Famous Family Tree Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Other

by Sylvia Plath
 Under my bowels, yellow with smoke,
it waits.
Under my eyes, those milk bunnies,
it waits.
It is waiting.
It is waiting.
Mr. Doppelganger. My brother. My spouse.
Mr. Doppelganger. My enemy. My lover.
When truth comes spilling out like peas
it hangs up the phone.
When the child is soothed and resting on the breast
it is my other who swallows Lysol.
When someone kisses someone or flushes the toilet
it...Read more of this...

from Proverbs of Hell

by Rg Gregory
 (a) radical

ban all fires
and places where people congregate
to create comfort
put an end to sleep
good cooking
and the delectation of wine
tear lovers apart
piss on the sun and moon
degut all heavenly harmony
strike out across the bitter ice
and the poisonous marshes

make (if you dare) a better world

(b) expect poison from standing water
  (iii)
lake erie
why not as a joke one night
pick up your...Read more of this...

Pollys Tree

by Sylvia Plath
 A dream tree, Polly's tree:
 a thicket of sticks,
 each speckled twig

ending in a thin-paned
 leaf unlike any
 other on it

or in a ghost flower
 flat as paper and
 of a color

vaporish as frost-breath,
 more finical than
 any silk fan

the Chinese ladies use
 to stir robin's egg
 air. The silver-

haired seed of the milkweed
 comes to roost there, frail
...Read more of this...

The Squaw Man

by Robert William Service
 The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver's overbold,
The net is in the eddy of the stream;
The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold,
And in the velvet gloom the fire's a-gleam.
The night is ripe with quiet, rich with incense of the pine;
From sanctuary lake I hear the loon;
The peaks are bright against the blue, and drenched...Read more of this...

In Modern Dress

by Craig Raine
 A pair of blackbirds
warring in the roses,
one or two poppies

losing their heads,
the trampled lawn
a battlefield of dolls.

Branch by pruned branch,
a child has climbed
the family tree

to queen it over us:
we groundlings search
the flowering cherry

till we find her face,
its pale prerogative
to rule our hearts.

Sir Walter Raleigh
trails his comforter
about the muddy garden,

a full-length Hilliard
in miniature hose
and padded pants.

How rakishly upturned
his fine moustache
of...Read more of this...

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