Graduate Poems | Poemist

Popular Graduate Poems

Ground Swell

by Mark Jarman

Is nothing real but when I was fifteen,
Going on sixteen, like a corny song?
I see myself so clearly then, and painfully--
Knees bleeding through my usher's uniform
Behind the candy counter in the theater
After a morning's surfing; paddling frantically
To top the brisk outsiders coming to wreck me,
Trundle me clumsily along the beach floor's
Gravel and sand; my knees aching with salt.
Is that all I have to write about?

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Girl Graduates

by William Schwenck Gilbert

They intend to send a wire
To the moon;
And they'll set the Thames on fire
Very soon;
Then they learn to make silk purses
With their rigs
From the ears of LADY CIRCE'S
Piggy-wigs.
And weasels at their slumbers
They'll trepan;

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My Ship Has Sailed

by Joyce Stiles Spencer

Launched on a Sunny day, when we were in our teens, loaded with love and all our dreams. You plotted our course I set the sail: I stood beside you, we could not fail. As we sailed through life, the seas were sometimes rough; but we had each other, this was always enough. We navigated life's course. Our dreams were coming true. You always at the helm. I anchored for you. Always together side by side; until life's greatest storm. You sailed away, alone. My world is empty and torn. Your dreams are real. They live in others and me, an anchor, lost! alone! at sea! My ship has sailed, without me!! The Golden Years It's been so many years, my how time has flown; Since we Graduated High School and struck out on our own. We have followed our dreams, we experienced love and life. We have made our own way through trouble, joy, and strife. Some continued their education, others entered the work force. Glad that we are Americans, we have freedom of choice. Our lives have been so busy, raising a family, getting ahead; Doing our best, for the family, and what the good book said. Down this long road we've traveled, experienced laughter, pain and tears. Not knowing the day or night we entered our Golden Years.

Marginalia

by Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -

......

Hallelujah: A Sestina

by Robert Francis

A wind's word, the Hebrew Hallelujah.
I wonder they never gave it to a boy
(Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair.
It means Praise God, as well it should since praise
Is what God's for. Why didn't they call my father
Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer?

Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer,
Product of Nova Scotia (hallelujah).
Daniel, a country doctor, was his father

......

Recent Graduate Poems

Come, Pretty School-Girl!

by Henry Clay Work

On this rolling planet ever have you seen
A home so like a palace waiting for its queen? --
A dwelling place so fair,
So fill'd with treasures rare,
As the little white cottage on Evergreen Square?

Come, pretty school girl! lay your books aside;
Yes graduate tomorrow -- tomorrow be my bride;
My fortune share,
And reign queen there,

......

The Wife Of The Mind

by Charles Harper Webb

Sharecroppers' child, she was more schooled
In slaughtering pigs and coaxing corn out of
The ground than in the laws of Math, the rules
Of Grammar. Seventeen, she fell in love
With the senior quarterback, and nearly
Married him, but—the wedding just a week
Away—drove her trousseau back to Penney's,
Then drove on past sagging fences, flooding creeks,
And country bars to huge Washington State,
Where, feeling like a hick, she studied French to compensate.

......

Oh, The Places You'Ll Go

by Theodor Seuss Geisel

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.

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A Dream Come True

by Shirley Ruth Caron

I graduated from high school when I was eighteen years old
I had received my diploma which was like a treasure of gold
I could not attend College because my family was down and out
My life was full of hardships - as for my future - I was always in doubt.

As I grew older, I could never keep a job because of problems with my health
I have grown up not knowing the meaning of the word - "wealth"
I struggle each day with the pains that I feel within
There are times that I wonder if I ever will win.

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Michel De Nostredame 1503-1566

by Ray Allan James

The Farmers Almanac is where it is all at,
from the stars above, and beyond the French
Riviera, to the lands of Provence,
was once a man named Rue Nostradamus.

His mystical knowledge was a gift from God,
as a young man he had studied from his
Grandfather: Kabbahah, astronomy, prophesies,
and graduated from medical school in 1522.

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