Famous Connections Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

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...

Tortoise Family Connections

by D. H. Lawrence
 On he goes, the little one,
Bud of the universe,
Pediment of life.
Setting off somewhere, apparently.
Whither away, brisk egg?

His mother deposited him on the soil as if he were no more than droppings,
And now he scuffles tinily past her as if she were an old rusty tin.

A mere obstacle,
He veers round the slow great mound of her --
Tortoises always foresee obstacles.

It...Read more of this...

Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs

by Carl Sandburg
 RUM tiddy um,
 tiddy um,
 tiddy um tum tum.
My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves.
I feel like tickling you under the chin—honey—and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road?
When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you—honey—put new potatoes and gravy on the table, and there ain’t too much rain or...Read more of this...

from the Ansty Experience

by Rg Gregory
 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...

Mr. Dana of the New York Sun

by Eugene Field
 Thar showed up out'n Denver in the spring uv '81
A man who'd worked with Dana on the Noo York Sun.
His name wuz Cantell Whoppers, 'nd he wuz a sight ter view
Ez he walked inter the orfice 'nd inquired fer work ter do.
Thar warn't no places vacant then,--fer be it understood,
That wuz the time when talent flourished at that altitood;
But...Read more of this...

The Rhyme of the Three Greybeards

by Henry Lawson
 He'd been for years in Sydney "a-acting of the goat", 
His name was Joseph Swallow, "the Great Australian Pote", 
In spite of all the stories and sketches that he wrote. 

And so his friends held meetings (Oh, narrow souls were theirs!) 
To advertise their little selves and Joseph's own affairs. 
They got up a collection for Joseph unawares. 

They...Read more of this...

Memories of West Street and Lepke

by Robert Lowell
Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston's 
"hardly passionate Marlborough Street,"
where even the man
scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans,
has two children, a beach wagon, a helpmate,
and is "a young Republican."
I have a nine months' daughter,
young enough to be my granddaughter.
Like the sun she rises in her flame-flamingo...Read more of this...

An Imperial Rescript

by Rudyard Kipling
 Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed,
To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak in their need,
He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant, and sweat,
That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally of bricks be set.

The Lords of Their Hands assembled; from the East and...Read more of this...

Might-right-veto

by Ehsan Sehgal
Who has connections, he is greeted
Who has not, he is mistreated
To kill innocent peoples
Now it is diplomacy
They are keeping
In their hands veto
but they are preaching
To us democracy
We,people of the blue planet
Have to realize, anyhow
It was always, it is always
It will be always that
where is might
There is right...Read more of this...

James Simmons R.i.p

by Barry Tebb
 You were the one I wanted most to know

So like yet unlike, like fire and snow,

The casual voice, the sharp invective,

The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant

Who never gave a ****, crossed the palms

Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt

For the fakers and the tricksters whose poetry

Deftly bent to fashion’s latest slant.



You wrote from the heart,...Read more of this...

240. Verses on a Parting Kiss

by Robert Burns
 HUMID seal of soft affections,
 Tenderest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of young connections,
 Love’s first snowdrop, virgin kiss!


Speaking silence, dumb confession,
 Passion’s birth, and infant’s play,
Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,
 Glowing dawn of future day!


Sorrowing joy, Adieu’s last action,
 (Lingering lips must now disjoin),
What words can ever speak affection
 So thrilling and sincere as thine!...Read more of this...

The Seven Of Pentacles

by Marge Piercy
 Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if...Read more of this...

The Junk Man

by Carl Sandburg
 I AM glad God saw Death
And gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired
of living:

When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and
the connections loose
And the clock goes on ticking and telling the wrong time
from hour to hour
And people around the house joke about what a bum
clock it is,
How glad the clock is...Read more of this...

Poem To Be Placed In A Bottle And Cast Out To Sea

by Barry Tebb
 for Ken Kesey and his merry pranksters in a bus called ‘Further...’





Dear _______ and here’s where the problem begins

For who shall I address this letter to?

Friends are few and very special, muses in the main

I must confess, the first I lost just fifty years ago.

Perhaps the best.



I searched for years and wrote en route

‘Bridge Over the Aire’ after that...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Connections 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