Famous Commercial Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Counting Sheep

by Russell Edson
 A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He 
wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture 
for them. 
 They are like grains of rice. 
 He wonders if it is possible to shrink something 
out of existence. 
 He wonders if the sheep are aware of their tininess, 
if they have any sense of scale....Read more of this...

Tractor

by Ted Hughes
 The tractor stands frozen - an agony
To think of. All night
Snow packed its open entrails. Now a head-pincering gale,
A spill of molten ice, smoking snow,
Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands
In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness. 

It defied flesh and won't start.
Hands are like wounds already
Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable
As if the toe-nails...Read more of this...

Eugene Carman

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Rhodes' slave! Selling shoes and gingham,
Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long
For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days
For more than twenty years.
Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir", and "Thank you"
A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.
Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial."
And compelled to go to Sunday School,...Read more of this...

1. Faith

by Mark Doty
 "I've been having these
awful dreams, each a little different,
though the core's the same-

we're walking in a field,
Wally and Arden and I, a stretch of grass
with a highway running beside it,

or a path in the woods that opens
onto a road. Everything's fine,
then the dog sprints ahead of us,

exicted; we're calling but
he's racing down a scent and doesn't hear us,
and that's...Read more of this...

The Colonel

by Carolyn Forche
 What you have heard is true. I was in his house. 
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His 
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the 
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol 
on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on 
its black cord over the house. On the television...Read more of this...

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

by William Vaughn Moody
 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.


I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 
And set here in the city's talk and trade 
To the good memory of...Read more of this...

Self-Portrait At 28

by David Berman
 I know it's a bad title
but I'm giving it to myself as a gift
on a day nearly canceled by sunlight
when the entire hill is approaching
the ideal of Virginia
brochured with goldenrod and loblolly
and I think "at least I have not woken up
with a bloody knife in my hand"
by then having absently wandered
one hundred yards from the house
while still seated in...Read more of this...

The revolution will not be televised

by Gil Scott-Heron
You will not be able to stay home, brother
 You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
 You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
 And skip out for beer during commercials
 Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised
 The revolution will not be brought to you by...Read more of this...

For the Union Dead

by Robert Lowell
 "Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam." 

The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled
to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.

My hand draws back. I...Read more of this...

Ida Frickey

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Nothing in life is alien to you:
I was a penniless girl from Summum
Who stepped from the morning train in Spoon River.
All the houses stood before me with closed doors
And drawn shades -- I was barred out;
I had no place or part in any of them.
And I walked past the old McNeely mansion,
A castle of stone 'mid walks and gardens,
With...Read more of this...

Occupational Hazard

by Sophie Hannah
 He has slept with accountants and brokers,
With a cowgirl (well, someone from Healds).
He has slept with non-smokers and smokers
In commercial and cultural fields.

He has slept with book-keepers, book-binders,
Slept with auditors, florists, PAs
Child psychologists, even child minders,
With directors of firms and of plays.

He has slept with the stupid and clever.
He has slept with the rich and the poor
But he sadly...Read more of this...

Intention To Escape From Him

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Edna St. Vincent Millay - Intention To Escape From Him 

I think I will learn some beautiful language, useless for commercial
Purposes, work hard at that.
I think I will learn the Latin name of every songbird, not only in
America but wherever they sing.
(Shun meditation, though; invite the controversial:
Is the world flat? Do bats eat cats?) By digging hard I might
deflect...Read more of this...

The Lost Leichardt

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Another search for Leichhardt's tomb, 
Though fifty years have fled 
Since Leichhardt vanished in the gloom, 
Our one Illustrious Dead! 
But daring men from Britain's shore, 
The fearless bulldog breed, 
Renew the fearful task once more, 
Determined to succeed. 

Rash men, that know not what they seek, 
Will find their courage tried. 
For things have changed on Cooper's Creek...Read more of this...

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