Poems About Dance
Dance Poems = Flow-etry
I love to dance and watch dancers on stage. This page brings together poems about dance (or with dance as a metaphor) and some artwork inspired by dance. Play your favorite dance music and enjoy!
Why Dancing?
Dancing is an art, we may be sure,
cannot die out,
but will always be undergoing a rebirth.
Not merely as an art, but also as a
social custom, it perpetually emerges afresh from the soul of the people.
~ Havelock Ellis ~
Dancer
by Carl Sandburg
THE LADY in red, she in the chile con carne red,
Brilliant as the shine of a pepper crimson in the summer sun,
She behind a false-face, the much sought-after dancer, the most sought-after dancer of all in this masquerade,
The lady in red sox and red hat, ankles of willow, crimson arrow amidst the Spanish clashes of music,
I sit in a corner
watching her dance first with one man
and then another.
The Harlem Dancer
by Claude McKay
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.
Dance of the Bubbles
by Raymond A. Foss
A watched pot,
beginning to boil
growing bubbles in the dimples
the Teflon surface
called to the ball,
to dance, merge, join
with each other,
twirl and whirl,
glide and slide
across the floor
to the syncopated tempo,
frantic motion,
frenetic energy,
ready to rise
to swirl to the surface,
explode free,
up into the air
I cannot dance upon my Toes
by Emily Dickinson
I cannot dance upon my Toes --
No Man instructed me --
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,
That had I Ballet knowledge --
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe --
Or lay a Prima, mad,
And though I had no Gown of Gauze --
No Ringlet, to my Hair,
Nor hopped to Audiences -- like Birds,
One Claw upon the Air,
Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls,
Nor rolled on wheels of snow
Till I was out of sight, in sound,
The House encore me so --
Nor any know I know the Art
I mention -- easy -- Here --
Nor any Placard boast me --
It's full as Opera --
Street Dance Video
Living Tools
author unknown
The dancer's shoes lay alone,
Arms wrapped around their bodies in a deep sleep,
That fell upon them like a heavy cloak.
Yet still there is a rigidity,
That remains poised and ready for action
Waiting for the master's hand
To prick them from their resting spot,
Their pale pink flesh seems to move,
For the spirit can always be seen,
By those aware to the art.
And when lovingly they are taken,
Molded to a delicate foot to become one
Strengthened being, they retain that spirit
Awakened, they stretch and groan,
Announcing their prescence with joy.
This is what they live for,
With the strength of a bodybuilder,
These muscle-men disguised as princesses,
Bear the load, jumping and spinning,
Until once again they return to slumber,
Arms wrapped around tightly,
Savoring the spirit of it all.
The Baby's Dance
by Ann Taylor
Dance little baby, dance up high,
Never mind baby, mother is by;
Crow and caper, caper and crow,
There little baby, there you go;
Up to the ceiling, down to the ground,
Backwards and forwards, round and round;
Dance little baby, and mother shall sing,
With the merry coral, ding, ding, ding.
Indian Dancer
by Sarojini Naidu
EYES ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire
Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimmer around them in fountains of light;
O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire,
And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces bewitch the voluptuous watches of night.
The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter and die in the maze of their gem-tangled hair,
And smiles are entwining like magical serpents the poppies of lips that are opiate-sweet;
Their glittering garments of purple are burning like tremulous dawns in the quivering air,
And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle and tread of their rhythmical, slumber-soft feet.
Now silent, now singing and swaying and swinging, like blossoms that bend to the breezes or showers,
Now wantonly winding, they flash, now they falter, and, lingering, languish in radiant choir;
Their jewel-girt arms and warm, wavering, lily-long fingers enchant through melodious hours,
Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire!
My Daughter at 14, Christmas Dance
by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Panic in your face, you write questions
to ask him. When he arrives,
you are serene, your fear
unbetrayed. How unlike me you are.
After the dance,
I see your happiness; he holds
your hand. Though you barely speak,
your body pulses messages I can read
all too well. He kisses you goodnight,
his body moving toward yours, and yours
responding. I am frightened, guard my
tongue for fear my mother will pop out
of my mouth. "He is not shy," I say. You giggle,
a little girl again, but you tell me he
kissed you on the dance floor. "Once?"
