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Famous Tomato Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Prelutsky, Jack
...ist:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE
POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL
PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM
PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM
BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER
CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER
AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT
PERIWI...Read more of this...



by Tebb, Barry
...kers

As you stood over

The basket

We struggled

Back with.



Your eyes reflected

The image of me at ten

In my tomato-red tee-shirt

Looking at you in your

Washed-out flower-patterned

Frock.





55



Margaret, Leeds is bound with fog

This Friday in late March, in search

Of you I went to Kirkstall where the

Monks once paced a passage underground

To the nunnery and in the museum

I walked the cobbled streets of memory.





56



They will place you in ...Read more of this...

by Berryman, John
...In a state of chortle sin—once he reflected,
swilling tomato juice—live I, and did
more than my thirstier years.
To Hell then will it maul me? for good talk,
and gripe of retail loss? I dare say not.
I don't thínk there's that place

save sullen here, wherefrom she flies tonight
retrieving her whole body, which I need.
I recall a 'coon treed,
flashlights, & barks, and I was in that tree,
and some...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...The last Campbell's tomato soup can 
of the twentieth century is going to 
the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh 
That is an example of a sentence 
Another is this from a CEO in Fortune 
"You die in either case, but this way you get 
to do it proactively," where the adverb 
makes the sentence I'm walking amid 
the tourists on Bleecker Street the riffraff 
the students with backp...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...h, 
The folk just did pour on to lay six to four on, 
And several bookies were killed in the crush. 

"It seems old Tomato was stiff, though a starter; 
They reckoned him fit for the Caulfield to keep. 
The Bloke and the Donah were scratched by their owner, 
He only was offered three-fourths of the sweep. 

"We knew Salamander was slow as a gander, 
The mare could have beat him the length of the straight, 
And old Manumission was out of condition, 
And most of the...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...single heretic or scorner, 
You shall see how I stump clergymen, and confound them, 
You shall see me showing a scarlet tomato, and a white pebble from the beach. 
 5...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...take
garlic,
first, caress
that precious
ivory,
smell
its irate fragrance,
then
blend the minced garlic
with onion
and tomato
until the onion
is the color of gold.
Meanwhile steam
our regal
ocean prawns,
and when
they are
tender,
when the savor is
set in a sauce
combining the liquors
of the ocean
and the clear water
released from the light of the onion,
then
you add the eel
that it may be immersed in glory,
that it may steep in the oils
of the pot,
shrink and be saturate...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into li...Read more of this...

by Hicok, Bob
...moves his head his eyes 
get big as roses filled 
with the commotion of spring. 
Not long ago he was a man 
who had tomato soup for lunch 
and dusted with the earnestness 
of a gun fight. Now he's a man 
who sits at the table trying to breathe 
in tiny bites. When they told him 
his spinal column is closing, I thought 
of all the branches he's cut 
with loppers and piled and burned 
in the fall, the pinch of the blades 
on the green and vital pulp. Surgeons 
c...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...re was kummel on the handle of the door.
The ashtrays were unemptied.
The cleaning unattempted, 
And a squashed tomato sandwich on the floor.

I pulled aside the thick magenta curtains
-So Regency, so Regency, my dear –
And a host of little spiders
Ran a race across the ciders
To a box of baby ‘pollies by the beer.

Oh sun upon the summer-going by-pass
Where ev’rything is speeding to the sea, 
And wonder beyond wonder
That here where lorries thunder
The sun sh...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...
Bedaubed with iridescent dirt.
The oil upon the puddles dries
To colours like a peacock's eyes,
And half-submerged tomato-cans
Shine scaly, as leviathans
Oozily crawling through the mud.
The ground is here and there bestud
With lumps of only part-burned coal.
His duty is to glean the whole,
To pick them from the filth, each one,
To hoard them for the hidden sun
Which glows within each fiery core
And waits to be made free once more.
Their sharp and glistening ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...l these things, 
all these dishes of things 
come through the swinging door 
and I don't know from where? 
Give me some tomato aspic, Helen! 
I don't want to be alone....Read more of this...

by Jong, Erica
...the kitchen
and start peeling onions
for homemade sugo. 

Before you know it,
the poem will be crying
as your ripe tomatoes
bubble away
with inspiration. 

When the whole house is filled
with the tender tomato aroma,
start kneading the pasta. 

As you rock
over the damp sensuous dough,
making it bend to your will,
as you make love to this manna
of flour and water,
the poem will get hungry
and come
just like a cat
coming home
when you least
expect her....Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...the flavor 
of a noodle, still another 
when dried on an open palm, 
sparkling and tiny, just right 
for a bite of ripe tomato 
or to incite a heavy tongue 
that dragged across a brow 
could utter the awful words, 
"Oh, my love!" and mean them. 
The more one considers 
the more puzzling become 
these shapes. I stare out 
at the Pacific and wonder -- 
noodle, onion, lump, double 
yolked egg on two legs, 
a star as perfect as salt -- 
and my own shape a compound 
of so ...Read more of this...

by Gluck, Louise
...of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Tomato poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things