Famous Lobster Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To Various Persons Talked To All At Once

by Kenneth Koch
 You have helped hold me together.
I'd like you to be still.
Stop talking or doing anything else for a minute.
No. Please. For three minutes, maybe five minutes.
Tell me which walk to take over the hill.
Is there a bridge there? Will I want company?
Tell me about the old people who built the bridge.
What is "the Japanese economy"?
Where did you hide the...Read more of this...

The Voice of the Lobster

by Lewis Carroll
 ''Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But,...Read more of this...

Dream Song 84: Op. posth. no. 7

by John Berryman
 Plop, plop. The lobster toppled in the pot,
fulfilling, dislike man, his destiny,
glowing fire-red,
succulent, and on the whole becoming what
man wants. I crack my final claw singly,
wind up the grave, & to bed.

-”Sound good, Mr Bones. I wish I had me some.
(I spose you got a lessen up your slave.)
-”O no no no.
Sole I remember; where no lobster swine,-”
pots hot...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...

Respondez!

by Walt Whitman
 RESPONDEZ! Respondez! 
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;) 
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade! 
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking? 
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles;
Let that which stood in front go behind!...Read more of this...

Water

by Robert Lowell
 It was a Maine lobster town—
each morning boatloads of hands
pushed off for granite
quarries on the islands,

and left dozens of bleak 
white frame houses stuck
like oyster shells
on a hill of rock,

and below us, the sea lapped
the raw little match-stick 
mazes of a weir,
where the fish for bait were trapped.

Remember? We sat on a slab of rock.
>From this distance in time
it...Read more of this...

The Enigma

by Robert William Service
 The Sergeant of a Highland Reg-
-Iment was drilling of his men;
With temper notably on edge
He blest them every now and then.
A sweet old lady standing by,
Was looking on with fascination,
And then she dared this question shy,
That pertubates the Celtic nation.

"Oh gentle Sergeant do not scold;
Please tell me, though your tone so curt is:
These bare-legged boys look sadly cold -
Do...Read more of this...

The Fairy Temple; Or Oberons Chapel

by Robert Herrick
 THE FAIRY TEMPLE; OR, OBERON'S CHAPEL

DEDICATED TO MR JOHN MERRIFIELD,
COUNSELLOR AT LAW

RARE TEMPLES THOU HAST SEEN, I KNOW,
AND RICH FOR IN AND OUTWARD SHOW;
SURVEY THIS CHAPEL BUILT, ALONE,
WITHOUT OR LIME, OR WOOD, OR STONE.
THEN SAY, IF ONE THOU'ST SEEN MORE FINE
THAN THIS, THE FAIRIES' ONCE, NOW THINE.

THE TEMPLE

A way enchaced with glass and beads
There is, that to the Chapel...Read more of this...

The Lobster

by Howard Nemerov
 Here at the Super Duper, in a glass tank
Supplied by a rill of cold fresh water
Running down a glass washboard at one end
And siphoned off at the other, and so
Perpetually renewed, a herd of lobster
Is made available to the customer
Who may choose whichever one he wants
To carry home and drop into boiling water
And serve with a sauce of melted...Read more of this...

The Lobster

by Carl Rakosi
 Eastern Sea, 100 fathoms, 
green sand, pebbles, 
broken shells.

Off Suno Saki, 60 fathoms, 
gray sand, pebbles, 
bubbles rising.

Plasma-bearer
and slow-
motion benthos!

The fishery vessel Ion 
drops anchor here
 collecting 
plankton smears and fauna.

Plasma-bearer, visible
sea purge,
 sponge and kelpleaf.
Halicystus the Sea Bottle

resembles emeralds 
and is the largest 
cell in the world.

Young sea horse
Hippocampus twenty
minutes old,

nobody has ever 
seen this marine 
freak blink.

It...Read more of this...

Phantasmagoria CANTO V ( Byckerment )

by Lewis Carroll
 "DON'T they consult the 'Victims,' though?"
I said. "They should, by rights,
Give them a chance - because, you know,
The tastes of people differ so,
Especially in Sprites." 

The Phantom shook his head and smiled.
"Consult them? Not a bit!
'Twould be a job to drive one wild,
To satisfy one single child -
There'd be no end to it!" 

"Of course you can't leave CHILDREN...Read more of this...

Bleezers Ice Cream

by Jack Prelutsky
 I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER...Read more of this...

The Death Baby

by Anne Sexton
 1. DREAMS

I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.

My sister at six
dreamt nightly of my death:
"The baby turned to ice.
Someone put her in the refrigerator
and she turned as hard as a Popsicle."

I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How...Read more of this...

The Lobster Quadrille

by Lewis Carroll
 "Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will...Read more of this...

At the Fishhouses

by Elizabeth Bishop
Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to...Read more of this...

Enigmas

by Pablo Neruda
 You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with 
 his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent 
 bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a...Read more of this...

Lobster For Lunch

by Robert William Service
 His face was like a lobster red,
His legs were white as mayonnaise:
"I've had a jolly lunch," he said,
That Englishman of pleasant ways.
"Thy do us well at our hotel:
In England food is dull these days."

"We had a big langouste for lunch.
I almost ate the whole of it.
And now I'll smoke and read my Punch,
And maybe siesta a bit;
And then I'll...Read more of this...

The Steeple-Jack

by Marianne Moore
 Dürer would have seen a reason for living
 in a town like this, with eight stranded whales
to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house
on a fine day, from water etched
 with waves as formal as the scales
on a fish.

One by one in two's and three's, the seagulls keep
 flying back and forth over the town...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Bolivar

by Rudyard Kipling
 Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away --
We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!

We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
 We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted;
We put out from Sunderland -- met the...Read more of this...

The Battle Of The Bulge

by Robert William Service
 This year an ocean trip I took, and as I am a Scot
And like to get my money's worth I never missed a meal.
In spite of Neptune's nastiness I ate an awful lot,
Yet felt as fit as if we sailed upon an even keel.
But now that I am home again I'm stricken with disgust;
How many pounds of fat I've...Read more of this...

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