I ask. "No, a lot."
We ride through rain-shining 1 a.m.
streets. I bite back words which long
to be said, knowing I must not shatter your
moment, fragile as a spun-glass bird,
you, the moment, poised on the edge of
flight, and I, on the ground, afraid.
Vaudeville Dancer
by Carl Sandburg
ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville.
The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to The Livery Stable Blues.
It is long ago, Elsie Flimmerwon, I saw your mother over a washtub in a grape arbor when your father came with the locomotor ataxia shuffle.
It is long ago, Elsie, and now they spell your name with an electric sign.
Then you were a little thing in checked gingham and your mother wiped your nose and said: You little fool, keep off the streets.
Now you are a big girl at last and streetfuls of people read your name and a line of people shaped like a letter S stand at the box office hoping to see you shimmy.
The Dance
Friedrich von Schiller
See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?
Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air,
As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair,
So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure,
As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure,
Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance,
From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance,
The path they leave behind them lost--wide open the path beyond,
The way unfolds or closes up as by a magic wand.
See now, they vanish from the gaze in wild confusion blended;
All, in sweet chaos whirled again, that gentle world is ended!
No!--disentangled glides the knot, the gay disorder ranges--
The only system ruling here, a grace that ever changes.
For ay destroyed--for ay renewed, whirls on that fair creation;
And yet one peaceful law can still pervade in each mutation.
And what can to the reeling maze breathe harmony and vigor,
And give an order and repose to every gliding figure?
That each a ruler to himself doth but himself obey,
Yet through the hurrying course still keeps his own appointed way.
What, would'st thou know? It is in truth the mighty power of tune,
A power that every step obeys, as tides obey the moon;
That threadeth with a golden clue the intricate employment,
Curbs bounding strength to tranquil grace, and tames the wild enjoyment.
And comes the world's wide harmony in vain upon thine ears?
The stream of music borne aloft from yonder choral spheres?
And feel'st thou not the measure which eternal Nature keeps?
The whirling dance forever held in yonder azure deeps?
The suns that wheel in varying maze?--That music thou discernest?
No! Thou canst honor that in sport which thou forgettest in earnest.
Ballet: A Beautiful Strength - Video
Ballet
by Alan Lukawenko
Ballet is beauty in the making...
Line of sight...do you know what it means?
What do you think of Sylvie Guillem?
Pointe shoes,..yes I know it's painful for some,
but must surely make you feel like an angel...on a cloud.
Angels must dreams of ballerinas...don't you think?
Line Dancing
by Maureen Bell
FOLK think its easy, it is not,
When its done right you get red hot,
You have to learn grape vines and scuffs
And sailor steps and other stuff,
Like apple jacks and Montereys,
Shuffles and stomps in different ways
Which way to turn in four wall dances
You have to know, no taking chances
The teacher tells you: 'This one's easy,"
And makes it sound so bright and breezy
Easy my foot, it's complicated,
But we must learn it before it's dated.
So every week we sweat and strain
Before it's instilled into the brain,
Once it's there it's satisfying
Although it was sometimes very trying.
Sweet Dancer
by William Butler Yeats
The girl goes dancing there
On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth
Grass plot of the garden;
Escaped from bitter youth,
Escaped out of her crowd,
Or out of her black cloud.
Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer!
If strange men come from the house
To lead her away, do not say
That she is happy being crazy;
Lead them gently astray;
Let her finish her dance,
Let her finish her dance.
Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer!
The Dance
by R. S. Thomas
She is young. Have I the right
Even to name her? Child,
It is not love I offer
Your quick limbs, your eyes;
Only the barren homage
Of an old man whom time
Crucifies. Take my hand
A moment in the dance,
Ignoring its sly pressure,
The dry rut of age,
And lead me under the boughs
Of innocence. Let me smell
My youth again in your hair.
Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?
by Mary Oliver
Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.
It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.
But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?
Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.
When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking
to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,
as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust? .
Javanese Dancers
by Arthur Symons
Twitched strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums,
Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting:
And now the stealthy dancer comes
Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling;
Smiling between her painted lids a smile,
Motionless, unintelligible, she twines
Her fingers into mazy lines,
The scarves across her fingers twine the while.
