Famous Salmon Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Salmon poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous salmon poems. These examples illustrate what a famous salmon poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Tebb, Barry
...high bright voice, drawing skulls
In Avernus and burning white chrysanthemums, teasing me
With her long legs and gold salmon-flecked eyes.
It was a surprise when I made it into Penguin Books;
Michael Horovitz busy then as now and madly idealistic
As me; getting ready for the Albert Hall jamboree,
The rainbow bomb of peace and poetry....Read more of this...
by
Basho, Matsuo
...A snowy morning--
by myself,
chewing on dried salmon....Read more of this...
by
Allingham, William
...ing banks of Erne!
No more on pleasant evenings we'll saunter down the Mall,
When the trout is rising to the fly, the salmon to the fall.
The boat comes straining on her net, and heavily she creeps,
Cast off, cast off - she feels the oars, and to her berth she sweeps;
Now fore and aft keep hauling, and gathering up the clew.
Till a silver wave of salmon rolls in among the crew.
Then they may sit, with pipes a-lit, and many a joke and 'yarn'
Adieu to Belashan...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...
With the message “Jimmy’s doing better than expected.”
The difficulty I had in finding his publisher’s address -
Salmon Press, Cliffs of Moher, County Clare -
Then a soft sad Irish woman’s voice explained
“Jimmy’s had a massive stroke, phone Janice
At The Poet’s House.”
I looked at the letter I would never end or send.
“Your poems have a strength and honesty so rare.
The ability to render character as deftly as a painter.
Your being out-of-fa...Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...'I'll love you, dear, I'll love youTill China and Africa meet,And the river jumps over the mountainAnd the salmon sing in the street, 'I'll love you till the oceanIs folded and hung up to dryAnd the seven stars go squawkingLike geese about the sky. 'The years shall run like rabbits,For in my arms I holdThe Flower of the Ages,And the first love of the world.' But all the clocks in the cityBegan to whirr and chime:'O ...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...ward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here to Papa.
Sit on my knee.
I have kisses for the back of your neck.
A penny for your thoughts, Princess.
I will hunt them like an emerald.
Come be my snooky
and I will give you a root.
That kind of voyage,
rank as a honeysuckle.
Once
a king had a chri...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...ed along the shore shelter under the
Giant red, green and yellow umbrellas of Monet.
In the Aire’s clear waters salmon dart and
Giant trout are basking in the sun;
There is abundant clay for potters’ wheels
With haptic stone for sculptors’ hands
And the surrounding water is lapis lazuli and ochre.
The steps to the moorings have been carved
Out of indigenous rock and the bridge itself,
Arch by arch, was made of Hunslet iron and brought
On drays two hundre...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...Beeson, house of Beeson rejoice with Pyropus, carbuncle opal. God be gracious to Masters of Yoke's Place.
Let Salmon, house of Salmon rejoice with Sapinos a kind of Amethyst.
Let Crutenden, house of Crutenden rejoice with Veneris Gemma a kind of amethyst.
Let Bridges, house of Bridges rejoice with Jasponyx, which is the Jasper-Onyx.
Let Lane, house of Lane rejoice with Myrmecias a precious stone with little knots in it.
Let Cope, house of Cop...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...g,
Are not all they seem!
Little Birds are choking
Baronets with bun,
Taught to fire a gun:
Taught, I say, to splinter
Salmon in the winter -
Merely for the fun.
Little Birds are hiding
Crimes in carpet-bags,
Blessed by happy stags:
Blessed, I say, though beaten -
Since our friends are eaten
When the memory flags.
Little Birds are tasting
Gratitude and gold,
Pale with sudden cold:
Pale, I say, and wrinkled -
When the bells have tinkled,
And the Tale is told....Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...
It's incommunicable, like the cast
That drops the tackle with the gut adry.
Too much -- too little -- there's your salmon lost!
And so I tell you nothing --with you luck,
And wonder -- how I wonder! -- for your sake
And triumph for my own. You're young, you're young,
You hold to half a hundred Shibboleths.
