‘For Heidi With Blue Hair’ is a six-stanza poem that uses action and dialogue to paint a literary picture where little to no physical setting is provided.
Adcock's poem is among the finest poetic explorations of haircuts and styles as it examines both the reasons why a person might make a drastic change and the response from other people to that change. Heidi's new hairstyle is an attempt to help her cope with her grief, but other people fixate solely on the external view of her new appearance rather than reflecting on her reasons at all.
When you dyed your hair blue
(or, at least ultramarine
for the clipped sides, with a crest
of jet-black spikes on top)
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88/100
‘For Anne Gregory’ is a gentle dialogue between Yeats and the youthful Anne about the realities of beauty and companionship.
Even though this poem is purportedly about the nature of beauty more generally, it is almost entirely focused on Anne's hair and the effect Yeats felt it would have on her life. Above all, he believes that beautiful hair is less desirable than one might imagine because it will negatively affect Anne's ability to forge meaningful and lasting connections with people.
“Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
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87/100
‘For Nanabhai Bhatt’ is about the poet Sujata Bhatt’s grandfather, Nanabhai Bhatt, who was an educationist and activist active during the Indian independence movement.
Bhatt's poem features a scene in which Gandhi orders a girl to shave her newly adopted bob in order that she might focus more on life's important elements, rather than fixating on her appearance. The poem thus demonstrates how haircuts and hairstyles represent our obsessions with the views of others and the fashions of the day. It similarly reminds the reader how much the appearance of women has been policed by men throughout history.
In this dream my grandfather
comes to comfort me.
He stands apart
silent
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86/100
‘The Tantrum’ by A.E. Stallings is an compelling poem about loss. The speaker describes what a specific listener did when they saw their mother’s newly cut hair.
The poet uses the child's shock and horror at the sight of his mother's new haircut to represent the fragility of life and emphasise how easily things we assume to be permanent can change. In the eyes of the child, their mother's hair was a constant yet it suddenly vanished. Likewise, the time taken for hair to regrow reflects the fact that life's alterations can rarely be rectified without time and effort.
Struck with grief you were, though only four,
The day your mother cut her mermaid hair
And stood, a stranger, smiling at the door.
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70/100
‘Close Shave’ explores the fragility of life by highlighting the myriad dangers that surround us every moment of our lives.
The poem centers around the simple act of visiting a barber in order to get a shave and, perhaps, a haircut. The ominous descriptions of the barber's blade and of the man's exposed veins imbue the poem with tension and a fearful atmosphere. Overall, the experience of having one's hair or beard cut is shown to be anxiety-inducing to an enormous degree, to the point where it leaves the man fearing for his own life.
A plane roars above
rattling the loose sheets of the roof.
Clearly he hears the click-click
of the barber’s cold shears
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70/100
‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ is claimed to be a humorous piece written by the famous British poet Rudyard Kipling. It speaks on the gallantry of Hadendoa warriors who are referred to by the derogatory term Fuzzy-Wuzzy.
The nickname “Fuzzy-Wuzzy” was given to the Hadendoa warriors because of their distinctive, frizzed-out hairstyles. This detail is repeated in the poem and becomes a symbol of their identity. The speaker mentions it in a mix of humor and respect, showing how even physical appearance could become part of how soldiers remembered their enemies. This hairstyle made such a strong impression that it became a lasting part of how British troops referred to them.
We've fought with many men acrost the seas,
An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:
The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese;
But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot.
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66/100
‘Oh Who is that Young Sinner’ by A.E. Houseman is an important poem that addresses the fear and hatred of homosexuality in England in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
This poem uses the color of a man's hair as a metaphor for his homosexuality in order to demonstrate the absurdity of homophobia. The man is arrested and abhorred on account of the way he was born, but the poet's choice of something as trivial as hair color reminds the reader that any form of judgement like this is outrageous and must be stopped.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
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65/100
‘Hot Combs’ by Natasha Trethewey is an emotional poem about the past. It includes images of a speaker’s mother and how she looked as she fixed her hair.
The poem centers around the memory of a hot comb, a tool used to straighten hair. This small object becomes deeply meaningful as it brings back a specific moment shared with the speaker’s mother. The act of doing one’s hair becomes emotional, tied to care, effort, and quiet pain. The heat of the comb and the smell of burning hair turn a common beauty routine into something much more personal and lasting in the speaker’s memory.
Halfway through an afternoon
of coca cola bottles sweating rings
on veneered tabletops and the steel drone
of window fans above the silence
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63/100
‘Remembrance’ by Maya Angelou explores themes of intimacy, love, and longing. It’s a beautiful poem that, briefly but memorably, describes a sexual interaction between lovers.
The poem opens with a strong image involving hair, comparing it to a beehive. This is not just a physical detail but also a cultural one, alluding to a well-known hairstyle from the mid-twentieth century. The way her partner teases the bees "hived" in her hair makes it feel playful, sensual, and meaningful. Hair becomes a symbol of attraction and touch. It is a small part of the body but plays a big role in this memory.
Your hands easy
weight, teasing the bees
hived in my hair, your smile at the
slope of my cheek. On the
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56/100
‘Peckham Rye Lane’ captures the vivid chaos and fleeting peace of London’s streets through keen observations from a bus ride.
The speaker notices different styles people wear in their hair, describing afro combs, cornrows, and weaves with color and care. These details tell us about culture, fashion, and self-expression in the area. They also suggest how identity and style are shaped by the environment. By listing these looks in the same breath as everything else she sees, the speaker quietly points to how much can be read from someone’s appearance, even in passing.
The sun, today –
it leaks desperation,
Gunmetal droplets of perspiration
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46/100
‘Sally’s Hair’ by John Koethe is a short and effective poem in which the speaker looks back on someone he met thirty-seven years ago and wonders where she is now.
While Koethe's poem is extremely preoccupied with the memory of a girl's hair, there is nothing to suggest that her hair had been recently styled or cut. The poem does, however, demonstrate the enormous mark something as simple as a person's hair can have on other people, given the speaker had not seen Sally for thirty seven years at the time of his recollection.
It's like living in a light bulb, with the leaves
Like filaments and the sky a shell of thin, transparent glass
Enclosing the late heaven of a summer day, a canopy
Of incandescent blue above the dappled sunlight golden on the grass.
