Famous Utility Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Captain Craig

...r for a clown, or for a clergyman, 
But small work for a soldier. By the way, 
When you are weary sometimes of your own
Utility, I wonder if you find 
Occasional great comfort pondering 
What power a man has in him to put forth? 
‘Of all the many marvelous things that are, 
Nothing is there more marvelous than man,’
Said Sophocles; and he lived long ago; 
‘And earth, unending ancient of the gods 
He furrows; and the ploughs go back and forth, 
Turning the broken mould, year a...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington


Dream Song 2: Big Buttons Cornets: the advance

...eeway, and no premises
for business purposes,
no loiterers or needers. Henry are
baffled. Have ev'ybody head for Maine,
utility-man take a train?

Arrive a time when all coons lose dere grip,
but is he come? Le's do a hoedown, gal,
one blue, one shuffle,
if them is all you seem to réquire. Strip,
ol benger, skip us we, sugar; so hang on
one chaste evenin.

-”Sir Bones, or Galahad: astonishin
yo legal & yo good. Is you feel well?
Honey dusk do sprawl.
-”Hit's hard. Kinged or ...Read more of this...
by Berryman, John

Examination at the Womb-Door

...et? Death.
Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
Who owns these still-working lungs? Death.
Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
All this messy blood? Death.
These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
This wicked little tongue? Death.
This occasional wakefulness? Death.

Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
Held.

Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death.
Who owns all of ...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Ted

Knucks

...e” stuff,
And the street car strikers and the strike-breakers,
And the sluggers, gunmen, detectives, policemen,
Judges, utility heads, newspapers, priests, lawyers,
They are all for Abe and the “malice to none” stuff.

I started for the door.
“Maybe you want a lighter pair,”
Came Mister Fischman’s voice.
I opened the door … and the voice again:
“You are a funny customer.”

Wrapped in battle flags,
Wrapped in the smoke of memories,
This is the place they brought him,
This is A...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

Ode to the Sublime Porte

...is Articles 'gainst the Nobility; --
And assures you that even a gentleman's rank is,
In Jeremy's school, of no sort of utility.

To see her, ye Gods, a new number perusing --
Art. 1 - "On the Needle's variations", by Pl--e;
Art. 2 - By her fav'rite Fun-blank - so amusing!
"Dear man! he makes poetry quite a Law case."

Art. 3 -"Upon Fallacies", Jeremy's own --
(Chief Fallacy being, his hope to find readers); -
Art. 4 - "Upon Honesty", author unkown; --
Art. 5 - (by the young ...Read more of this...
by Moore, Thomas


Tar

...ers we've been waiting for since winter sent their ladders 
shrieking up our wall,
we still know less than nothing: the utility company continues making 
little of the accident,
the slick federal spokesmen still have their evasions in some semblance 
of order.
Surely we suspect now we're being lied to, but in the meantime, there 
are the roofers,
setting winch-frames, sledging rounds of tar apart, and there I am, on 
the curb across, gawking.

I never realized what brutal wor...Read more of this...
by Williams, C K

The Book of Annandale

...t; nor was there need 
Of any problematical support 
Whereto to cling while she convinced herself
That love’s intuitive utility, 
Inexorably merciful, had proved 
That what was human was unpermanent 
And what was flesh was ashes. She had told 
Him then that she would love no other man,
That there was not another man on earth 
Whom she could ever love, or who could make 
So much as a love thought go through her brain; 
And he had smiled. And just before he died 
His lips had m...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

The Fight

...its open self. 

 The cup cried, don't hurt me, please don't hurt me; I am 
without mobility, I have no defense save my utility; use 
me to hold your coffee....Read more of this...
by Edson, Russell

The Quality Of Sprawl

...Sprawl is the quality
of the man who cut down his Rolls-Royce
into a farm utility truck, and sprawl
is what the company lacked when it made repeated efforts
to buy the vehicle back and repair its image. 

Sprawl is doing your farm work by aeroplane, roughly,
or driving a hitchhiker that extra hundred miles home.
It is the rococo of being your own still centre.
It is never lighting cigars with ten dollar notes:
that's idiot ostenta...Read more of this...
by Murray, Les

To A Child

...moor.
Nor to thyself the task shall be
Without reward; for thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern
True beauty in utility;
As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.

Enough! I will not play the Seer;
I will no longer strive to ope
The my...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Yes Yes

...n God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountians and the sea and fire at the same time

H...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

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