Famous Kid Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Kid poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous kid poems. These examples illustrate what a famous kid poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Allen Ginsberg
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Mumsie and Dad are raven dark
And I am lily blonde.
''Tis strange,' I once heard nurse remark,
'You do not correspond.'
And yet they claim me as their own,
Born of their flesh and bone.
To doubt their parenthood I dread,
But now to girlhood grown,
The thought is haunting in my head
That I am not their own:
If so, my radiant...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
I WAS a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—I asked
why men die for words.
I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
lilacs, told me the high golden words are:
Mother, Home, and Heaven—other older men with
face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality
—they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.
Years ticked off their say-so...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Elisabeth imagines I've
A yellow streak
She deems I have no dash and drive,
Jest dogoned weak.
'A man should be a man,' says Liz
'Trade blow for blow.'
Poor kid! What my position is
She jest don't know.
She jest don't know my old man killed,
Yea, slew and slew.
As steamy blood he sweetly spilled,
So could I too.
And though no wrath...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
In Mike Maloney's Nugget bar the hooch was flowin' free,
An' One-eyed Mike was shakin' dice wi' Montreal Maree,
An roarin' rageful warning when the boys got overwild,
When peekin' through the double door he spied a tiny child.
Then Mike Maloney muttered: "Hell! Now ain't that jest too bad;
It's Dud McClusky's orphen Nell a-lookin' for her dad.
An' him in back, a-lushin' wine...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
It's in the heart of the grape
where that smile lies.
It's in the good-bye-bow in the hair
where that smile lies.
It's in the clerical collar of the dress
where that smile lies.
What smile?
The smile of my seventh year,
caught here in the painted photograph.
It's peeling now, age has got it,
a kind of cancer of the background
and also in the assorted features.
It's like a...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day!"
II.
Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he...Read more of this...
by
Vernon Scannell
He killed his wife at night.
He had tried once or twice in the daylight
But she refused to die.
In darkness the deed was done,
Not crudely with a hammer-hard gun
Or strangler's black kid gloves on.
She just ceased being alive,
Not there to interfere or connive,
Linger, leave or arrive.
It seemed almost as though
Her...Read more of this...
by
Dale Harcombe
This time I know
I will never see him again.
For a time he played the game,
like a child experimenting with blocks,
building towers and fortresses
but never bridges.
Bridges are hard.
Invariably his feet would slip,
before he found
the acceptance parents had denied
and other...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When your marrer bone seems 'oller,
And you're glad you ain't no taller,
And you're all a-shakin' like you 'ad the chills;
When your skin creeps like a pullet's,
And you're duckin' all the bullets,
And you're green as gorgonzola round the gills;
When your legs seem made of jelly,
And you're squeamish in the belly,
And you want to turn about and do...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
'Twas in the bleary middle of the hard-boiled Arctic night,
I was lonesome as a loon, so if you can,
Imagine my emotions of amazement and delight
When I bumped into that Missionary Man.
He was lying lost and dying in the moon's unholy leer,
And frozen from his toes to finger-tips'
The famished wolf-pack ringed him; but he didn't seem to fear,
As he pressed...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
My Lady is dancing so lightly,
The belle of the Embassy Ball;
I lied as I kissed her politely,
And hurried away from it all.
I'm taxiing up to Montmartre,
With never a pang of regret,
To toy for awhile with the garter
Of her whom I know as Babette.
My Lady's an exquisite creature,
As rare as a queen on a throne;
She's faultless in form and in...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Marvell
Come little Infant, Love me now,
While thine unsuspected years
Clear thine aged Fathers brow
From cold Jealousie and Fears.
Pretty surely 'twere to see
By young Love old Time beguil'd:
While our Sportings are as free
As the Nurses with the Child.
Common Beauties stay fifteen;
Such as yours should swifter move;
Whole fair Blossoms are too green
Yet for lust, but not for Love.
Love as much the snowy...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
O fountain of Bandusia,
Whence crystal waters flow,
With garlands gay and wine I'll pay
The sacrifice I owe;
A sportive kid with budding horns
I have, whose crimson blood
Anon shall dye and sanctify
Thy cool and babbling flood.
O fountain of Bandusia,
The dog-star's hateful spell
No evil brings unto the springs
That from thy bosom well;
Here oxen, wearied by the plough,
The roving cattle here,
Hasten in quest of...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
at each election
as if it really mattered who the pilot is
of Air Force One
(They're interchangeable, stupid!)
While this bird with two right wings
flies right on with its corporate flight crew
And this year its the Great Movie Cowboy in...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
"The North has got him." --Yukonism.
I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;
I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When I was boxing in the ring
In 'Frisco back in ninety-seven,
I used to make five bucks a fling
To give as good as I was given.
But when I felt too fighting gay,
And tried to be a dinger-donger,
My second, Mike Muldoon. would say:
"Go easy, kid; you'll stay the longer."
When I was on the Yukon trail
The boys would warn, when things were...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
As a kid I believed in democracy: I
'saw no alternative'-”teaching at The Big Place I ah
put it in practice:
we'd time for one long novel: to a vote-”
Gone with the Wind they voted: I crunched 'No'
and we sat down with War & Peace.
As a man I believed in democracy (nobody
ever learns anything): only one lazy day
my assistant, called James...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
Early March.
The cold beach deserted. My kids
home in a bare house, bundled up
and listening to rock music
pirated from England. My wife
waiting for me in a bar, alone
for an hour over her sherry, and none
of us knows why I have to pace
back and forth on this flat
and birdless stretch of gleaming...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I'm crawlin' out in the mangolds to bury wot's left o' Joe --
Joe, my pal, and a good un (God! 'ow it rains and rains).
I'm sick o' seein' him lyin' like a 'eap o' offal, and so
I'm crawlin' out in the beet-field to bury 'is last remains.
'E might 'a bin makin' munitions -- 'e 'adn't no need to go;
An'...Read more of this...
by
Kenn Nesbitt
When Frankenstein was just a kid,
he ate his greens. It’s true. He did!
He ate his spinach, salads, peas,
asparagus, and foods like these,
and with each leaf and lima bean
his skin became a bit more green.
On chives and chard he loved to chew,
and Brussels sprouts and peppers too,
until he ate that fateful bean
that turned his skin completely green.
He turned all green, and...Read more of this...
by
Yehuda Amichai
Half the people in the world love the other half,
half the people hate the other half.
Must I because of this half and that half go wandering
and changing ceaselessly like rain in its cycle,
must I sleep among rocks, and grow rugged like
the trunks of olive trees,
and hear the moon barking at me,
and...Read more of this...
by
Muhammad Ali
Clay comes out to meet Liston
and Liston starts to retreat,
if Liston goes back an inch farther
he'll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with his left,
Clay swings with his right,
Look at young Cassius
carry the fight
Liston keeps backing, but there's not enough room,
It's a matter of time till Clay lowers the boom....Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
"I've been where it hurts." the Kid
He becomes Sierra Kid
I passed Slimgullion, Morgan Mine,
Camp Seco, and the rotting Lode.
Dark walls of sugar pine --,
And where I left the road
I left myself behind;
Talked to no one, thought
Of nothing. When my luck ran out
Lived on...Read more of this...
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