Famous By Product Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Morning Half-Life Blues

by Marge Piercy
 Girls buck the wind in the grooves toward work
in fuzzy coats promised to be warm as fur.
The shop windows snicker
flashing them hurrying over dresses they cannot afford:
you are not pretty enough, not pretty enough.

Blown with yesterday’s papers through the boiled coffee morning
we dream of the stop on the subway without a name,
the door in the heart of the grove...Read more of this...

Mud Soup

by Carolyn Kizer
 1.

Had the ham bone, had the lentils,
Got to meat store for the salt pork,
Got to grocery for the celery.
Had the onions, had the garlic,
Borrowed carrots from the neighbor.
Had the spices, had the parsley.
One big kettle I had not got;
Borrowed pot and lid from landlord.

2.

Dice the pork and chop the celery,
Chop the onions, chop the carrots,
Chop the tender index finger.
Put...Read more of this...

Daffy Duck In Hollywood

by John Ashbery
 Something strange is creeping across me.
La Celestina has only to warble the first few bars
Of "I Thought about You" or something mellow from
Amadigi di Gaula for everything--a mint-condition can
Of Rumford's Baking Powder, a celluloid earring, Speedy
Gonzales, the latest from Helen Topping Miller's fertile
Escritoire, a sheaf of suggestive pix on greige, deckle-edged
Stock--to come clattering through the rainbow trellis
Where Pistachio Avenue...Read more of this...

The Dream Of Wearing Shorts Forever

by Les Murray
 To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass, 

to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches, 

or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
on the plank verandah -...Read more of this...

Matthew VIII28 ff

by Richard Wilbur
 Rabbi, we Gadarenes
Are not ascetics; we are fond of wealth and possessions.
Love, as You call it, we obviate by means
Of the planned release of aggressions.

We have deep faith in properity.
Soon, it is hoped, we will reach our full potential.
In the light of our gross product, the practice of charity
Is palpably non-essential.

It is true that we go insane;
That for no...Read more of this...

Thoughts On The Works Of Providence

by Phillis Wheatley
 A R I S E, my soul, on wings enraptur'd, rise
To praise the monarch of the earth and skies,
Whose goodness and benificence appear
As round its centre moves the rolling year,
Or when the morning glows with rosy charms,
Or the sun slumbers in the ocean's arms:
Of light divine be a rich portion lent
To guide my soul, and favour my intend.
Celestial muse,...Read more of this...

Days of Pie and Coffee

by Edward Taylor
 A motorist once said to me, 
and this was in the country, 
on a county lane, a motorist 
slowed his vehicle as I was 
walking my dear old collie,
Sithney, by the side of the road, 
and the motorist came to a halt 
mildly alarming both Sithney and myself, 
not yet accustomed to automobiles, 
and this particular motorist 
sent a...Read more of this...

Mans Injustice Towards Providence

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 A Thriving Merchant, who no Loss sustained, 
In little time a mighty Fortune gain'd. 
No Pyrate seiz'd his still returning Freight; 
Nor foundring Vessel sunk with its own Weight: 
No Ruin enter'd through dissever'd Planks; 
No Wreck at Sea, nor in the Publick Banks. 
Aloft he sails, above the Reach of Chance, 
And do's in Pride, as fast as...Read more of this...

a reader's de profundis

by Rg Gregory
 in my reading of the moment i have learned
the figure next to christ in da vinci’s last supper
(a painting i have actually seen in a milan church
fragilely restored) is a woman – an honour earned
by mary magdalene who (according to research)
turns out to be christ’s wife – hang on what a whopper

cry those who can’t contemplate centuries of teaching
down...Read more of this...

There are two Ripenings -- one -- of sight

by Emily Dickinson
 There are two Ripenings -- one -- of sight --
Whose forces Spheric wind
Until the Velvet product
Drop spicy to the ground --
A homelier maturing --
A process in the Bur --
That teeth of Frosts alone disclose
In far October Air....Read more of this...

Dream Song 69: Love her he doesnt but the thought he puts

by John Berryman
 Love her he doesn't but the thought he puts
into that young woman
would launch a national product
complete with TV spots & skywriting
outlets in Bonn & Tokyo
I mean it

Let it be known that nine words have not passed
between herself and Henry;
looks, smiles.
God help Henry, who deserves it all
every least part of that infernal & unconscious
woman, and the pain.

I feel as if,...Read more of this...

Days of Pie and Coffee

by James Tate
 A motorist once said to me, 
and this was in the country, 
on a county lane, a motorist 
slowed his vehicle as I was 
walking my dear old collie,
Sithney, by the side of the road, 
and the motorist came to a halt 
mildly alarming both Sithney and myself, 
not yet accustomed to automobiles, 
and this particular motorist 
sent a...Read more of this...

