Famous Washboard Poems by Famous Poets

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

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February

by Margaret Atwood
Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up...Read more of this...

Mahalia Jackson

by James A Emanuel
 « I sing the LORD'S songs »
(palms once tough to stay alive,
alarm clock on five).

Cinnamon cheeks, Lord,
cornbread smile. SONGS feed your ribs
when you're hungry, chile.

Washboard certainties,
soldierly grace, text and style
in her brimming face.

Your hand on your heart,
her voice in your ear: pilgrim,
rest easy. Sit here....Read more of this...

The Lobster

by Howard Nemerov
 Here at the Super Duper, in a glass tank
Supplied by a rill of cold fresh water
Running down a glass washboard at one end
And siphoned off at the other, and so
Perpetually renewed, a herd of lobster
Is made available to the customer
Who may choose whichever one he wants
To carry home and drop into boiling water
And serve with a sauce of melted...Read more of this...

The Abortion

by Anne Sexton
 Somebody who should have been born 
is gone. 

Just as the earth puckered its mouth, 
each bud puffing out from its knot,
I changed my shoes, and then drove south. 

Up past the Blue Mountains, where 
Pennsylvania humps on endlessly,
wearing, like a crayoned cat, its green hair, 

its roads sunken in like a gray washboard; 
where, in truth, the ground...Read more of this...

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