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Famous Eating Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ow, noiselessly waved by the wind;
The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—the supper-fires, and the cooking and
 eating
 by
 whites and *******, 
Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs, 
The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees—the
 flames—with
 the
 black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising; 
Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inlets of North Carolina’s
 coast—the
 shad-fishery and the he...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt



...ut the back porch. There were sacks of garbage there. I stared at the garbage
and tried to figure out what she had been eating lately by studying the containers and
peelings and stuff. I couldn't tell a thing.
It was now March. The water started to boil. I was pleased by this.
I looked at the table. There was the jar of instant coffee, the empty cup and the spoon
all laid out like a funeral service. These are the things that you need to make a cup of
coffee.
When I left the h...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...heirs doth now arrive?
115 And though thus short, we shorten many ways,
116 Living so little while we are alive.
117 In eating, drinking, sleeping, vain delight
118 So unawares comes on perpetual night
119 And puts all pleasures vain unto eternal flight. 

18 

120 When I behold the heavens as in their prime
121 And then the earth (though old) still clad in green,
122 The stones and trees, insensible of time,
123 Nor age nor wrinkle on their front are seen.
124 If winter come...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne
...milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

 Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.


II

What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...olorous city to its furthest bounds. 
 Without, the dense mirk, and the bubbling mire: 
 Within, the white-hot pulse of eating fire, 
 Whence this fiend-anger thwarts. . .," and more he said, 
 To save me doubtless from my thoughts, but I 
 Heeded no more, for by the beacons red 
 That on the lofty tower before us glowed, 
 Three bloodstained and infernal furies showed, 
 Erect, of female form in guise and limb, 
 But clothed in coils of hydras green and grim; 
 And with cera...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante



...Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy
...s exposed. 
To whom thus Adam fervently replied. 
O Woman, best are all things as the will 
Of God ordained them: His creating hand 
Nothing imperfect or deficient left 
Of all that he created, much less Man, 
Or aught that might his happy state secure, 
Secure from outward force; within himself 
The danger lies, yet lies within his power: 
Against his will he can receive no harm. 
But God left free the will; for what obeys 
Reason, is free; and Reason he made right, 
But bid...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...e out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough? 
Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes? 
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough? 

Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! 
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, 
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. 

O my brave soul! 
O farther, farther sail! 
...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...d silk creep at the ends of the ears.. . .
I am the prairie, mother of men, waiting.
They are mine, the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses l...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...Pussy-cat
What are vices?
Catching rats
And eating mices!...Read more of this...
by Milligan, Spike
...and vervain; 
I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods—I see the old signifiers. 

I see Christ once more eating the bread of his last supper, in the midst of youths and old
 persons;
I see where the strong divine young man, the Hercules, toil’d faithfully and long, and
 then
 died;

I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the beautiful nocturnal son,
 the
 full-limb’d Bacchus; 
I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathe...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...th; 
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine; 
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood
 and air through my lungs;
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and
 dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn; 
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies
 of the wind; 
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms; 
The play of shine and...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ver he went home.

Spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer,
Dull as the distant chimes,
That thanked our God for good eating
And corn and quiet times--

Till on the helm of a high chief
Fell shatteringly his brand,
And the helm broke and the bone broke
And the sword broke in his hand.

Then from the yelling Northmen
Driven splintering on him ran
Full seven spears, and the seventh
Was never made by man.

Seven spears, and the seventh
Was wrought as the faerie blades,
And giv...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K
...s the world rotten, why, belike I skip 
To know myself the wisest knight of all.' 
`Ay, fool,' said Tristram, `but 'tis eating dry 
To dance without a catch, a roundelay 
To dance to.' Then he twangled on his harp, 
And while he twangled little Dagonet stood 
Quiet as any water-sodden log 
Stayed in the wandering warble of a brook; 
But when the twangling ended, skipt again; 
And being asked, `Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?' 
Made answer, `I had liefer twenty years 
Skip to the ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...much. It simply felt good being together. I bought a couple of sandwiches, some chips and
drinks and we sat on the sand eating. Then I held Cass and we slept together about an
hour. It was somehow better than lovemaking. There was flowing together without tension.
When we awakened we drove back to my place and I cooked a dinner. After dinner I suggested
to Cass that we shack together. She waited a long time, looking at me, then she slowly
said, "No." I drove her back to the b...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles
...ection, they want the dead back,
so I smile to myself as the bow rope untied
and the Flight swing seaward:"Is no use repeating
that the sea have more fish. I ain't want her
dressed in the sexless light of a seraph,
I want those round brown eyes like a marmoset, and
till the day when I can lean back and laugh,
those claws that tickled my back on sweating
Sunday afternoons, like a crab on wet sand."

As I worked, watching the rotting waves come
past the bow that scissor the sea...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek
...lighted instant and have it gone."
A bee in the laurels began to drone.
A loosened petal fluttered prone.
"Man grows by eating, if you eat
You will be filled with our life, sweet
Will be our planet in your mouth.
If not, I must parch in death's wide drouth
Until I gain to where you are,
And give you myself in whatever star
May happen. O You Beloved of Me!
Is it not ordered cleverly?"
The Shadow, bloomed like a plum, and clear,
Hung in the sunlight. It did not hear.

Paul slip...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...ut of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms,
 clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; 
I whisper with my lips close to your ear, 
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. 

O I have been dilatory and dumb; 
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chan...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...having trouble believing.
Then I knocked on my creek and heard the sound of wood

 I ended up by being my own trout and eating the slice of bread myself.



 The Reply of Trout Fishing in America:
 There was nothing I could do. I couldn't change a flight of stairs
into a creek. The boy walked back to where he came from.


The same thing once happened to me. I remember
mistaking an old woman for a trout stream in Vermont,
 and I had to beg her pardon.

"Excuse me, " I said. "I...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.

I don't want so much misery.
I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.

That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward t...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things