Famous Chef Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Ode to Gumbo

by Chris Tusa
 after Sue Owen

Born from flour anointed with oil, 
from a roux dark and mean as a horse’s breath, 
you remind me of some strange, mystical stew 
spawned from a muddy version of Macbeth.
Only someone’s replaced the spells with spices, 
the witches with a Cajun chef.

Maybe you’re a recipe torn from Satan’s Cookbook, 
a kind of dumb-downed devil’s brew
where evil...Read more of this...

The Lowestoft Boat

by Rudyard Kipling
 In Lowestoft a boat was laid,
 Mark well what I do say!
And she was built for the herring-trade,
 But she has gone a-rovin', a-rovin', a-rovin',
 The Lord knows where!

They gave her Government coal to burn,
And a Q.F. gun at bow and stern,
And sent her out a-rovin', etc.

Her skipper was mate of a bucko ship
Which always killed one man per...Read more of this...

Study In Orange And White

by Billy Collins
 I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene,
but I was still surprised when I found the painting
of his mother at the Musée d'Orsay
among all the colored dots and mobile brushstrokes
of the French Impressionists.

And I was surprised to notice
after a few minutes of benign staring,
how that woman, stark in profile
and fixed forever in her chair,
began to resemble...Read more of this...

George

by Hilaire Belloc
 Who played with a Dangerous Toy, and suffered a Catastrophe of considerable Dimensions

When George's Grandmamma was told
That George had been as good as gold,
She promised in the afternoon
To buy him an Immense BALLOON.
And so she did; but when it came,
It got into the candle flame,
And being of a dangerous sort
Exploded with a loud report!
The lights went out! The windows...Read more of this...

Toledo

by Robert William Service
 Three widows of the Middle West
We're grimly chewing gum;
The Lido chef a quail had dressed
With garlic and with rum,
And they were painfully oppressed
For they had eaten some.

Said One: "This famed El Greco guy
Gives me the blessed pip;
Them Saints look like they want to die -
Let's give our guide the slip,
And in some bodega close by
A glass of vino sip."

Said...Read more of this...

Gorgeous Surfaces

by Thomas Lux
 They are, the surfaces, gorgeous: a master
pastry chef at work here, the dips and whorls,
the wrist-twist
squeezes of cream from the tube
to the tart, sweet bleak sugarwork, needlework
toward the perfect lace doily
where sit the bone-china teacups, a little maze
of meaning maybe in their arrangement
sneaky obliques, shadow
allusives all piling
atop one another. Textures succulent but famished,
banal, bereft. These surfaces,
these flickering patinas,
through which,
if...Read more of this...

Advertisement For The Waldorf-Astoria

by Langston Hughes
 Fine living . . . a la carte?
 Come to the Waldorf-Astoria!

 LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the
 new Waldorf-Astoria:

 "All the luxuries of private home. . . ."
Now, won't that be charming when the last flop-house
 has turned you down this winter?
 Furthermore:
"It is far beyond anything hitherto attempted in the hotel
 world. ....Read more of this...

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