Best Short Poem Ever Written

BEST SHORT POEM EVER WRITTEN

What is a “short” poem? In order to limit the scope of our exercise we have to specify the meaning of “short,” even if we are going to be somewhat arbitrary.

We define a poem as “short” if it has 10 lines or less because the number 10 stands for a perceptually small quantity. We maintain 10 items in our imagination handily and without much effort.

The number 10 is archetypal. It corresponds to the total number of fingers in both hands. Notably, 10 is the number of commandments said to be revealed by God to Moses in the Book of Exodus.

Although a poem a little longer than 10 lines could reasonably be described as “short,” we begin to stretch the meaning of “short” when the total number of lines extends into multiples of 10.

What makes a short poem outstanding? A short poem succeeds by showing insight. The insight is ingeniously and concisely expressed so that the thoughts conveyed are invariably received by the reader with surprise and delight.

“Insight” has been defined as “an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing” (Google dictionary). Insight is the keen cognizance of important relations among one or more things apparently unrelated.

Insight in a short poem often works by relating a winning metaphor to its subject.

QUILT by Allison Whittenberg

Slaves recognize the metaphor

Putting odds together with ends

Knitting scraps into sturdy shape

Manipulating fabric

Irregular shapes:

Functional, enduring

Making a way

Out of no way

The insight in this poem relates the putting together of a quilt with the difficult life of a slave, who makes the most of what is available, “Making a way / Out of no way.”

Quilt

“To be a master of metaphor,” Aristotle said, “is the greatest thing by far. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others, and it is also a sign of genius.” (Poetics, 22)

Aristotle would probably recognize the burst of genius in the short poem below.

FILE NUMBER TWENTY-NINE by Ken Simpson

Obituary

The autopsy showed

truth died of neglect

many years ago.

“File No. 29,” presumably, identifies the location where the obituary has been filed away.

Antithesis—waking in contraposition to sleeping—and a vivid, pointed metaphor work together to produce this next successful short poem.

THE SILENCE AND I by Tóroddur Poulsen

Original language Faroese

Translated by Randi Ward

i wake

to the silence

outside myself

the way

a bustling

city falls

asleep

Robert Frost’s classic “Fire and Ice” is a masterpiece of metaphor, the lines tightly bound together by rhyme.

FIRE AND ICE by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Eagle,” another classic, is a figurative tour de force. The two stanzas of the poem are tied together by meter and rhyme.

THE EAGLE by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

This next short poem succeeds by ingeniously invoking the metaphor of piano sheet music in order to flash in the mind’s eye a vivid image of flocking birds.

BIRDS ON TRIPLICATE POWER LINES by J. M. Hall

pianist’s furious

nightmare sheet music—how

to play their rearranging

flight, flocking

claustrophobia

against open

pale blue

Additional literary elements contribute to the notable impact of the poem, including trenchant description—“rearranging flight,” “open pale blue”; and multi-level metaphors amplified by evocative diction—“furious nightmare,” “flocking claustrophobia.”

Insight in a short poem does not necessarily employ your usual literary devices. It may simply connect ideas together in a manner that gives us pause.

THE RULE by Alexis Ellyse

In our love                                                                                                

there’s just one thing

that I expect of you:

Tell me what I want to hear

but only

if it’s true.

Addressing the beloved, the speaker in the poem tells them that they want to hear only what they want to hear and only if it’s true. Excluded are what is false and what they do not want to hear even if it is true.

Doesn’t love involve telling the beloved what they do not want to hear because it is true and they need to hear it?

Isn’t it sometimes necessary to withhold the truth from the beloved?

The insight of the poet consists in connecting together ideas about love that make us revisit the idea of love and ponder it.

Following is another example of a poem that connects ideas together, eliciting surprise.

I HAD A SUDDEN SCRUPLE by Ralph Wright, O.S.B.

I had a

sudden scruple

when writing

this poem

that what

I was saying

was worth

less

than silence

so I stopped.

The poem as it were hangs on the wall like a cutaway of religious experience framed by relevant provisions of the Benedictine Rule on silence (Chapters 6, 7, 38, and 42).

The insight of the poet consists in linking his silent impulse to its religious context, although the reader has to do their part connecting the dots.

At the close the poem catches the reader by surprise. The poem concludes, literally, with silence.

The paths to a great short poem are various. The prose poem following succeeds by limning an unexpected vision of the future. As we look past the figurative language, we come across a disquietingly plausible scenario.

THE DANGERS OF TIME TRAVEL by Gerardo Mena

You wake up in the future and realize that everyone has evolved. People now have the head of a blue jay and the body of a shiny machine that whirs softly as its insides spin. You see two bird heads that look like your parents, but, of course, that is not possible.

When they see you they cry and shake their heads slowly with disappointment because you are not like them. I’m sorry, you say, your voice rough and hard from one thousand years of sleeping. We are all dying, they sing, their voices like glockenspiels.

One of the greatest short poems in the Anglophone world consists of two words linked by an eye rhyme.

THE SHORTEST AND SWEETEST OF SONGS by George MacDonald

Come

Home.

Inseparably joined to the two words is the poem’s title. It supplies the context for the entreaty and imbues it with pathos.

The proverb—a pithy saying, often metaphorical—is a short poem genre that occurs in oral traditions throughout the world.

In the Christian world the Bible is a source of many commonplace proverbs. Pithy sayings occur throughout the Bible, especially in the Book of Proverbs, from which we cite several examples.

“With closest custody, guard your heart, for in it are the sources of life.”—Proverbs 4:23

“Where words are many, sin is not wanting, but he who restrains his lips does well.”—Proverbs 10:19

“Better a dry crust with peace than a house full of feasting with strife.”—Proverbs 17:1

Jewish Scribe

A small proportion of the huge body of proverbs outside the English-speaking world has made its way into the Western tradition through translation. Below we present several examples from Reader’s Digest, a reputable enough publication. (The Internet, we are only too aware, is the source of many false attributions and quotes.)

“Coffee and love taste best when hot.”—Ethiopian proverb

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”—Japanese proverb

“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows fall behind you.”—Maori proverb

At least one reason why proverbs in the vernacular never make their way into the English-speaking world is that they speak principally to the culture of origin so that they suffer significant loss of meaning in translation. The Tagalog proverbs below illustrate this point.

“Nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang gawa.”

“To be merciful is God’s, while to act is man’s.”

Almost the equivalent of “Man proposes, God disposes,” the original Tagalog context insinuates fatalism.

“Ang taong walang kibo, nasa loob ang kulo.”

“A quiet person hides his anger.”

“Ang nakatikip na bibig ay hindi pinapasukan ng langaw.”

“A fly will not enter a closed mouth.”

Read in the context of Tagalog hypersensitivity and the paramount cultural value of maintaining smooth interpersonal relations, both proverbs are pointed warnings to take care not to offend others.

In areas of the Philippines and inside lower socioeconomic class homes where it is practically impossible to keep flies out because of the absence of wire screens and air conditioners, flies are everywhere, especially during mealtimes. Given the ubiquity of flies inside the home, a word of caution against accidentally mouthing one is readily remembered. 

An informative introduction to outstanding Philippine social and cultural values is available at this link:

http://countrystudies.us/philippines/41.htm

—“Social Values and Organization,” Ronald E. Dolan, ed., Philippines: A Country Study, 1991

Imagism was a doctrine of poetic composition formulated by Ezra Pound. It was a Modernist reaction against Romantic and Victorian poetry. In 1913 Pound set forth his Imagist tenets in Poetry magazine as follows:

1.   Direct treatment of the “thing,” whether subjective or objective

2.   To use absolutely no word that did not contribute to the presentation

3.   Regarding rhythm, to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.

Poems written in Imagist mode are often short. “In a Station of the Metro” illustrates Pound’s Imagist tenets and is a short poem classic.

IN A STATION OF THE METRO by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough.

One of the most widely anthologized short poems is this Imagist classic.

THE RED WHEELBARROW by William Carlos Williams

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

No shortage of commentary on this one. See, for example:

https://poemanalysis.com/william-carlos-williams/the-red-wheelbarrow/

—“The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams,” Poem Analysis

It makes you wonder if the poem deserves all the attention it has received.

The Imagist approach in short poems is not unique to Modernism. Imagist poems can be found centuries before Pound, even though at the time Imagism was not identified by name or set forth as a doctrine of composition.

The English translation of the Japanese poem below is a good example. The poem captures the mood and feeling of dusk with concise, direct treatment of the subject matter.

The lower leaves… by Sone No Yoshitada

The lower leaves of the trees

Tangle the sunset in dusk.

Awe spreads with

The summer twilight.

A Japanese professor of English offers a highly perceptive analysis of the poem at this link:

https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-lower-leaves-by-sone-no-yoshitada.html

—“The lower leaves… by Sone No Yoshitada” (May 7, 2020), Poetry of Gonzalinho da Costa

A good example of implicit Imagism is the following poem by Tu Fu, a luminary of the Tang dynasty. The English translation below is concisely descriptive, evoking a vivid, lucid image of a nighttime river scene.

BRIMMING WATER by Tu Fu

Original language Chinese

Translated by Kenneth Roxroth

Under my feet the moon

Glides along the river.

Near midnight, a gusty lantern

Shines in the heart of the night.

Along the sandbars flocks

Of white egrets roost,

Each one clenched like a fist.

In the wake of my barge

The fish leap, cut the water,

And dive and splash.

The genius of Imagist poems lies in invoking descriptive details often in combination with figurative language in order to render a memorable scene.

Numerous journals specialize in short poem genres—haiku, tanka, sonnet, etc. One Sentence Poems, started in February 2014, publishes several poems a month. Going strong, it’s a treasury of short poems.

See: http://www.onesentencepoems.com/osp/

Thousands and thousands of short poems exist, floating about like hypnotic stars in the literary universe. If we take it upon ourselves to give out an award for the “best short poem ever written,” we have to reduce our selection pool.

We’ve already made a start by limiting the number of lines in a short poem to 10.

We’ve also argued that a successful short poem shows insight. Absence or lack insight, dullness, in a word, guarantees the failure of a short poem. The cliché would be an especially grave sin.

The opposite of the cliché—the keen, the original, the inventive—brings to the fore another criterion by which we may evaluate the quality of a short poem.

A short poem that is able to hold its own over the passage of long time—that not only shows insight but also is able to maintain its capacity to surprise and delight —bespeaks greatness. A great short poem is “one for the ages.” 

Concededly, this criterion favors older poems and works against many worthy poems of recent vintage. On the other hand, this criterion allows us to usefully reduce further our candidates for the “best short poem ever written.”

Notwithstanding our efforts at reduction, our pool of candidates like the universe remains vast and constantly expanding. After all, poetry deals with every possible subject, from coffee on Monday mornings to sleeping pills at night.

We could dramatically reduce further the number of poems we would have to consider by limiting the subject matter. Practically all poetry, whatever the culture of origin, deals with the motifs of love and death. They bear universal significance in the human experience and arguably are the primal drivers of human existence. No doubt great poetry has the capacity to treat even the most apparently trivial subject matter in a manner that is literary and enduring. However, if we limit our purview to the aforementioned motifs, at once our pool of candidates is dramatically reduced and our task becomes more manageable.

Our fifth and last criterion is brevity, meaning, “the shorter, the better.” By itself, this criterion is inadequate, for length does not solely determine the quality of a poem. On the other hand, a short poem that is able to do the job with the absolute minimum required in terms of length, besides everything else, stands out because of the virtuosity demonstrated.

Our five criteria:

- 10 lines or less

- Shows insight

- One for the ages

- About love, death, or both

- The shorter, the better

Let’s look at some leading candidates.

MORE THAN YESTERDAY, LESS THAN TOMORROW by Rosemonde Gérard

It’s true we will grow old

Older

Wrinkled with time

But still every day I will hold you closer

Because you see, I love you

Today

More than yesterday

And much, much less than tomorrow

This love poem stands out because it deals with the motif of married love. Most love poetry does not.

The poet pulls off a surprise inversion in the last line.

The poem satisfies all our criteria except for endurance. Its relative newness— adapted from the 1889 poem written originally in French, it was republished in 2003—works against its selection.

All things considered, classic poems because of their endurance present us with the most likely prospects for the “best short poem ever written.”

Robert Herrick’s “Upon Julia’s Clothes” is, in my opinion, a good contender.

UPON JULIA’S CLOTHES by Robert Herrick

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,

Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows

That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see

That brave vibration each way free,

O how that glittering taketh me!

It’s remarkable how poetry written approximately 400 years ago maintains its power to surprise and delight, with the caveat that it’s a “male” poem—it is male readers mainly who identify with the point of view of the speaker.

“Upon Julia’s Clothes” attests to, to cite Herrick’s words, “the eternizing power of poetry.”

I consider this last poem, the best short poem ever written. Drum roll, please.

It’s written in Ionic Greek by the poet Simonides of Ceos (c. 556 to 468 B.C.E.). It memorializes the Spartans who were killed resisting the Persians led by Xerxes I at the Battle of Thermopylae. Herodotus (c. 484 to c. 430-420 B.C.E.) reports that he came across the elegy inscribed on one of the original monuments at Thermopylae, now forever lost.