Spirit Dity Of No Fax Line Dial Tone

by Bob Hicok
 The telephone company calls and asks what the fuss is. 
Betty from the telephone company, who's not concerned 
with the particulars of my life. For instance 
if I believe in the transubstantiation of Christ 
or am gladdened at 7:02 in the morning to repeat 
an eighth time why a man wearing a hula skirt of tools 
slung low on...Read more of this...

Shame

by Richard Wilbur
 It is a cramped little state with no foreign policy,
Save to be thought inoffensive. The grammar of the language
Has never been fathomed, owing to the national habit
Of allowing each sentence to trail off in confusion.
Those who have visited Scusi, the capital city,
Report that the railway-route from Schuldig passes
Through country best described as unrelieved.
Sheep are the national product. The faint...Read more of this...

The Whale

by Hilaire Belloc
 The Whale that wanders round the Pole
Is not a table fish.
You cannot bake or boil him whole
Nor serve him in a dish;

But you may cut his blubber up
And melt it down for oil.
And so replace the colza bean
(A product of the soil).

These facts should all be noted down
And ruminated on,
By every boy in Oxford town

Who wants to be a...Read more of this...

We Two—How Long We were Fool'd

by Walt Whitman
 WE two—how long we were fool’d! 
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape, as Nature escapes; 
We are Nature—long have we been absent, but now we return; 
We become plants, leaves, foliage, roots, bark; 
We are bedded in the ground—we are rocks;
We are oaks—we grow in the openings side by side; 
We browse—we are two among the wild herds, spontaneous as...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Caseys Billy-Goat

by Robert William Service
 You've heard of "Casey at The Bat,"
 And "Casey's Tabble Dote";
 But now it's time
 To write a rhyme
 Of "Casey's Billy-goat."

Pat Casey had a billy-goat he gave the name of Shamus,
Because it was (the neighbours said) a national disgrace.
And sure enough that animal was eminently famous
For masticating every rag of laundry round the place.
For shirts to skirts prodigiously...Read more of this...

Place for a Third

by Robert Frost
 Nothing to say to all those marriages!
She had made three herself to three of his.
The score was even for them, three to three.
But come to die she found she cared so much:
She thought of children in a burial row;
Three children in a burial row were sad.
One man's three women in a burial row
Somehow made her impatient with the man.
And...Read more of this...

O Star of France

by Walt Whitman
 1
O STAR of France! 
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame, 
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long, 
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale—a mastless hulk; 
And ’mid its teeming, madden’d, half-drown’d crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman. 

2
Dim, smitten star! 
Orb not of France alone—pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes, 
The...Read more of this...

Helen In Hollywood

by Judy Grahn
 When she goes to Hollywood
she is an angel.

She writes in red red lipstick
on the window of her body,
long for me, oh need me!
Parts her lips like a lotus.

Opening night she stands, poised
on her carpet, luminescent,
young men humming
all around her. She is flying.
Her high heels are wands, her
furs electric. Her bracelets
flashing. How completely
dazzling her complexion,
how vibrant her hair and eyes,
how...Read more of this...

Imperfection

by Dejan Stojanovic
Trying too hard to be too good, 
Even when trying to be bad, 
Is too good for the bad 
Too bad for the good. 

Perfection seems sterile; 
It is final, no mystery in it; 
It's a product of an assembly line. 

To accomplish the perfect perfection, 
A little imperfection helps.
...Read more of this...

I think that the Root of the Wind is Water --

by Emily Dickinson
 I think that the Root of the Wind is Water --
It would not sound so deep
Were it a Firmamental Product --
Airs no Oceans keep --
Mediterranean intonations --
To a Current's Ear --
There is a maritime conviction
In the Atmosphere --...Read more of this...

Hallelujah: A Sestina

by Robert Francis
 A wind's word, the Hebrew Hallelujah.
I wonder they never gave it to a boy
(Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair.
It means Praise God, as well it should since praise
Is what God's for. Why didn't they call my father
Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer? 

Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer,
Product of Nova Scotia (hallelujah).
Daniel, a country doctor, was his father
And my father...Read more of this...

The Poor Mans Lamb

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 NOW spent the alter'd King, in am'rous Cares, 
The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray'rs: 
In vain the Alter waits his slow returns, 
Where unattended Incense faintly burns: 
In vain the whisp'ring Priests their Fears express, 
And of the Change a thousand Causes guess. 
Heedless of all their Censures He retires, 
And in his Palace feeds his secret...Read more of this...

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