Famous Jam Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Three HaPence a Foot

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell you an old-fashioned story 
That Grandfather used to relate, 
Of a joiner and building contractor; 
'Is name, it were Sam Oglethwaite.

In a shop on the banks of the Irwell, 
Old Sam used to follow 'is trade, 
In a place you'll have 'eard of, called Bury; 
You know, where black puddings is made.

One day, Sam were filling a...Read more of this...

The Clean Plater

by Ogden Nash
 Some singers sing of ladies' eyes,
And some of ladies lips,
Refined ones praise their ladylike ways,
And course ones hymn their hips.
The Oxford Book of English Verse
Is lush with lyrics tender;
A poet, I guess, is more or less
Preoccupied with gender.
Yet I, though custom call me crude,
Prefer to sing in praise of food.
Food,
Yes, food,
Just any old kind of food.
Pheasant is pleasant, of...Read more of this...

The Levelled Churchyard

by Thomas Hardy
 "O passenger, pray list and catch 
 Our sighs and piteous groans, 
Half stifled in this jumbled patch 
 Of wrenched memorial stones! 

"We late-lamented, resting here, 
 Are mixed to human jam, 
And each to each exclaims in fear, 
 'I know not which I am!' 

"The wicked people have annexed 
 The verses on the good; 
A...Read more of this...

Book Lover

by Robert William Service
 I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never head.
"Please make me," says some wistful tome,
"A wee bit of yourself."
And so I take my treasure home,
And tuck it in a shelf.

And now my very shelves complain;
They jam and over-spill.
They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"
"some day," I say, "I...Read more of this...

Enough of snow (JAM SATIS TERRIS)

by Horace
Enough of snow and hail at last
       The Sire has sent in vengeance down:
     His bolts, at His own temple cast,
         Appall'd the town,
     Appall'd the lands, lest Pyrrha's time
       Return, with...Read more of this...

The Little Dogs Day

by Rupert Brooke
 All in the town were still asleep,
When the sun came up with a shout and a leap.
In the lonely streets unseen by man,
A little dog danced. And the day began.

All his life he'd been good, as far as he could,
And the poor little beast had done all that he should.
But this morning he swore, by Odin and Thor
And the...Read more of this...

Oonts

by Rudyard Kipling
 Wot makes the soldier's 'eart to penk, wot makes 'im to perspire?
It isn't standin' up to charge nor lyin' down to fire;
But it's everlastin' waitin' on a everlastin' road
For the commissariat camel an' 'is commissariat load.
 O the oont*, O the oont, O the commissariat oont!
 With 'is silly neck a-bobbin' like a basket full o' snakes;
 We packs...Read more of this...

CIA Dope Calypso

by Allen Ginsberg
 In nineteen hundred forty-nine
China was won by Mao Tse-tung
Chiang Kai-shek's army ran away
They were waiting there in Thailand yesterday

Supported by the CIA
Pushing junk down Thailand way

First they stole from the Meo Tribes
Up in the hills they started taking bribes
Then they sent their soldiers up to Shan
Collecting opium to send to The Man

Pushing junk in Bangkok yesterday
Supported by the CIA

Brought...Read more of this...

Dignissimo Suo Amico Doctori Wittie. De Translatione Vulgi

by Andrew Marvell
 Nempe sic innumero succrescunt agmine libri,
Saepia vix toto ut jam natet una mari.
Fortius assidui surgunt a vulnere praeli:
Quoque magis pressa est, auctior Hydra redit.
Heu quibus Anticyris, quibus est sanabilis herbis
Improba scribendi pestis, avarus amor!
India sola tenet tanti medicamina morbi,
Dicitur & nostris ingemuisse malis.
Utile Tabacci dedit illa miserta venenum,
Acci veratro quod meliora potest.
Jamque vides olidas libris fumare popinas:
Naribus O doctis...Read more of this...

Writing To Onegin

by Ruth Padel
 (After Pushkin) 
Look at the bare wood hand-waxed floor and long 
White dressing-gown, the good child's writing-desk 
And passionate cold feet
Summoning music of the night - tumbrils, gongs
And gamelans - with one neat pen, one candle
Puttering its life out hour by hour. 
Is "Tell Him I love him" never a good idea? You can't wish this
Unlived - this world...Read more of this...

