Famous Anyhow Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Anyhow poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous anyhow poems. These examples illustrate what a famous anyhow poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

See also:

Tin Wedding Whistle

by Ogden Nash
 Though you know it anyhow 
Listen to me, darling, now, 
Proving what I need not prove 
How I know I love you, love. 
Near and far, near and far, 
I am happy where you are; 
Likewise I have never larnt 
How to be it where you aren't. 
Far and wide, far and wide, 
I can walk with you beside;...Read more of this...

Balloon Faces

by Carl Sandburg
 THE BALLOONS hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens.
They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float their faces on the face of the sky.
Balloon face eaters sit by hundreds reading the eat cards, asking, “What shall we eat?”—and the waiters, “Have you ordered?” they are sixty ballon faces sifting white over the tuxedoes.
Poets,...Read more of this...

Preface to Hunting of the Snark

by Lewis Carroll
 PREFACE

If---and the thing is wildly possible---the charge of writing 
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but 
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line 

``Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes'' 

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal 
indignantly to my other writings...Read more of this...

The Purple Cow

by Gelett Burgess
 I NEVER SAW A PURPLE COW,
I NEVER HOPE TO SEE ONE;
BUT I CAN TELL YOU, ANYHOW,
I'D RATHER SEE THAN BE ONE!...Read more of this...

The Seafarer

by Ezra Pound
 (From the early Anglo-Saxon text) 

May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care's hold,
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains...Read more of this...

What the Captain Said at the Point-to-Point

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I’ve had a good bump round; my little horse 
Refused the brook first time, 
Then jumped it prime; 
And ran out at the double, 
But of course
There’s always trouble at a double: 
And then—I don’t know how 
It was—he turned it up 
At that big, hairy fence before the plough; 
And some young silly pup
(I don’t know which), 
Near...Read more of this...

Prayer In Bad Weather

by Charles Bukowski
 by God, I don't know what to
do.
they're so nice to have around.
they have a way of playing with
the balls
and looking at the cock very
seriously
turning it
tweeking it
examining each part
as their long hair falls on
your belly.
it's not the fucking and sucking
alone that reaches into a man
and softens him, it's the extras,
it's all the extras.
now it's raining tonight
and there's nobody
they are elsewhere
examining...Read more of this...

Death Snips Proud Men

by Carl Sandburg
 DEATH is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t.

Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of dice and says: Read ’em and weep.

Death sends a radiogram every day: When I...Read more of this...

To a Certain Civilian

by Walt Whitman
 DID you ask dulcet rhymes from me? 
Did you seek the civilian’s peaceful and languishing rhymes? 
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow? 
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand—nor am I now; 
(I have been born of the same as the war was born;
The drum-corps’ harsh rattle is to...Read more of this...

On The Road

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I 's boun' to see my gal to-night—
Oh, lone de way, my dearie!
De moon ain't out, de stars ain't bright—
Oh, lone de way, my dearie!
Dis hoss o' mine is pow'ful slow,
But when I does git to yo' do'
Yo' kiss 'll pay me back, an' mo',
Dough lone de way, my dearie.
De night is skeery-lak an' still—
Oh, lone de way, my dearie!
'Cept...Read more of this...

A Boston Ballad 1854

by Walt Whitman
 TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early; 
Here’s a good place at the corner—I must stand and see the show. 

Clear the way there, Jonathan! 
Way for the President’s marshal! Way for the government cannon! 
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons—and the apparitions copiously tumbling.

I love to look on the stars and stripes—I hope...Read more of this...

A Sane Revolution

by D. H. Lawrence
 If you make a revolution, make it for fun,
don't make it in ghastly seriousness,
don't do it in deadly earnest,
do it for fun.

Don't do it because you hate people,
do it just to spit in their eye.

Don't do it for the money,
do it and be damned to the money.

Don't do it for equality,
do it because we've got too much equality
and it...Read more of this...

Bush Christening

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few, 
And men of religion are scanty, 
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost, 
One Michael Magee had a shanty. 
Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad, 
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned; 
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had...Read more of this...

