Here is a selection from Eli Siegel’s poetic work, which he began in the 1920s. Some poems are from his books Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems and Hail, American Development. Many were previously published in noted literary journals, and in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.
Poems to Begin With:
- Character Sketch
- The Dark That Was Is Here
- Dear Birds, Tell This to Mothers
- Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana
- Must I Wait All My Life; or, The Misery Song
- Put Zebras by the Mississippi
All the Poems on This Site:
- 2
- 2 p.m.
- A
- A Day: The Continent Does Not Lie: The Election Goes On [1944]
- A First in Music
- A Girl and Things [1925]
- A Lady, Sun and Rain
- A Law
- A Man Walks By
- A Marriage
- A Moose Moves
- A Question
- A Silent Hill
- A Strong City Is Our God, By Martin Luther
- A Trill Is Trembling Continuity
- A Woeful Ballad on Faking Away
- A World of Weeping Birds
- About Fruits Somewhat
- Aches for Valna’s Coming
- Aesthetic Realism Couplets
- Afternoon
- Afternoon Cold
- Alice Has Never Been in China
- All for Herself; Shakey
- Also
- Ambition
- Amiable Thoughts for Someone in a Hospital
- Amoret, Body and Gown
- An Instance of Dyspepsia
- And It Does, Marianne
- And It Remained
- And Its Planks
- And There Are New Smiles; New Smiles
- And There Prevail
- Anger and Musing
- Anonymous Anthropology
- Any Star and Shakey
- Apathetic Landlord
- Art Poétique, By Paul Verlaine
- As I Look from Here
- At Thermopylae, By Simonides of Ceos
- Autumn Song, By Paul Verlaine
- B
- Baby in the Carriage
- Ballade Concerning Our Mistake and Knowledge of It
- Balzac and People Living Nonetheless
- Basho Translations
- Baskets: Their Due
- Beethoven, Later
- Being Good
- Blackness Dashes Valuably
- C
- Candles and Forest
- Carry Me Away, By Henri Michaux
- Chapped Second Fingers
- Character Sketch
- Color and the Inconceivably Unknown
- Come, Spring Flowers
- Comforts
- Contemporary History
- Could Quote Horace, Likewise
- Cow
- D
- Dear Birds, Tell This to Mothers
- Death, Itself
- Declaration of Freedom as to Print By Annabel Livingston, of Ohio
- Delicately
- Depression Song of a Girl
- Des Après-Midi Chaudes Ont Été Au Montana
- Diamonds Are Correct in This Very Matter
- Dim Lamps
- Disappointment
- Discouraged People
- Ditty Arising from a Perusal of Henry James’ Works
- Doing Eye and Shoulder Things
- Duval Is on the Run: The People Are on the March, By José Maria Quiroga Pla
- E
- Eagles Go with the Fine News to Many Places
- Eating
- 1874
- Existence Is Worthy of Love
- F
- Face So As to Pale Stars
- Failure and De Soto
- Familiar Mad Heroine
- Fare Thee Well
- First Time
- Forevermore
- Free Poem on “The Siegel Theory of Opposites” in Relation to Aesthetics
- Free Verse
- G
- Gertrude Broods Alone
- Gilbert
- Girl and Moon
- Good Will
- Grandeur Is in White
- Grass Blade
- H
- Haikus: Some Instances
- Happiness, By Arthur Rimbaud
- Have the Lily
- He Would Be So Hurt
- Heaven and Being a Good Critic
- Hell, What Is This About, Asked Again
- Him and the World
- Hinges
- Historical Things and Our Next Motion
- Hopes That Are Large
- Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana
- How Fine This All
- Humanity
- Hymn to Fourth Avenue
- Hymn to Jazz and the Like
- Hymn, By Charles Baudelaire
- I
- I Should Love to Be Loved, By Endre Ady
- I Told You So
- In
- In Ancient Days
- In November
- In That Period of History
- In White, Having Also Red
- In a Painting
- In the Best Sunlight Ever
- In the Center of America, Years Ago
- Intactus; or, Nothing Doing
- Invitation and Hope
- Is It Me, Darling, or Somebody Else, God Knows Who?—A Love Poem
- It Is the Highest Prudence to Be Worthy of the Invitation Things as Rooms Give
- It Will Be Annabel November
- J
- Janet Knows Hell
- Japanese Humanitarian Poem
- Just Literary
- K
- Kaddish
- L
- La Salle, As Having You in Mind
- Ladies Ever, Ever, Ever Lightly Go Across Sweet, Green Swards
- Leaves Go South a Little
- Like a Clock, Like Anything
- Lines on Eternity
- List
- Local Stop, Sheridan Square
- Logic the Only Way to Assurance
- Looking for Something, Finger in Mouth
- Love Lurches Along
- Love and Jobs
- Love; or, When Good Will Wins
- M
- Making Nothing
- Many Dishpans
- Many Plains
- Meadow and a Stem
- Meant To Be
- Mentioned Any Time
- Millions of Tons in Chicago
- Milwaukee Eagle
- Miss Edith Lindsay and Form
- Moments
- More Lines on a Voice
- Mourn This Sparrow, By Gaius Valerius Catullus
- Musical Effect
- Must I Wait All My Life; or, The Misery Song
- N
- Naera Says “Coming” No Longer
- Napoleon Was There; Cold, Cold Moscow
- Nebraska Towns
- Necessity and Choice Always Prevail
- Neighboring You
- New York Is Of, in More Than One Way
- Night in 1242
- No Reader Attending
- Noise Is of All, The World
- Not Ours
- Notation on the Color of a Being
- Notations, in Verse, on the Novelistic Manner of Henry James, 1843-1916
- Nothing: A Study
- Nothing’s at Fault, but Dust Is There
- O
- O Broken Dish
- O, The and This
- O, Wounded Birds
- Observations in the Metre of Tamburlaine on the Norman Mailer Turbulence and Its Relations: with the Presence of Byron, Dostoievsky, Bodenheim, and Everyone
- Occupied the Sky
- Ocean, Mr., Mrs. Blink
- Ode on the Death of a Racketeer
- Of Her Who in Her Seeing Left Loved Things, Lovable Things, a Loved Thing, Lovable Thing, Lightly, More or Less Lightsomely
- On 7th Avenue
- On American Boys Dying in 1863, in Virginia, and Later Elsewhere
- Once More Let’s Announce the Team of Leaves and Emotion
- One Question
- One of the Saddest Things in the World
- Our Very Selves
- P
- Partly
- Pillars, You Are Brand New, New, New
- Poem of Love
- Poems, Chiefly Scientific
- Point
- Pomeriggi Caldi Sono Stati nel Montana
- Preferring Cellars
- Prosody Is Ours
- The Proud Turtle
- Put Zebras by the Mississippi
- Q
- Question
- Quiet
- Quiet, Tears, Babies
- R
- Ralph Isham, 1753 and Later
- Recurrent March
- Recurs
- Red and Yellow and Hills
- Rehabilitation
- Reminiscential Questions
- Restrained Song about Sleet
- Rhode Island Morning for Clarice
- Roar-Roar as Relation
- Roland and the Archbishop: From the Chanson de Roland
- S
- Sad Bobolink
- Said One Golfer to Another
- Said the Feather to the Air
- Sameness and Difference in a Tragic Play
- Sciences for Me
- Season of Sowing: Evening, By Victor Hugo
- Seem to Do Most
- Sentiment Now
- Shakespeare, Compactly
- Slanting Soft White on Mountain Is Never Through
- Smoke Goes Up Slowly
- So Delia Walks the Air
- Solipsism
- Some Lines from Voltaire’s Poem on the Disaster at Lisbon, By François Marie Arouet de Voltaire
- Something Done Well
- Something Else Should Die: A Poem with Rhymes
- Something to American History
- Somewhere Along the Line
- Somewhere This
- Spark
- Speech of Moon in the Heart of Ceylon
- Speech to Continent on Its Value
- Stars Exhorted, Revealed
- Starting
- Still Moonlight
- Still the Dawn
- Stuffy Town
- Summer
- Summer Again in New Jersey
- Sunlight in Slush, in Puddles, and in Wet Municipal Surfaces; or, Miracle on Eighth Avenue below Fourteenth Street
- T
- Taker, This
- Technique Is When
- That Are
- The Albatross, By Charles Baudelaire
- The Breviary of Ontological Courtesy
- The Cydnus, by José Maria de Heredia
- The Dark That Was Is Here
- The Edge of the Eighteenth Century
- The Expiation: I; By Victor Hugo
- The Fall of the Leaves, By Charles Hubert Millevoye
- The Hellenic Landscape Was Glad
- The Idea of Beauty Is Adored in This World, By Joachim du Bellay
- The Laurels Are Cut Down, By Théodore de Banville
- The Little Cube in Space
- The Lord Has Stolen Her Whims
- The Meeting Place It Can Be All the Time
- The Mighty Act Something Put On
- The Milkmaid and the Pot of Milk, By Jean de La Fontaine
- The Missouri
- The Oak and the Reed, By Jean de La Fontaine
- The Pacific Ocean in 1600
- The Poem of Catullus about Attis
- The Praise Will Not Be Taken Back
- The Print and the Siegel Theory of Opposites
- The Self, Beating
- The Shame We Have
- The Smell of Fried Potatoes
- The Song of the Potter: Ceylon Folk Poem
- The Spider at 6:30
- The Stars That Summer
- The Unbrought Me: Henry James Dearly Suffuses
- The Unknown Should Be Good
- The Uprising of the Flowers; or, It Had to Win
- The Voice, By Henri de Régnier
- The Voyage, VIII; By Charles Baudelaire
- The Waiting Maine Man, Dead at Little Round Top, Near Gettysburg, July 1863
- The Waltz: Truth as Melody
- The Waving of the Grain
- The Whale
- The Wolf and the Lamb
- The Wolf and the Lamb, By Jean de La Fontaine
- The World Says, I’m Your Valentine, My Dear
- Their Birds’ World Was Shaken
- There Has Been Sewing
- There's Holly in Your Cheek
- These Are Five Haikus
- They Look at Us
- They Paraded
- They Resist
- This Is History
- This Is Your Cup of Tea
- This Seen Now
- This Summer Morning Mariana Has
- This to Delia
- Those Who Wait
- Thought Is There
- Thoughts in 1960 on the Civil War, 1861-1865
- Three Poems about Novels
- Thrills, Life and Reading
- To Dylan Thomas
- To Homes
- To Know What You Feel
- To the Reader, Charles Baudelaire
- Towards Homer: Free Verse, Beginning with the First Lines of Pope’s Translation of the Odyssey
- Trees in Rain
- Twenty-one Distichs about Children
- Two Children's Poems
- Two Stanzas from French Literature about Death: In Stances à Du Perrier By François de Malherbe
- Two Statements
- U
- Understanding Does Not Like It
- W
- Waiting
- Walk, Girl, in London
- We Lag
- We Must
- We’ll Begin Again as Often as Need Be, Any Time
- What Food Deserves: A Canticle
- What Is Newer Than an Ancient Daisy?
- What Now Coheres—Of 1861-1865?
- What We Want to Hear from Ourselves
- When You Meet Someone
- Whence? and Hence; and Whence?— or, The Universe Can Mock Us, Too
- World, Wind, Leaves Talked To
- Worms Go South and They Fit In
- Y
- You Can’t Miss the Absolute
- Your Hope Is What I Am
- Z
- Zeb Duryea