Peter Anderson And Co

by Henry Lawson
 He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, 
And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.', 
But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood -- 
And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good. 
'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had -- 
He was fond of beer and leisure --...Read more of this...

Little Birds

by Lewis Carroll
 Little Birds are dining
Warily and well,
Hid in mossy cell:
Hid, I say, by waiters
Gorgeous in their gaiters -
I've a Tale to tell.

Little Birds are feeding
Justices with jam,
Rich in frizzled ham:
Rich, I say, in oysters
Haunting shady cloisters -
That is what I am.

Little Birds are teaching
Tigresses to smile,
Innocent of guile:
Smile, I say, not smirkle -
Mouth a semicircle,
That's the proper style!

Little Birds are...Read more of this...

J was some Apple Jam

by Edward Lear
J  was some Apple Jam,Of which Papa ate part; But all the rest he took awayAnd stuffed into a tart. ...Read more of this...

Magna Carta

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell of the Magna Charter
As were signed at the Barons' command 
On Runningmead Island in t' middle of t' Thames 
By King John, as were known as "Lack Land." 

Some say it were wrong of the Barons 
Their will on the King so to thrust, 
But you'll see if you look at both sides of the case 
That...Read more of this...

At the Cedars

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 You had two girls -- Baptiste -- 
One is Virginie --
Hold hard -- Baptiste!
Listen to me.

The whole drive was jammed
In that bend at the Cedars,
The rapids were dammed
With the logs tight rammed
And crammed; you might know
The Devil had clinched them below.

We worked three days -- not a budge,
'She's as tight as a wedge, on the ledge,'
Says our foreman;
'Mon Dieu!...Read more of this...

There was a young lady of Corsica

by Edward Lear
There was a young lady of Corsica,Who purchased a little brown saucy-cur;Which she fed upon ham, and hot raspberry jam,That expensive young lady of Corsica. ...Read more of this...

Lays of Sorrow

by Lewis Carroll
 The day was wet, the rain fell souse
Like jars of strawberry jam, [1] a
sound was heard in the old henhouse,
A beating of a hammer. 
Of stalwart form, and visage warm,
Two youths were seen within it,
Splitting up an old tree into perches for their poultry
At a hundred strokes [2] a minute. 
The work is done, the hen has taken
Possession of...Read more of this...

Diary of a Church Mouse

by John Betjeman
 Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my days
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten room
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is...Read more of this...

Oh! wine is richer that the realm of Jam,

by Omar Khayyam
Oh! wine is richer that the realm of Jam,
More fragrant than the food of Miriam;
Sweeter are sighs that drunkards heave at morn
Than strains of Bu Sa'id and Bin Adham....Read more of this...

Jim

by Hilaire Belloc
 Who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion

There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo--
But there it was...Read more of this...

Escape

by Robert Graves
 August 6, 1916.—Officer previously reported died of wounds, now reported wounded: Graves, Captain R., Royal Welch Fusiliers.)


…but I was dead, an hour or more. 
I woke when I’d already passed the door 
That Cerberus guards, and half-way down the road 
To Lethe, as an old Greek signpost showed. 
Above me, on my stretcher swinging by,
I saw new stars in...Read more of this...

Loud Music

by Stephen Dobyns
 My stepdaughter and I circle round and round.
You see, I like the music loud, the speakers
throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether
Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so
each bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut.
But my stepdaughter disagrees. She is four
and likes the music decorous, pitched below
her own voice-that tenuous projection of self.
With music...Read more of this...

Blackberry-Picking

by Seamus Heaney
 Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent...Read more of this...

The Revelation

by Robert William Service
 The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut;
Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train:
Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again?

We've bidden good-bye to life in a cage,...Read more of this...

The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time

by Richard Aldington
 Zeus, 
Brazen-thunder-hurler, 
Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos, 
Send vengeance on these Oreads 
Who strew 
White frozen flecks of mist and cloud 
Over the brown trees and the tufted grass 
Of the meadows, where the stream 
Runs black through shining banks 
Of bluish white. 

Zeus, 
Are the halls of heaven broken up 
That you flake down upon me 
Feather-strips of marble? 

Dis and...Read more of this...

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