I'm old. I followed Power to the last,
Gave her my best, and Power followed Me.
It's worth it -- on my sould I'm speaking plain,
Here by the claret gla...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...on the backs of mules,
strung out like ants, bringing visions of the good life to the
poison oak, the ticks, and the salmon.
The mansion was on a promontory, high over the Pacific.
Money could see farther in the 1920s and one could look out
and see whales and the Hawaiian Islands and the Kuomintang
in China.
The mansion burned down years ago.
The actor died.
His mules were made into soap.
His mistresses became bird nests of wrinkles.Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...rs, I
must have caught fifty trout in that hole, though it was only
as big as a wagon wheel.
I was fishing with salmon eggs and using a size 14 single
egg hook on a pound and a quarter test tippet. The two trout
lay in my creel covered entirely by green ferns ferns made
gentle and fragile by the damp walls of telephone booths.
The next good place was forty-five telephone booths in.
The place was at the end of a run of gravel, brown and slip-
pery wi...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...d in
circles, like a dog with a fire hydrant in its mouth. Then he
attached some string to the can and put a huge salmon egg
and a piece of Swiss cheese in the can. After two hours of
intimate and universal failure he went back to Missoula,
Montana.
The woman who travels with me discovered the best way
to catch the minnows. She used a large pan that had in its
bottom the dregs of a distant vanilla pudding. She put the
pan in the shallow water alo...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...What we eat is funny and what we drink is even more hilar-
ious: turkeys, Gallo port, hot dogs, watermelons, Popeyes,
salmon croquettes, frappes, Christian Brothers port, orange
rye bread, canteloupes, Popeyes, salads, cheese--booze,
grub and Popeyes.
Popeyes?
We read books like The Thief's Journal, Set This House
on Fire The Naked Lunch, Krafft-Ebing. We read Krafft-
Ebing aloud all the time as if he were Kraft dinner.
"The mayor of a small town in Ea...Read more of this...
by
Graham, Jorie
...I watched them once, at dusk, on television, run,
in our motel room half-way through
Nebraska, quick, glittering, past beauty, past
the importance of beauty.,
archaic,
not even hungry, not even endangered, driving deeper and deeper
into less. They leapt up falls, ladders,
and rock, tearing and leaping, a gold river,
and a blue river traveling
in op...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG.
And you might now and then supply
Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie,
Some potted grouse, or salmon paste--
He's sure to have his personal taste.
(I know a Cat, who makes a habit
Of eating nothing else but rabbit,
And when he's finished, licks his paws
So's not to waste the onion sauce.)
A Cat's entitled to expect
These evidences of respect.
And so in time you reach your aim,
And finally call him by his NAME.
So this is this, and th...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...ling flood.
His silver spoil lay near him on the green:
"Such fish," the courtiers cried, "were never seen!"
"Three salmon larger than a cloth-yard shaft---
"This man must be the master of his craft!"
"An easy art!" the jealous King replied:
"Myself could learn it better, if I tried,
"And catch a hundred larger fish a week---
"Wilt thou accept the challenge, fellow? Speak!"
The fisher turned, came near, and bent his knee:
"'Tis not for kings to strive with such as me;
"Ye...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...trife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, 'It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'
And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
.... The car went around the corner
with both of them looking back at me.
I had nothing else to do, so I caught salmon flies in my
landing net. I made up my own game. It went like this: I
couldn't chase after them. I had to let them fly to me. It
was something to do with my mind. I caught six.
A little ways up from the shack was an outhouse with its
door flung violently open. The inside of the outhouse was
exposed like a human face a...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...o kick,
Turn'd as they hang to Leeches quick;
How Boats can over Bridges sail;
And Fishes do the Stables scale.
How Salmons trespassing are found;
And Pikes are taken in the Pound.
But I, retiring from the Flood,
Take Sanctuary in the Wood;
And, while it lasts, my self imbark
In this yet green, yet growing Ark;
Where the first Carpenter might best
Fit Timber for his Keel have Prest.
And where all Creatures might have shares,
Although in Armies, not in Paires....Read more of this...
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