One, two, three, four glide forth, and, to and fro,
Delicately and imperceptibly,
Now swaying gently in a row,
Now interthreading slow and rhythmically,
Still, with fixed eyes, monotonously still,
Mysteriously, with smiles inanimate,
With lingering feet that undulate,
With sinuous fingers, spectral hands that thrill
In measure while the gnats of music whirr,
The little amber-coloured dancers move,
Like painted idols seen to stir
By the idolators in a magic grove.
I praise the dance
by Saint Augustine
I praise the dance, for it frees people
from the heaviness of matter and binds the isolated to community.
I praise the dance, which demands everything:
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.
Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,
who are in constant danger of becoming all brain, will, or feeling.
Dancing demands a whole person,
one who is firmly anchored in the center of his life,
who is not obsessed by lust for people and things
and the demon of isolation in his own ego.
Dancing demands a freed person,
one who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers.
I praise the dance.
O man, learn to dance,
or else the angels in heaven will not know what to do with you
The Dance
by William Carlos Williams
In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies, (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel's great picture, The Kermess
The Lost Dancer
by Jean Toomer
Spatial depths of being survive
The birth to death recurrences
Of feet dancing on earth of sand;
Vibrations of the dance survive
The sand; the sand, elect, survives
The dancer. He can find no source
Of magic adequate to bind
The sand upon his feet, his feet
Upon his dance, his dance upon
The diamond body of his being.
art: sandra renzi / photobucket
Dance Is Like Life
by Michelle Lyon
Learning to dance is like life.
You take baby steps,tiny leaps and jumps,
Someone's always there when you cry.
Things are starting to come together,
Your once new shoes are feeling softer and worn
Each delicate pointe is becoming more like an arch.
Leaps and kicks become stronger each time,
Soon you realize your every jump and kick is right,
The steps are fluid pouring out of a jar,
Everyday you're twirling into a new adventure,
Every dance you dance makes you a star.
Riverdance
Comments Welcome!
Robin Carretti from Hightstown on February 15, 2018:
Well wow, you really moved my steps inside your words. I must say it is an art movement so much grace smiling at someone or dancing with timeless energy your words moved through me bravo
anonymous on April 13, 2013:
I love these poems. i wish i could see the real you dancing. i hope you never stop dancing. but carry on sharing.
tandemonimom lm on February 27, 2013:
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing these dance poems.
Salsa Dancing on February 19, 2013:
Thanks, this is a great collection of poems!
anonymous on January 25, 2012:
great tribute indeed, I've got a daughter who loves ballet and loves to read, I'm sure a few of these would be right up her alley.
Thug_Poet on January 14, 2012:
WoW. Nice.
oakstreet on November 22, 2011:
This is a great len that really light up the beauty of dance and I think the bubbles of dance is a great imagination. That's why I need to give you a "like" for your work. Great len.
Runnn on June 24, 2011:
I'm a salsasero... Great lense.
Jacqueline Marshall (author) from Chicago area on May 28, 2011:
@james g pete: Yes! I love that poem. Would be a good addition to the lens. Thanks for the idea.
james g pete on May 28, 2011:
What a colorful and dynamic lens. I give you another dance poem by Ted Roethke, who taught at U. of W. in the fifties.
My Papa's Waltz
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
Barthlays on April 24, 2011:
liked it ! what a great lens about my passion for dance !
Patricia on February 25, 2011:
Blessing this lens and putting it on my Poetry Review lens!
ShamanicShift on January 19, 2011:
What a beautiful collection of dance images and poems -- blessed by a SquidAngel!
Patricia on December 20, 2010:
I love this poetry and the pictures you have with them!
CozyKitty on November 22, 2010:
Wow! You've done a wonderful job of pairing poems with images. I'm also a huge fan of dance, and enjoy poetry as well. Thanks so much for visiting and voting up my lenses. I've added you to "whose fan clubs did i join?"
;-)
RinchenChodron on June 09, 2010:
You did a great job here! I like the Ann Taylor poem and the tiny tots doing ballet! Well done.
Indigo Janson from UK on April 19, 2010:
Delighted to lensroll these poems about dance to my Tango lens.
Mona from Iowa on April 19, 2010:
Another beautiful lens with the great combination of artwork and poetry. :)