
Slowly making progress
toward success, success, success.
No time to stop, to rest, to appreciate
the small things around me-the air, the flowers,
even the people I meet are standing in the way of the climb.

From George Herbert's "Easter Wings"
Lord, who createdest man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories,
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

Lewis Carroll's "The Mouse's Tale" appears in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

From Dylan Thomas' "Vision and Prayer"
Who
Are you
Who is born
In the next room
So loud to my own
That I can hear the womb
Opening and the dark run
Over the ghost and the dropped son
Behind the wall thin as a wren's bone?
In the birth bloody room unknown
To the burn and turn of time
And the heart print of man
Bows no baptism
But dark alone
Blessing on
The wild
Child.