Famous Buddy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hey Baby

by Maggie Estep
 Liner Notes - (from No More Mister Nice Girl)

I was having a foul day. Some
geezer harrassed me on the street and I got completely bent out of shape,
but the guy was huge so I just stuffed my retort. Went home to drink
coffee. No milk. I ripped through the cupboards and found Non Dairy Creamer.
It tasted like ****. I got...Read more of this...

The Shadowy Waters: Introductory Lines

by William Butler Yeats
 I walked among the seven woods of Coole:
Shan-walla, where a willow-hordered pond
Gathers the wild duck from the winter dawn;
Shady Kyle-dortha; sunnier Kyle-na-no,
Where many hundred squirrels are as happy
As though they had been hidden hy green houghs
Where old age cannot find them; Paire-na-lee,
Where hazel and ash and privet hlind the paths:
Dim Pairc-na-carraig, where the wild bees fling
Their sudden fragrances on...Read more of this...

My Hero

by Robert William Service
 Of all the boys with whom I fought
In Africa and Sicily,
Bill was the bravest of the lot
In our dare-devil Company.
That lad would rather die than yield;
His gore he glorified to spill,
And so in every battlefield
A hero in my eyes was Bill.

Then when the bloody war was done,
He moseyed back to our home town,
And there, a loving mother's son,
Like other...Read more of this...

Our Friendship (January 14)

by David Lehman
 We have a name for it 
in the South: 
******* buddies. 
It means we've known 
each other so long 
it doesn't matter 
that he's an ******* 
in my opinion 
or I'm an ******* 
in his opinion 
or whatever 
And I want you to know 
I'm not from the South 
and you're not my buddy 
and it doesn't matter...Read more of this...

Courage

by Anne Sexton
 It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of...Read more of this...

Why the Young Men Are So Ugly

by Tony Hoagland
 They have little tractors in their blood
and all day the tractors climb up and down
inside their arms and legs, their
collarbones and heads.

That is why they yell and scream and slam the barbells
down into their clanking slots,
making the metal ring like sledgehammers on iron,
like dungeon prisoners rattling their chains.

That is why they shriek their tires at the stopsign,
why they turn...Read more of this...

Salts And Oils

by Philip Levine
 In Havana in 1948 I ate fried dog
believing it was Peking duck. Later,
in Tampa I bunked with an insane sailor
who kept a .38 Smith and Wesson in his shorts.
In the same room were twins, oilers
from Toledo, who argued for hours
each night whose turn it was
to get breakfast and should he turn
the eggs or not. On the way north
I lived...Read more of this...

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