Famous Mum Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Breadfruit

by Philip Larkin
 Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
 Whatever they are,
As bribes to teach them how to execute
Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and
On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
 By private car.

Such uncorrected visions end in church
 Or registrar:
A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
Nippers;...Read more of this...

from imperfect Eden

by Rg Gregory
 (1)
and off to scott's (the dockers' restaurant)
burly men packed in round solid tables
but what the helle (drowned in hellespont)
this place for me was rich in its own fables
i'll be the lover sunk if that enables
an awesome sense of just how deep the spells
that put scotts for me beyond the dardanelles

lace-curtained windows (or memory plays me false)
no capped odysseus could...Read more of this...

The Poet in the Nursery

by Robert Graves
 The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling 
In a dim library, just behind the chair 
From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling 
A song about some Lovers at a Fair, 
Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling
That rhymes were beastly things and never there. 

And as I groped, the whole time I was thinking 
About the tragic...Read more of this...

I Write My Mother a Poem

by Fleda Brown
Sometimes I feel her easing further into her grave, 
resigned, as always, and I have to come to her rescue. 
Like now, when I have so much else to do. Not that 

she'd want a poem. She would have been proud, of course, 
of all its mystery, involving her, but scared a little. 
Her eyes would have filled with tears....Read more of this...

eight roundels

by Rg Gregory
 (roundel: variation of the rondeau
consisting of three stanzas of three
lines each, linked together with but
two rhymes and a refrain at the end
of the first and third group)



1.
the blind rose

today's fullness is tomorrow's gone
(the next day after no one knows)
last year's dream now feeds upon
 what blindly grows

imagine if you like a rose
on which no likely sun has shone
a darkness...Read more of this...

Christmas

by John Betjeman
 The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers...Read more of this...

Resolutions

by Robert William Service
 Each New Year's Eve I used to brood
On my misdoings of the past,
And vowed: "This year I'll be so good -
Well, haply better than the last."
My record of reforms I read
To Mum who listened sweetly to it:
"Why plan all this, my son?" she said;
 "Just do it."

Of her wise words I've often thought -
Aye, sometimes with a pang of...Read more of this...

Christmas Holidays

by Thomas Hood
 Along the Woodford road there comes a noise 
Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding's neat post-chaise 
Struggles along, drawn by a pair of bays, 
With Reverend Mr. Crow and six small boys, 
Who ever and anon declare their joys 
With trumping horns and juvenile huzzas, 
At going home to spend their Christmas days, 
And changing learning's pains for pleasure's toys....Read more of this...

This Be The Verse

by Philip Larkin
 They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a...Read more of this...

Tunbridge Wells

by John Wilmot
 At five this morn, when Phoebus raised his head
From Thetis' lap, I raised myself from bed,
And mounting steed, I trotted to the waters
The rendesvous of fools, buffoons, and praters,
Cuckolds, whores, citizens, their wives and daughters.

My squeamish stomach I with wine had bribed
To undertake the dose that was prescribed;
But turning head, a sudden curséd view
That innocent provision overthrew,
And without drinking,...Read more of this...

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