Poems about family delve into the intricate tapestry of relationships, the ties that bind, and the transformative power of love. These verses celebrate the bonds of kinship, exploring the depths of familial connections and the profound impact they have on our lives.
In these poetic compositions, the family becomes a sanctuary, a source of support, and a foundation of identity. These poems explore the complexities of family dynamics, capturing the joys, challenges, and deep emotional ties that span generations.
Clarke’s ‘Family House’ tells the story of memory and change, examining the evolution of a childhood home over time.
I slept in a room in the roof,
the white planes of its ceiling
freckled with light from the sea,
‘Human Family’ by Maya Angelou expresses an incredibly relatable message about family. The poet speaks broadly about the world, unity, and how we are all connected to one another.
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
‘Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House’ by A. K. Ramanujan is an incredible poem that uses a house and all the objects and memories, happy and sad, it contains to speak about a family’s personal history.
Sometimes I think that nothing
that ever comes into this house
goes out. Things that come in everyday
to lose themselves among other things
‘I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party’ by Chen navigates the struggle for LGBTQ+ acceptance within a traditional family.
In the invitation, I tell them for the seventeenth time (the fourth in writing), that I am gay. In the invitation, I include a picture of my boyfriend & write, You’ve met him two times. But this time,
‘Eating Together’ by Li-Young Lee is a beautiful contemporary poem about death. It uses a thoughtful simile and direct language.
In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger,
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
‘The Myth of Music’ by Rachel M. Harper describes the mythical power of music and its ability convey one’s generational and familial relationships.
If music can be passed on
like brown eyes or a strong
left hook, this melody
is my inheritance, lineage traced
‘The Silver Flask’ by John Montague recounts the poet’s family reunion and their journey to Ireland after twenty years to celebrate Christmas.
The family circle briefly restored
nearly twenty lonely years after
that last Christmas in Brooklyn,
‘The Stick-Together Families’ by Edgar Guest describes the main reason that some families, rich or poor, are happier than others.
The stick-together families are happier by far Than the brothers and the sisters who take separate highways are. The gladdest people living are the wholesome folks who make A circle at the fireside that no power but death can break.
‘My Parents’ by Stephen Spender is a poem based on bullying and the desire to make friends.
My parents kept me from children who were rough
Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes
Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street
And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.
‘Eden Rock’ evokes nostalgia, depicting a timeless picnic with his parents, blending memory with longing for familial unity.
They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:
My father, twenty-five, in the same suit
Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet.
‘Long Distance II’ by Tony Harrison is an elegiac poem that describes a father’s way of grieving the death of his wife and his child’s reaction to his futile actions.
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
Jonathan Reed’s ‘The Lost Generation’ is a palindrome poem that utilizes an innovative approach in order to dictate the future course of the present generation.
I'm part of a Lost Generation
and I refuse to believe that
I can change the world.
I realize this may be a shock, but
"Happiness comes from within"
is a lie, and "Money will make me happy"
‘Death of a Young Woman’ by Gillian Clarke depicts how a loved one’s death lets a person free from their inward, endless suffering.
He wept for her and for the hard tasks
He had lovingly done, for the short,
Fierce life she had lived in the white bed,
For the burden he had put down for good.
‘The Red Hat’ by Rachel Hadas provides a poignant scene that captures the bittersweet experience of raising a child.
It started before Christmas. Now our son
officially walks to school alone.
Semi-alone, it's accurate to say:
I or his father track him on his way.
‘Follower’ has many of the aspects which characterize the poems of Seamus Heaney. Having grown up in an area of Northern Ireland that greatly valued family, hard work, and farming, Heaney’s poems often reflect all of these values at once.
My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.
Poems about Family FAQsThe best way to write a family poem is to focus on one’s own experiences. Look back at meaningful memories, important periods in one’s life, and relationships that define how you think about what family is.
Some writers choose to write about families because they have an issue with their own they want to express and try to come to terms with. Others may want to celebrate the influence their mother, father, etc., had on them in their most formative years.
Family poems can take the form of any poem. They might be written in the form of a sonnet, ballad, villanelle, or just stick to free verse.
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