Ὦ ξεῖν’, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

English translations abound of the original Greek, of which the following is both lyrical and accurate.

“Stranger, bear this message to the Spartans, that here we lie, obedient to their laws.”

Historian Scott Manning has posted some lively commentary about the poem. It makes for worthwhile reading. See this link:

https://scottmanning.com/content/warpath-wednesday-go-tell-the-spartans/

—Scott Manning, “Go Tell the Spartans” (April 6, 2016), Historian on the Warpath

Why is it the best short poem written? Besides fulfilling our five criteria, the poem memorializes an event that lies at the foundation of Western civilization. Because Western influence on cultures everywhere has been major and lasting, the event and the poem remain significant, even momentous, and are remembered to the present day.

The principal influences that form the foundation of Western civilization are Jewish, Greek, and Roman. Some of the most influential ideas today are based on science and modern republican democracy, both of which can be traced to their beginnings in ancient Greece. Ancient Greece gave rise to the Aristotelian intellectual tradition that eventually led to the Scientific Revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. Science and technology constitute the major underpinnings of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, which originated in the U.K. and rapidly spread throughout Europe, the U.S., and Japan. The West is the origin of the 19th-century ideologies of socialism and communism, which throughout the 20th century and beyond has shaped the global order, including the political features of the most populous nation today, China. Socialism and communism were ideological reactions against liberal democracy. The historical perspective of centuries therefore attests that the influence of Greek civilization on the world has been like the proverbial mustard seed that grew and grew until its branches overspread.

Resistance at the Battle of Thermopylae may have ended in defeat but the legendary heroism there inspired the Greek city-states to band together in order to defeat the Persians, who lost decisively at the Battles of Salamis and of Marathon. Decades later, the ever-present Persian threat of invasion drove Alexander the Great to return the favor and conquer the Persians on their home ground. Upon Alexander the Great’s demise, Hellenistic culture spread widely throughout the Mediterranean, the Levant especially.

The foregoing account demonstrates that the Battle of Thermopylae was a historical tipping point that amplified the influence of Greek civilization on the world until the present day.

Others, I am sure, will profess their own favorite poems and choose another “best short poem ever written.” All’s well, for we live in a diverse world where different points of view co-exist.

Sources / Original or first publications:

Allison Whittenberg, “Quilt,” Imitation Fruit, Issue 13 (September 2014)

Ken Simpson, “File Number Twenty-Nine,” Torrid Literature Journal, Vol. XXIII, No. 1 (January 2019), page 18

Tóroddur Poulsen. “The Silence and I,” Randi Ward, transl., Beloit Poetry Journal, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Summer 2014), page 10

J. M. Hall, “Birds on Triplicate Power Lines,” Euphony, Volume XXIV, Number 1 (Winter 2014), page 38

Alexis Ellyse, “The Rule,” Eunoia Review (August 10, 2014)

Ralph Wright, O.S.B., “I Had a Sudden Scruple” (May 1, 2001), St. Louis Abbey, Missouri, USA at https://www.stlouisabbey.org/

Gerardo Mena, “The Dangers of Time Travel,” Four Way Review, Issue 2 (January 15, 2013)

George MacDonald, “The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs,” Scottish Poetry Library at http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/shortest-and-sweetest-songs/

Fiona Tapp and Ariel Zeitlin, “22 Most Beautiful Proverbs from Around the World,” Reader’s Digest (November 7, 2019) at https://www.rd.com/list/proverbs-about-life/

Mario Alvaro Limos, “The Best Filipino Proverbs That Define Our Culture,” Esquire Philippines (December 20, 2019) at https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/filipino-proverbs-list-a00293-20191220

Sone No Yoshitada, “The lower leaves…,” Americans’ Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology, Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz, eds. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), page 307

Tu Fu, “Brimming Water,” One Hundred Poems from the Chinese, Kenneth Roxroth, transl. (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1971), page 34

Rosemonde Gérard, “More than Yesterday, Less Than Tomorrow,” Wedding Blessings: Prayers and Poems Celebrating Love, Marriage, and Anniversaries, June Cotner, ed. (2003), page 169

“Go Tell the Spartans…,” The Battle of Thermopylae at https://www.battle-of-thermopylae.eu/main_monuments.html

The following “classic” poems are featured in Poetry magazine online:

Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Eagle”

Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro”

William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow”

Robert Herrick, “Upon Julia’s Clothes”

Hoplite, 5th Century BCE, Archaeological Museum of Sparta, Greece