Who is Kator Anyhow?

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Why, oh why was Kater lifted 
From the darkness, where he drifted 
All unknown, and raised to honour, 
Side by side with Dick O'connor, 
In the Council, free from row? 
Who is Kater, anyhow? 
Did he lend our armies rally, 
Like the recent Billy Dalley? 
Did he lend a Premier money, 
Like -- (No libels here, my sonny. --...Read more of this...

Two Gardens in Linndale

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Two brothers, Oakes and Oliver, 
Two gentle men as ever were, 
Would roam no longer, but abide 
In Linndale, where their fathers died, 
And each would be a gardener.

“Now first we fence the garden through, 
With this for me and that for you,” 
Said Oliver.—“Divine!” said Oakes, 
“And I, while I raise artichokes, 
Will do what I was born...Read more of this...

Let It Enfold You

by Charles Bukowski
 either peace or happiness,
let it enfold you

when i was a young man
I felt these things were
dumb,unsophisticated.
I had bad blood,a twisted
mind, a pecarious
upbringing.

I was hard as granite,I
leered at the 
sun.
I trusted no man and
especially no
woman.

I was living a hell in
small rooms, I broke
things, smashed things,
walked through glass,
cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being
evicted,jailed,in and
out of fights,in and aout
of my mind.
women were something
to...Read more of this...

Learning by Doing

by Howard Nemerov
 They're taking down a tree at the front door,
The power saw is snarling at some nerves,
Whining at others. Now and then it grunts,
And sawdust falls like snow or a drift of seeds.
Rotten, they tell us, at the fork, and one
Big wind would bring it down. So what they do
They do, as usual, to do us good.
Whatever cannot carry its...Read more of this...

The Post That Fitted

by Rudyard Kipling
 Ere the seamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry
An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called "my little Carrie."
Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way.
Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight poor rupees a day?

Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters --
Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge...Read more of this...

The Purple Cow

by Gelett Burgess
 I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!...Read more of this...

The Mother

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never...Read more of this...

The Old Timers Steeplechase

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The sheep were shorn and the wool went down 
At the time of our local racing; 
And I'd earned a spell -- I was burnt and brown -- 
So I rolled my swag for a trip to town 
And a look at the steeplechasing. 
Twas rough and ready--an uncleared course 
As rough as the blacks had found it; 
With...Read more of this...

Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else Except Richer

by Ogden Nash
 This is a song to celebrate banks,
Because they are full of money and you go into them and all
you hear is clinks and clanks,
Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills,
Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills.
Most bankers dwell in marble halls,
Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits
and discourage...Read more of this...

The Romance Of Patrolman Casey

by Ellis Parker Butler
 There was a young patrolman who
 Had large but tender feet;
They always hurt him badly when
 He walked upon his beat.
(He always took them with him when
 He walked upon his beat.)

His name was Patrick Casey and
 A sweetheart fair had he;
Her face was full of freckles—but
 Her name was Kate McGee.
(It was in spite of freckles that
 Her...Read more of this...

O We Are The Outcasts

by Charles Bukowski
 ah, christ, what a CREW:
more
poetry, always more
P O E T R Y .

if it doesn't come, coax it out with a 
laxative. get your name in LIGHTS,
get it up there in
8 1/2 x 11 mimeo.

keep it coming like a miracle.

ah christ, writers are the most sickening
of all the louts!
yellow-toothed, slump-shouldered,
gutless, flea-bitten and
obvious . . . in tinker-toy rooms
with their...Read more of this...

Singing Nigger

by Carl Sandburg
 YOUR bony head, Jazbo, O dock walloper,
Those grappling hooks, those wheelbarrow handlers,
The dome and the wings of you, ******,
The red roof and the door of you,
I know where your songs came from.
I know why God listens to your, “Walk All Over God’s Heaven.”
I heard you shooting craps, “My baby’s going to have a new dress.”
I heard you in the...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Anyhow poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace