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Famous Telegram Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by McGonagall, William Topaz
...ut his boy Bennie
That was to be shot because found asleep doing sentinel duty. 

"Inside of twenty-four hours, the telegram said,
And, oh! Mr Allan, he's dead, I am afraid.
Where is my brave Bennie now to me is a mystery."
"We will hope with his heavenly Father," said Mr Allen, soothingly. 

"Yes, let us hope God is very merciful," said Mr Allan.
"Yes, yes," said Bennie's father, "my Bennie was a good man.
He said, 'Father, I'll go and fight for my co...Read more of this...



by Brautigan, Richard
...t was the last thing in the world
that I wanted. I said it in such a way that it sounded as if I were reading her a telegram
from somebody else, a person who really wanted a cup of coffee, who cared about nothing
else.
"All right," she said.
I followed her up the stairs. It was ridiculous. She had just put some clothes on. They
had not quite adjusted themselves to her body. I could tell you about her ass. We went
into the kitchen.
She took ...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...ith might and main,
He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain,
Fretted for news that made him fret again,
Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,
And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail --
In hope or fear alike for ever pale.
And thus from year to year, through hope and fear,
With many a curse and many a secret tear,
Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,
At last
He woke to find his foolish dreaming past,
And all his best-of-life the easy prey
Of squanderin...Read more of this...

by Graham, Jorie
...argument, 
and sidelong glances in the midst of things, and voice — yellowest
 day alive — as it took place 
above the telegram,
 above the hand cleaving the open-air to cut its thought, 
hand flung

 towards open doorways into houses where 
den-couch and silver tray
 itch with inaction — what is there left now 
to believe — the coat? — it tangles up a good tight weave,
 windy yet sturdy, 
a coat for the ages — 
 one layer a movie of bluest blue, 
one layer the war-room mapp...Read more of this...

by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...her burning bush: 
This unconsuming flame, the outlaw's blow, 
Plague, exodus, Sinai, ruptured stones that gush, 
God's telegram: Dare Now! Let this people go!...Read more of this...



by Sandburg, Carl
...I SAW a telegram handed a two hundred pound man at a desk. And the little scrap of paper charged the air like a set of crystals in a chemist’s tube to a whispering pinch of salt.
Cross my heart, the two hundred pound man had just cracked a joke about a new hat he got his wife, when the messenger boy slipped in and asked him to sign. He gave the boy a nic...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...-
Escape -- or Substitute --

Indifference to Him --
The Dower -- as the Doom --
His Office -- but to execute
Fate's -- Telegram -- to Him --...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...The 27th Regiment has mutinied at Kalapore;
That was the substance of a telegram, which caused great uproar,
At Sattara, on the evening of the 8th of July,
And when the British officers heard it, they heaved a bitter sigh. 

'Twas in the year of 1857,
Which will long be remembered: Oh! Heaven!
That the Sepoys revolted, and killed their British officers and their wives;
Besides, they killed their innocent children, not sparin...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ought her -- now, had it been a letter
For Belial Machiavelli, I
Know Jane would just have let it lie.

But 'twas a telegram instead,
 Marked "urgent," and her duty plain
To open it. Jane Austen read:
 "Your Lilly's got a cough again.
Can't understand why she is kept
At your expense." Jane Austen wept.

It was a misdirected wire.
 Her husband was at Shaitanpore.
She spread her anger, hot as fire,
 Through six thin foreign sheets or more.
Sent o...Read more of this...

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