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Famous Tomatoes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Frost, Robert
...r>
She says she thinks she planted one
 Of all things but weed.

A hill each of potatoes,
 Radishes, lettuce, peas,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
 And even fruit trees

And yes, she has long mistrusted
 That a cider apple tree
In bearing there to-day is hers,
 Or at least may be.

Her crop was a miscellany
 When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
 A great deal of none.

Now when she sees in the village
 How village things go,
Just when it...Read more of this...



by Murray, Les
...er in
the muggy weeks. Shark and jellyfish shallows
become suburbs where you breathe a fat towel;
babies burst like tomatoes with discomfort
in the cotton-wrapped pointing street markets;
the Lycra-bulging surf drips from non-swimmers
miles from shore, and somehow includes soil.
Skins, touching, soak each other. Skin touching
any surface wets that and itself
in a kind of mutual digestion.
Throbbing heads grow lianas of nonsense. 

It's our annual visit to ...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...d what penumbras! Whole fam- 
ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives 
in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, 
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the 
watermelons? 

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old 
grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator 
and eyeing the grocery boys. 
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed 
the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my 
Angel? 
I wandered in and out of t...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...uch oaths at us poor country folk." 

We rode him softly on a rail, 
We shied at him, in careless glee, 
Some large tomatoes, rank and stale, 
And eggs of great antiquity -- 
Their wild, unholy fregrance flew 
About the town of Dandaloo. 

He left the town at break of day, 
He led his racehorse through the streets, 
And now he tells the tale, they say, 
To every racing man he meets. 
And Sydney sportsmen all eschew 
The atmosphere of Dandaloo....Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...reen elephants. 
Recite fifty zucchini recipes! 

Zucchini tempura; creamed soup; 
sauté with olive oil and cumin, 
tomatoes, onion; frittata; 
casserole of lamb; baked 
topped with cheese; marinated; 
stuffed; stewed; driven 
through the heart like a stake. 

Get rid of old friends: they too 
have gardens and full trunks. 
Look for newcomers: befriend 
them in the post office, unload 
on them and run. Stop tourists 
in the street. Take truckloads 
to Bost...Read more of this...



by Gregory, Rg
...where the glasshouse
splashed around to reflect me
as i passed on my way down to earth
and the squirt of my dad's best tomatoes
and my mum's angry mask of a face
that just wasn't brought up to be fruitful)
so i fled - or i flew - out the gate
up the street till i melted
just like that daft icarus before me
and i thought
  well why the sod not
so i jumped in a pond till i cooled
and the blood from a scratch on my hand
turned the green water red but not a
thick peasant came to...Read more of this...

by Bowers, Edgar
...belief on the bank’s attorneys:
“Gentlemen, must we continue this charade?”
Finally, past the compost heap, the garden,
Tomatoes and sweet corn for succotash,
Okra for frying, Kentucky Wonders, limas,
Cucumbers, squashes, leeks heaped round with soil,
Lavender, dill, parsley, and rosemary,
Tithonia and zinnias between the rows;
The greenhouse by the rock wall, used for cuttings
In late spring, frames to grow them strong for planting
Through winter into summer. Early one m...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...GOLD of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,
Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence,
Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long,
Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to new cities?
What is there for you in the birds, the birds, the birds, crying down on the north wind in September, acres of birds spotting the air going s...Read more of this...

by Knight, Etheridge
...hat roam the earth
**** marx and mao **** fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism **** smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes **** joseph **** mary ****
god jesus and all the disciples **** fanon nixon
and malcom **** the revolution **** freedom ****
the whole muthafucking thing
all i want now is my woman back
so my soul can sing...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 Sexton, Anne
...ng.


Once there was a witch's garden 
more beautiful than Eve's 
with carrots growing like little fish, 
with many tomatoes rich as frogs, 
onions as ingrown as hearts, 
the squash singing like a dolphin 
and one patch given over wholly to magic -- 
rampion, a kind of salad root 
a kind of harebell more potent than penicillin, 
growing leaf by leaf, skin by skin. 
as rapt and as fluid as Isadoran Duncan. 
However the witch's garden was kept locked 
and each day a...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...ung. 
Once there was a witch's garden 
more beautiful than Eve's 
with carrots growing like little fish, 
with many tomatoes rich as frogs, 
onions as ingrown as hearts, 
the squash singing like a dolphin 
and one patch given over wholly to magic -- 
rampion, a kind of salad root 
a kind of harebell more potent than penicillin, 
growing leaf by leaf, skin by skin. 
as rapt and as fluid as Isadoran Duncan. 
However the witch's garden was kept locked 
and each day a...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...derided off from the
 earth! 
Let a floating cloud in the sky—let a wave of the sea—let growing mint, spinach,
 onions, tomatoes—let these be exhibited as shows, at a great price for admission! 
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few smouchers! let the few seize on what
 they
 choose! let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey!
Let shadows be furnish’d with genitals! let substances be deprived of their genitals!

Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but still t...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...nd I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyebal,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner...Read more of this...

by Hall, Donald
...ares from the holes
of her eyes. Her stuck-open mouth
laughs at minister and people.

On bare new wood
fourteen tomatoes,
a dozen ears of corn,
six bottles of white wine,

a melon,
a cat,
broccoli
and the Alligator Bride.

The color of bubble gum,
the consistency of petroleum jelly,
wickedness oozes
from the palm of my left hand.
My cat licks it.
I watch the Alligator Bride.

Big houses like shabby boulders
hold themselves tight
in gelatin.
I am un...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...and the bacon.
The rhythm of the refrigerator
had been disturbed.
The milk bottle hissed like a snake.
The tomatoes vomited up their stomachs.
The caviar turned to lave.
The pimentos kissed like cupids.
I moved like a lobster,
slower and slower.
The air was tiny.
The air would not do.
*
I was at the dogs' party.
I was their bone.
I had been laid out in their kennel
like a fresh turkey.

This was my sister's dream
but I remember...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 Gluck, Louise
...eport
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
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in...Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...Tomatoes rosy as perfect baby's buttocks, 
eggplants glossy as waxed fenders, 
purple neon flawless glistening 
peppers, pole beans fecund and fast 
growing as Jack's Viagra-sped stalk, 
big as truck tire zinnias that mildew 
will never wilt, roses weighing down 
a bush never touched by black spot, 
brave little fruit trees shouldering up 
their spotless orn...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Ted
....
 But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach
 Disgorges its organs
 A scamper of colours
 Which roll like tomatoes
 Nude as tomatoes
 With sand in their creases
 To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech. 

The swallow of summer, the seamstress of summer,
She scissors the blue into shapes and she sews it,
She draws a long thread and she knots it at the corners.
 But the holiday people
 Are laid out like wounded
 Flat as in ovens
 Roasting and basti...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs