Graduate Poems | Poemist

Popular Graduate Poems

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.

......

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?

......

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;

......

Variations At Home And Abroad

by Kenneth Koch

It takes a lot of a person's life
To be French, or English, or American
Or Italian. And to be at any age. To live at any certain time.
The Polish-born resident of Manhattan is not merely a representative of
general humanity
And neither is this Sicilian fisherman stringing his bait
Or to be any gender, born where or when
Betty holding a big plate
Karen crossing her post-World War Two legs
And smiling across the table

......

Love From My Heart

by Esther Cooper

Love from my heart, and with great respect,
I give to my son LEWIS, who is an ARCHITECT,
He loved to draw at the age of 3,
We were so proud, when he drew a house and a tree,
In his young school years he strived to make the HONOR-ROLL,
He was determined to reach his goal,
Throughout High School, and College, studying hard all night,
A cup of coffee kept him awake until sunlight,
Many nights those hours he kept,
For his lack of sleep, silently in our bedroom, my husband

......

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

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.

......

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.

......