Famous Grunted Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Story of Ung

by Rudyard Kipling
 Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago,
Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow.
Fashioned the form of a tribesman -- gaily he whistled and sung,
Working the snow with his fingers. Read ye the Story of Ung!

Pleased was his tribe with that image -- came in their hundreds to scan --
Handled it, smelt it, and grunted:...Read more of this...

The Conundrum of the Workshops

by Rudyard Kipling
 When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

Wherefore he called to his...Read more of this...

Pigs

by Les Murray
 Us all on sore cement was we.
Not warmed then with glares. Not glutting mush
under that pole the lightning's tied to.
No farrow-**** in milk to make us randy.
Us back in cool god-****. We ate crisp.
We nosed up good rank in the tunnelled bush.
Us all fuckers then. And Big, huh? Tusked
the balls-biting dog and gutsed him wet.
Us shoved down the soft...Read more of this...

Wrestling Match

by Robert William Service
 What guts he had, the Dago lad
Who fought that Frenchman grim with guile;
For nigh an hour they milled like mad,
And mauled the mat in rare old style.
Then up and launched like catapults,
And tangled, twisted, clinched and clung,
Then tossed in savage somersaults,
And hacked and hammered, ducked and swung;
And groaned and grunted, sighed and cried,
Now knotted tight, now springing free;
To bend...Read more of this...

The Images Alone

by Les Murray
 Scarlet as the cloth draped over a sword,
white as steaming rice, blue as leschenaultia,
old curried towns, the frog in its green human skin;
a ploughman walking his furrow as if in irons, but
as at a whoop of young men running loose
in brick passages, there occurred the thought
like instant stitches all through crumpled silk:

as if he'd had to leap to catch...Read more of this...

The Trail Of Ninety-Eight

by Robert William Service
 Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!

Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;
Men from the farms and the cities, into...Read more of this...

Modern Declaration

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having 
wavered
In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the
rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these
loves;
Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having
grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of those loves;
Never when anxious to land a job having...Read more of this...

A Country Life

by Randall Jarrell
 A bird that I don't know,
Hunched on his light-pole like a scarecrow,
Looks sideways out into the wheat
The wind waves under the waves of heat.
The field is yellow as egg-bread dough
Except where (just as though they'd let
It live for looks) a locust billows
In leaf-green and shade-violet,
A standing mercy.
The bird calls twice, "Red clay, red clay";
Or else he's saying, "Directly, directly."
If...Read more of this...

The Contretemps

by Thomas Hardy
 A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom,
And we clasped, and almost kissed;
But she was not the woman whom
I had promised to meet in the thawing brume
On that harbour-bridge; nor was I he of her tryst. 

So loosening from me swift she said:
"O why, why feign to be
The one I had meant - to whom I have sped
To...Read more of this...

The General

by Siegfried Sassoon
 ‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the General said 
When we met him last week on our way to the line. 
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead, 
And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine. 
‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

. . . . 
But he...Read more of this...

Stand-To: Good Friday Morning

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I’d been on duty from two till four. 
I went and stared at the dug-out door. 
Down in the frowst I heard them snore. 
‘Stand to!’ Somebody grunted and swore. 
Dawn was misty; the skies were still;
Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; 
They seemed happy; but I felt ill. 
Deep in water I splashed my way 
Up the trench to...Read more of this...

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