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Famous Information Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Belloc, Hilaire
...nd of sums,

To which, however, he preferred
The Parsing of a Latin Word--
He sought, when it was within his power,
For information twice an hour,

And as for finding Mutton-Fat
Unappatising, far from that!
He often, at his Father's Board,
Would beg them, of his own accord,

To give him, if they did not mind,
The Greasiest Morsels they could find--
His Later Years did not belie
The Promise of his Infancy.
In Public Life he always tried
To take a judgement Broad and Wide;
...Read more of this...



by Ginsberg, Allen
...o himself alone, making no sound."

First thought, best thought.

Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.

Maximum information, minimum number of syllables.

Syntax condensed, sound is solid.

Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best.

Consonants around vowels make sense.

Savor vowels, appreciate consonants.

Subject is known by what she sees.

Others can measure their vision by what we see.

Candor ends paranoia.


 Kral Majales
 June 25,...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...he table
and rolling away; it's what I've got to
decide: 
kill myself or
love myself?
which is the treason?
where's the information
coming from? 
books...like broken glass:
I wouldn't wipe my ass with 'em
yet, it's getting
darker, see? 
(we drink here and speak to
each other and
seem knowing.) 
buy the cow with the biggest
****
buy the cow with the biggest
rump. 
present arms. 
the bartender slides me a beer
it runs down the bar
like an Olympic sprinte...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...Aberyswith was a lady -- not too young --
With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue,
With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise,
And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days.

By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power,
Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour;
And many little secrets, of the half-official kind,
Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them all in mind.

She patronized extensively a man, Ulys...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...rtain'd:
And though within one Cell so narrow pent,
He'd Stanza's for a whole Appartement.
Straight without further information,
In hideous verse, he, and a dismal tone,
Begins to exercise; as if I were
Possest; and sure the Devil brought me there.
But I, who now imagin'd my selfbrought
To my last Tryal, in a serious thought
Calm'd the disorders of my youthful Breast,
And to my Martyrdom prepared Rest.
Only this frail Ambition did remain,
The last distemper of the...Read more of this...



by Rich, Adrienne
...The clouds and the stars didn't wage this war
the brooks gave no information
if the mountain spewed stones of fire into the river
it was not taking sides
the raindrop faintly swaying under the leaf
had no political opinions

and if here or there a house
filled with backed-up raw sewage
or poisoned those who lived there
with slow fumes, over years
the houses were not at war
nor did the tinned-up buildings

intend to refuse...Read more of this...

by Raine, Kathleen
...timulus, reflex,
valueless, meaningless,
while to our machines
we impute intelligence,
in computers and robots
we store information
and call it knowledge,
we seek guidance
by dialling numbers,
pressing buttons, 
throwing switches,
in place of family
our companions are shadows,
cast on a screen,
bodiless voices, fleshless faces,
where was the Garden
a Disney-land
of virtual reality,
in place of angels
the human imagination
is peopled with foot-ballers
film-stars, media-men,
ex...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...e likker underneath than money in his vest,
Had started on a freight-train fur the great 'nd boundin' West,
But further information or statistics he had none
Uv the man who'd "worked with Dana on the Noo York Sun."

We dropped the matter quietly 'nd never made no fuss,--
When we get played for suckers, why, that's a horse on us!--
But every now 'nd then we Denver fellers have to laff
To hear some other paper boast uv havin' on its staff
A man who's "worked with Dana," 'nd...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!

"Last, as to the arrangement;
Your reader, you should show him,
Must take what information he
Can get, and look for no im-
mature disclosure of the drift
And purpose of your poem.

"Therefore, to test his patience— 
How much he can endure— 
Mention no places, names, nor dates,
And evermore be sure
Throughout the poem to be found
Consistently obscure.

"First fix upon the limit
To which it shall extend:
Then fill it up with 'pad...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ther contributions to the literature of the subject, 
Mr. Lewis's important volumes give the English reader all the information 
he is likely to require respecting Goethe's career, and my short 
memoir appeared to be no longer required. 

I need scarcely add that I have availed myself of this opportunity 
to make whatever improvements have suggested themselves to me in 
my original version of these Poems....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...of romance
Into that postal bureau dreary;
He gave me such a smiling glance
That somehow I felt gay and cheery.
For information on my case
The postal folk searched nook and cranny;
He gently tapped, with smiling face,
His reassurance on my fanny.

So I'll go back to Tennessee,
And they will ask: "How have you spent your
Brief holiday in gay Paree?"
But I'll not speak of my adventure.
Oh say I'm spectacled and grey,
Oh say I'm sixty and a grannie -
But say that mor...Read more of this...

by Berman, David
...t "our sun"
and playing football when the only play
was "go out long" are what stand out now.

If squeezed for more information
I can remember old clock radios
with flipping metal numbers
and an entree called Surf and Turf.

As a way of getting in touch with my origins
every night I set the alarm clock
for the time I was born so that waking up
becomes a historical reenactment and the first thing I do
 is take a reading of the day and try to flow with it like
 when you...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Sharine Leung (Centre for Computing in the Humanities) 





Added: Mar 11 2005 | Viewed: 581 times | Comments (0) 



Information about The Lotos-eaters 
Poet: Alfred Lord Tennyson 
Poem: The Lotos-eaters 





Additional Information 
Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, The Lotos-eaters, has not yet been commented on. You can click here to be the first to post a comment about it. Of course you can also a...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...sun is in the south part of the sky." 

And Ireland! that was known from the coast-line to Athlone: 
We got little information re the land that gave us birth; 
Save that Captain Cook was killed (and was very likely grilled) 
And "the natives of New Holland are the lowest race on earth". 

And a woodcut, in its place, of the same degraded race 
Seemed a lot more like a camel than the blackfellows that we knew; 
Jimmy Bullock, with the rest, scratched his head and gave...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...nnie weepingly returned his ring,
Told him his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of marrying.

Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy, --
Epileptic fits don't matter in Political employ, --
Wired three short words to Carrie -- took his ticket, packed his kit --
Bade farewell to Minnie Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.

Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read -- and laughed until she wept --
Mrs. Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched ep...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...y lap
under a halo of lamplight,
a book like this always has a way
of soothing the nerves,
quieting the riotous surf of information
that foams around my waist
even though it never mentions
the silent labors of the poor,
the daydreams of grocers and tailors,
or the faces of men and women alone in single rooms-

even though it never mentions my mother,
now that I think of her again,
who only last year rolled off the edge of the earth
in her electric bed,
in her smooth pink nigh...Read more of this...

by Cohen, Leonard
...ing in the rain, 
and they ask you how you're doing 
of course you'll say you can't complain -- 
If you're squeezed for information, 
that's when you've got to play it dumb: 
You just say you're out there waiting 
for the miracle, for the miracle to come....Read more of this...

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