Famous Parody Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

O Why Do You Walk (a Parody)

by A E Housman
 O why do you walk through the fields in boots,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody shoots,
Why do you walk through the fields in boots,
When the grass is soft as the breast of coots
And shivering-sweet to the touch?...Read more of this...

When We Were Here Together

by Kenneth Patchen
 when we were here together in a place we did not know, nor one
another.
A bit of grass held between the teeth for a moment, bright hair on the 
wind.
What we were we did not know, nor even the grass or the flame of 
hair turning to ash on the wind.
But they lied about that. From the beginning they lied....Read more of this...

Sex Goddess

by Maggie Estep
 I am THE SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 
so don't mess with me 
I've got a big bag full of SEX TOYS 
and you can't have any
'cause they're all mine
'cause I'm
the SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.


"Hey," you may say to yourself, 
"who the hell's she tryin' to kid, 
she's no sex goddess," 
But trust me, 
I am...Read more of this...

The Donkey

by G K Chesterton
 When forests walked and fishes flew 
And figs grew upon thorn, 
Some moment when the moon was blood, 
Then, surely, I was born. 

With monstrous head and sickening bray 
And ears like errant wings— 
The devil's walking parody 
Of all four-footed things: 

The battered outlaw of the earth 
Of ancient crooked will; 
Scourge, beat, deride me—I am dumb— 
I...Read more of this...

Shakespeares Ghost - A Parody

by Friedrich von Schiller
 I, too, at length discerned great Hercules' energy mighty,--
Saw his shade. He himself was not, alas, to be seen.
Round him were heard, like the screaming of birds,
the screams of tragedians,
And, with the baying of dogs, barked dramaturgists around.
There stood the giant in all his terrors; his bow was extended,
And the bolt, fixed on the string, steadily aimed at the...Read more of this...

Virgin In A Tree

by Sylvia Plath
 How this tart fable instructs
And mocks! Here's the parody of that moral mousetrap
Set in the proverbs stitched on samplers
Approving chased girls who get them to a tree
And put on bark's nun-black

Habit which deflects
All amorous arrows. For to sheathe the virgin shape
In a scabbard of wood baffles pursuers,
Whether goat-thighed or god-haloed. Ever since that first Daphne
Switched her incomparable back

For a...Read more of this...

Berenda Slough

by Philip Levine
 Earth and water without form, 
change, or pause: as if the third 
day had not come, this calm norm 
of chaos denies the Word. 

One sees only a surface 
pocked with rushes, the starved clumps 
pressed between water and space -- 
rootless, perennial stumps 

fixed in position, entombed 
in nothing; it is too late 
to bring forth branches, to...Read more of this...

Ancient Music

by Ezra Pound
 Winter is icummen in, 
Lhude sing Goddamm. 
Raineth drop and staineth slop, 
And how the wind doth ramm! 
Sing: Goddamm. 

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, 
An ague hath my ham. 
Freezeth river, turneth liver, 
Damn you, sing: Goddamm. 

Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm, 
So 'gainst the winter's balm. 

Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm. 
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm,...Read more of this...

A Parody on 'A Psalm of Life'

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Life is real, life is earnest, 
And the shell is not its pen –
“Egg thou art, and egg remainest”
Was not spoken of the hen.

Art is long and Time is fleeting, 
Be our bills then sharpened well, 
And not like muffled drums be beating
On the inside of the shell.

In the world’s broad field of battle, 
In the great barnyard of...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Parody poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace