Famous Porcupine Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Silent Shearer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Weary and listless, sad and slow, 
Without any conversation, 
Was a man that worked on The Overflow, 
The butt of the shed and the station. 

The shearers christened him Noisy Ned, 
With an alias "Silent Waters", 
But never a needless word he said 
In the hut or the shearers' quarters. 

Which caused annoyance to Big Barcoo, 
The shed's unquestioned...Read more of this...

The Porcupine

by Ogden Nash
 Any hound a porcupine nudges
Can't be blamed for harboring grudges.
I know one hound that laughed all winter 
At a porcupine that sat on a splinter....Read more of this...

A Dog Has Died

by Pablo Neruda
 My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.

Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a...Read more of this...

Parable For A Certain Virgin

by Dorothy Parker
 Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine;
Refresh your recollection,
And sit a moment, to define
His means of self-protection.

How truly fortified is he!
Where is the beast his double
In forethought of emergency
And readiness for trouble?

Recall his figure, and his shade-
How deftly planned and clearly
For slithering through the dappled glade
Unseen, or pretty nearly.

Yet should an alien eye discern
His presence in the woodland,
How little has he...Read more of this...

Peter

by Marianne Moore
 Strong and slippery,
built for the midnight grass-party
confronted by four cats, he sleeps his time away--
the detached first claw on the foreleg corresponding
to the thumb, retracted to its tip; the small tuft of fronds
or katydid-legs above each eye numbering all units
in each group; the shadbones regularly set about the mouth
to droop or rise in unison like porcupine-quills.
He lets himself be...Read more of this...

Dream Song 107: Three coons come at his garbage. He be cross

by John Berryman
 Three 'coons come at his garbage. He be cross,
I figuring porcupine & took Sir poker
unbarring Mr door,
& then screen door. Ah, but the little 'coon,
hardly a foot (not counting tail) got in with 
two more at the porch-edge

and they swirled, before some two swerve off
this side of crab tree, and my dear friend held
with the torch in his tiny...Read more of this...

When Cold December

by Dame Edith Sitwell
 WHEN cold December 
Froze to grisamber 
The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees-- 
Then fading slow 
And furred is the snow 
As the almond's sweet husk-- 
And smelling like musk. 
The snow amygdaline 
Under the eglantine 
Where the bristling stars shine 
Like a gilt porcupine-- 
The snow confesses 
The little Princesses 
On their small chioppines 
Dance under the orpines....Read more of this...

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