Famous Shoddy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Attack On The Ad-Man

...him well.
Praising whatever he is paid to praise,
He hunts for ever-newer, smarter ways
To make the gilt seen gold; the shoddy, silk;
To cheat us legally; to bluff and bilk
By methods which no jury can prevent
Because the law's not broken, only bent.

This mind for hire, this mental prostitute
Can tell the half-lie hardest to refute;
Knows how to hide an inconvenient fact
And when to leave a doubtful claim unbacked;
Manipulates the truth but not too much,
And if his patter ne...Read more of this...
by Tessimond, A S J


Australian Engineers

...ss. 

. . . . . . . 

But still are the steamers loading with our timber and wood and gold, 

To return with the costly shoddy stacked high in the foreign hold, 

With cardboard boots for our leather, and Brum-magem goods and slops 

For thin, white-faced Australians to sell in our sordid shops....Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

Charles Dickens

...Who call him spurious and shoddy
Shall do it o'er my lifeless body.
I heartily invite such birds
To come outside and say those words!...Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy

For Australia

...we lack, guns and cartridges first, 
New machines that will make machines till our factories are complete – 
Block the shoddy and Brummagem, pay them with wool and wheat. 

Build to-morrow the foundry shed ['tis a task we dare not shirk], 
Lay the runs and the engine-bed, and get the gear to work. 
Have no fear when we raise the steam in the hurried factory – 
We are not lacking in the brains that teem with originality. 

Have no fear for the way is clear – we'll shackle the...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

Paris

...troll along 
And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel. 


Here saunter types of every sort. The shoddy jostle with the chic: 
Turk and Roumanian and Greek; student and officer and sport; 


Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads, 
and courtezans like powdered moths, 
And peddlers from Algiers, with cloths 
bright-hued and stitched with golden threads; 


And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes 
In corduroys and Span...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan


The Everlasting Mercy

...t you do to save your face; 
The way you sit astride the gates 
By padding wages out of rates; 
Your Christmas gifts of shoddy blankets 
That every working soul may thank its 
Loving parson, loving squire 
Through whom he can't afford a fire. 
Your well-packed bench, your prison pen, 
To keep them something less than men; 
Your friendly clubs to help 'em bury. 
Your charities of midwifery. 
Your bidding children duck and cap 
To them who give them workhouse pap. 
O, what you ...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Heart of Australia

...ey droned on the rim of Australia, the wise men who never could learn; 
Our substance we sent to the nations, and their shoddy we bought in return. 
In the end, shall our soldiers fight naked, no help for them under the sun – 
And never a cartridge to stick in the breech of a Brummagem gun? 

With the Wars of the World coming near us the wise men are waking to-day. 
Hurry out ammunition from England! Mount guns on the cliffs while you may! 
And God pardon our sins as a people...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

The Monument

...
Those clouds are full of glistening splinters!
What is that?"
 It is the monument.
"It's piled-up boxes,
outlined with shoddy fret-work, half-fallen off,
cracked and unpainted. It looks old."
--The strong sunlight, the wind from the sea,
all the conditions of its existence,
may have flaked off the paint, if ever it was painted,
and made it homelier than it was.
"Why did you bring me here to see it?
A temple of crates in cramped and crated scenery,
what can it prove?
I am tir...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth

The Twins

...rld,
Brother, as I the body !
Shall we not glut our lust
On these wretches whom Fate hath hurled
To a hell of jesus and shoddy,
Dung and ethics and dust ?

Thou as I art Fate.
Coe then, conquer and kiss me !
Come ! what hinders? Believe me :
This is the thought we await.
The mark is fair ; can you miss me ?

See, how subtly I writhe !
Strange runes and unknown sigils
I trace in the trance that thrills us.
Death ! how lithe, how blithe
Are these male incestuous vigils !
Ah ! t...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister

Wonder

...e,
 And with a heart to sing,
He gave me to a rare degree
 The Gift of Wondering.

I could not play a stalwart part
 My shoddy soul to save,
And should have gone with broken heart
 A begger to the grave;
But praise to my anointed sight
 As wandering I went,
I sang of living with delight
 In terms of Wonderment.

Aye, starry-eyed did I rejoice
 With marvel of a child,
And there were those who heard my voice
 Although my words were wild:
So as I go my wistful way,
 With worship...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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