Famous Data Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Farewell to Agassiz

...ol is fertile
In fancy kinds of turtle,
New birds around him singing,
New insects, never stinging,
With a million novel data
About the articulata,
And facts that strip off all husks
From the history of mollusks.

And when, with loud Te Deum,
He returns to his Museum
May he find the monstrous reptile
That so long the land has kept ill
By Grant and Sherman throttled,
And by Father Abraham bottled,
(All specked and streaked and mottled
With the scars of murderous battles,
Where ...Read more of this...
by Holmes, Oliver Wendell


A Way to Love God

...reak will tell all you need to know
About submarine geography, and your father's death rattle
Provides all biographical data required for the Who's Who of the dead.

I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least
I can say how night-long I have lain under the stars and 
Heard mountains moan in their sleep.By daylight,
They remember nothing, and go about their lawful occasions
Of not going anywhere except in slow disintegration.At night
They remember, however, that t...Read more of this...
by Warren, Robert Penn

Cosmopolitan Greetings

...

Don't drink yourself to death.

Two molecules clanking against each other requires an observer to become 
 scientific data.

The measuring instrument determines the appearance of the phenomenal
 world after Einstein.

The universe is subjective.

Walt Whitman celebrated Person.

We Are an observer, measuring instrument, eye, subject, Person.

Universe is person.

Inside skull vast as outside skull.

Mind is outer space.

"Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no so...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

From The Frontier Of Writing

...to the frontier of writing 
where it happens again. The guns on tripods; 
the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating 

data about you, waiting for the squawk 
of clearance; the marksman training down 
out of the sun upon you like a hawk. 

And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed, 
as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall 
on the black current of a tarmac road 

past armor-plated vehicles, out between 
the posted soldiers flowing and receding 
like tree shadows int...Read more of this...
by Heaney, Seamus

Mr. Dana of the New York Sun

...e to be on earth to hear you'd passed away.
And when it comes your time to go you'll need no Latin chaff
Nor biographic data put in your epitaph;
But one straight line of English and of truth will let folks know
The homage 'nd the gratitude 'nd reverence they owe;
You'll need no epitaph but this: "Here sleeps the man who run
That best 'nd brightest paper, the Noo York Sun."...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene


Paradiso (Italian)

...mati
son nel piacer de lo Spirito Santo,
letizian del suo ordine formati.
 E questa sorte che par gi? cotanto,
per? n'? data, perch? fuor negletti
li nostri voti, e v?ti in alcun canto».
 Ond'io a lei: «Ne' mirabili aspetti
vostri risplende non so che divino
che vi trasmuta da' primi concetti:
 per? non fui a rimembrar festino;
ma or m'aiuta ci? che tu mi dici,
s? che raffigurar m'? pi? latino.
 Ma dimmi: voi che siete qui felici,
disiderate voi pi? alto loco
per pi? vedere e...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Soliloquy in Circles

...ally
And straighten them dentally,

They grow tall as a lancer
And ask questions you can't answer,

And supply you with data
About how everybody else wears lipstick sooner and stays up later,

And if they are popular,
The phone they monopular.

They scorn the dominion
Of their parent's opinion,

They're no longer corralable
Once they find that you're fallible

But after you've raised them and educated them and gowned them,
They just take their little fingers and wrap you arou...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

The Little Big Man

...ill a baby, will bring for me from the town
little shoes and small silken frocks.
I shall say, "Father, give them to my data, for I am as big
as you are."
Father will think and say, "He can buy his own clothes if he
likes, for he is grown up."...Read more of this...
by Tagore, Rabindranath

Work

...o-one,
and turned your quick mind to the broadest cause.
But there you were, a whisper finished…gone,
scooping reams of data from cabinet drawers,
your kiddie snaps stacked face-down on the desk
and none of us sat safe enough to speak.
That night I helped a cleaner bin the mess.
Our chief would hire a temp inside the week
so I kept back your tissues as a wee bequest.
Sometimes I think I should have wiped your cheek....Read more of this...
by Jones, Chris

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