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15 Beautiful Birthday Poems

A list of birthday poems from classic poets to contemporary writers and thoughtful to humorous perfect for any birthday celebration.

Alison Doherty

Senior Contributor

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever after.

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Whenever I ask my students what their favorite month, they always always choose the month of their birthday. But I can’t really blame them. October is my favorite time of year for exactly the same reason. Some people love them. Other people hate them. But we all have them. Whether looking for a way to reflect on your birthday or finding some words to celebrate a lover or friend, here are 15 birthday poems. From thoughtful and sweet to funny and sarcastic, I hope you find the birthday poems you’re looking for this year. 15 of the Best Birthday Poems

birth-day by Lucille Clifton

Excerpt: today we are possible. the morning, green and laundry-sweet, opens itself and we enter blind and mewling.

irreplaceable by rupi kaur

Birthday Lights by Calef Brown

Excerpt: Light bulbs on a birthday cake. What a difference that would make! Plug it in and make a wish, then relax and flip a switch!

A Birthday by Christina Rossetti

Excerpt: My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water’d shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me.

The Party by Jason Shinder

Excerpt: And that’s how it is; everyone standing up from the big silence of the table with their glasses of certainty and plates of forgiveness and walking into the purple kitchen; everyone leaning away from the gas stove Marie blows on at the very edge of the breaking blue-orange-lunging- forward flames to warm another pot of coffee, while the dishes pile up in the sink, perfect as a pyramid. Aaah, says Donna, closing her eyes,

Birthday by Andrea Gibson

We Are All the Same by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

Excerpt: We are all the same Listen to the reeds as they sway apart Hear them speak of lost friends

Birthday by Sukasah Syahdan

At Twenty-Eight by Amy Fleury

Excerpt: It seems I get by on more luck than sense, not the kind brought on by knuckle to wood, breath on dice, or pennies found in the mud. I shimmy and slip by on pure fool chance.

30th Birthday by Alice Notley

Excerpt: May I never be afraid especially of myself but Muhammed Ali are you telling the truth? Well you’re being true aren’t you and you talk so wonderfully in your body that protects you with physique of voice raps within dance May I never be afraid

For K.R. on her Sixtieth Birthday by Richard Wilbur

Excerpt: Blow out the candles of your cake. They will not leave you in the dark, Who round with grace this dusky arc Of the grand tour which souls must take.

Cheerios by Billy Collins

Mrs. Baldwin by Fleur Adcock

Excerpt: When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

Ninon de Lenclos, On her Last Birthday by Dorothy Parker

Excerpt: So let me have the rouge again, And comb my hair the curly way. The poor young men, the dear young men They’ll all be here by noon today.

Written in a Carefree Mood by Lu Yu

Excerpt: Old man pushing seventy, In truth he acts like a little boy, Whooping with delight when he spies some mountain fruits, Laughing with joy, tagging after village mummers;