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Famous Roughneck Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Sandburg, Carl
...

A span of steel ties up the kin of Iowa and
Nebraska across the yellow, big-hoofed Missouri River.
Omaha, the roughneck, feeds armies,
Eats and swears from a dirty face.
Omaha works to get the world a breakfast....Read more of this...



by Service, Robert William
...and unrefined,
Frustrated and forgot;
And now alas! it is too late
My sorry ways to mend,
So sadly I accept my fate,
A Roughneck to the end.

Profanity is in my voice
And slag is in my rhyme,
For I have mucked with men who curse
And grovel in the grime;
My fingers were not formed, I fear,
To frame a pretty pen,
So please forgive me if I veer
From Virtue now and then.

For I would be the living voice,
Though raucous is its tone,
Of men who rarely may rejoice,
Yet bare...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...“I got a girl, a peach; we save up and go on a farm and raise pigs and be the boss ourselves.”
And the others were roughneck singers a long ways from home.
Look for them back of a steel vault door.

They laugh at the cost.
They lift the birdmen into the blue.
It is steel a motor sings and zooms.

In the subway plugs and drums,
In the slow hydraulic drills, in gumbo or gravel,
Under dynamo shafts in the webs of armature spiders,
They shadow-dance and l...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...t its coil of crapulence the ice-worm raised its head,
Its muzzle was a murky blue, its eyes a ruby red.
And then a roughneck bellowed fourth: "This stiff comes here and struts,
As if he bought the blasted North - jest let him show his guts."
And with a roar the mob proclaimed: "Cheechako, Major Brown,
Reveal that you're of Sourdough stuff, and drink your cocktail down."

The Major took another look, then quickly closed his eyes,
For even as he raised his glass he...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs