Avast, ye scurvy dogs! If you are looking for freedom, adventure on the open sea, long work hours, battles, treasure, and a fantastic wardrobe then a pirate’s life is for you. Hygiene is always optional and the cultural jargon can’t be beat. Pack your bags (don’t forget your poet’s blouse) and come aboard. You’re a pirate now.
Although piracy has been in existence for centuries, the Golden Age of piracy took place from the mid 1600’s through the 1730’s. An increase in valuable cargo traveling to and from Europe was the cause of this sea-faring rapaciousness. Many of the most recognizable names in pirating history belong to this era. Sir Henry Morgan was a buccaneer responsible for plundering and destroying Panama in 1671. Captain William Kidd and Sir Francis Drake were privateers who worked for Queen Elizabeth of England. Jean LaFitte was an infamous pirate who lived on the island of Padre, a popular dwelling-place of pirates. There were also a few notable women pirates of the age. Anne Bonny followed in the footsteps of her lover, “Calico Jack” and practiced piracy along the Caribbean Sea. Another famous female pirate, Mary Read disguised herself as a man in 1721 to join the crew of Calico Jack. So you see, there’s plenty of room for everyone.
Pirate Poems: Try It
Pirates Wanted. What skills do you have that would make you a great pirate? What attributes do you bring to the table that would make you an asset to a pirate captain’s ship? This is your chance, write a poem telling the captain why you should be a pirate.
Featured Poem
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s a poem from Maureen we enjoyed:
Once upon a time
he was a toddler,
dimpled hands plump.
Innocent
once upon a time
but then angry, his whip
a switch
from a persimmon tree,
the measure of struggle
to be.
He changed
in a moment of mistakes,
gentle hands
lost in the shucking box,
and with them
all he wanted. Once,
before but also after,
he was someone who needed
and all my life I tried
to save. I couldn’t
but I also do not forget
this image of a father’s hands,
their vulnerability, the weight
of their hooks
tender on my head.
Photo by olle svensson. Creative Commons via Flickr.
Browse more writing prompts
Browse poetry teaching resources
How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.
“How to Write a Poem is a classroom must-have.”
—Callie Feyen, English Teacher, Maryland
- Poetry Prompt: Misunderstood Lion - March 19, 2018
- Animate: Lions & Lambs Poetry Prompt - March 12, 2018
- Poetry Prompt: Behind the Velvet Rope - February 26, 2018
Donna says
Maureen, I so loved your poem! Glad to see it here.
Maureen says
Thank you so much, Donna.
Thank you, too, Heather, for sharing the poem here.
Megan Willome says
Yes, that was really something. I’d missed it the first time.
Glynn says
Where have all the pirates gone?
I went to Penzance, expectant,
but found only gift shops
and excursion boats.
I stopped at Neverland,
but the Captain had retired,
the croc ran a clock store,
and Peter was selling insurance.
I sailed to the Caribbean,
but Jack Sparrow had left,
some said to tend bar in Key West.
I flew to Panama,
to seek Drake’s coffin of lead,
but the birds of the sea were silent.
And no sign of Blackbeard’s head
by the Hampton River, or Mary Read’s
and Anne Bonney’s prison cells,
or Henry Morgan’s plantation in Jamaica,
or William Kidd’s three deaths by hanging.
Only the waves of the sea,
only the smell of salt in the air,
only faint echoes of yo-ho-ho
by boys chanting on Halloween,
and not even a bottle of rum.
Rick Maxson says
Ah! Glynn, ’tis a sad day when the pirates have gone away. When all ye need is a patch and a bottle of Appletons and, most of all, a good mental sail.
As Jack Sparrow would put it: “Mate, if you choose to lock your heart away you’ll lose it for certain.”
Excellent poem!
Glynn says
Rick – thank you, me hearty!
Heather Eure says
This is delightful, Glynn! I’m singing a familiar folk tune with altered words, “Where have all the pirate’s gone?” 🙂
Glynn says
Those things will stick in your head. 🙂
Megan Willome says
Love this! Love that you have history and theater and film all together.
Megan Willome says
And literature and Peter, Paul and Mary. Well done you!
Glynn says
One pirate told me, “All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go, I’m standing here outside your door…”
Donna says
OH NO! Rum, too? All? GONE? Please pinch me and tell me it’a all a dream! If pirates and rum can become castaways, what will become of unicorns, and Merlot?
Glynn, what a wonderful poem! 🙂
Rick Maxson says
Maureen, your poem is both heartbreaking and affectionate. What an ending!
Maureen says
Thank you, Rick.
Bethany says
Yes, I second that. Beautiful poem, Maureen.
Will Willingham says
O Cap’n! My Cap’n!
I hear the crunch
of your black cuffed
boots against the timbers
a-shivering in me
quarters far below
the deck where some
scallywag stood on his toes
curled over the edge
as they jabbed
his blindfolded self
with that quill and ink
bellering “Write yer poem
or walk the plank.”
Maureen says
What a fun one this is, LW.
Glynn says
LW – good one! And Captain Crunch is one of my favorite cereals.
Heather Eure says
How fun, LW. I love the unexpected, “Write yer poem or walk the plank.”
Methinks he should write. 🙂
Will Willingham says
Whenever I think of pirates I think of this computer game my kids had when they were small, and in one of the scenes (the game had to do with hygiene, and choosing pirates for that is a puzzling notion) the gruff pirate voice would say over and over, “Wash yer hands or walk the plank.”
Megan Willome says
Now go read “Challenger Deep” by Neil Shusterman. Read it for the reveal on Cap’n Crunch alone.
Donna says
LOL! I mean really … O. L.! 🙂 This is such fun!
Monica Sharman says
Pirate’s Résumé
Treasures quickly spent,
rarely buried.
Career longevity
(three years).
Strict adherence
to crew regulations.
Favorite rum: Puerto Rican
but experience not limited
to Caribbean.
Keel-hauled only twice.
Divides loot fairly
and according to code.
Speech always courteous
and grammatically correct.
References available upon request
from previous surviving
employer.
Heather Eure says
Haha! This is clever, Monica. You had me chuckling. Oh, and your pirate is hired. 🙂
Donna says
You’re hired.
I’m most especially impressed by apparent committment to dividing loot fairly, according to code, of course.
😉 Loved this, Monica!
Andrew H says
A Retired Sailor Seeking Work
I am he who the poet said once flew
The sound-fraught bay, vex’d the dim seas
And sped the globe around to chase
The rainy Hyades.
I’ve smelled the ocean brine
And knew it well – each curve,
Each twist of its tempestuous swell
Laid open for my eyes.
The far-off wooded cove oft struck my sight
When on the sea-tossed boards,
And often when the ship was slow
Strained forward, ever forward
With thought and mind in equal store
Yearning to set my foot upon the distant shore.
But now a sea-dog left to dry,
I while away the dreary hours,
Well liked, and oft remarked to cry
“Oh how I’d sell my soul for but one fee,
To ride once more upon the rolling sea!”
Yet I am old, and age hath left me
But a shadow of my youth,
Kept nothing of my features bold,
But graven on me the likeness of death.
The blood that courses in my veins is cold,
But not from just the passing years.
You may not see it, who hears this tale
But I have wept a thousand tears
For every week away from Neptune’s hold.
Take me on board and I will serve
As faithfully as God does man.
Let me once more feel land’s retreat
And I will kneel down at your feet,
The broken remnant of a broken sailor.
Once, I fought on land and sea for glory,
For distinction well deserved. And such I won,
But it does me no favour now
When I must ask with bated breath
If when you leave this god forsaken isle
Your crew will house an extra one.
Donna says
I would hire such an experienced pirate if my boat was still afloat!
Love this, Andrew!
Andrew H says
Thank you, me hearty!
Heather Eure says
Who could refuse a loyal and experienced applicant?
Tremendous enjoyment reading it.
SimplyDarlene says
[It looks like young pirate’s momma got into the whiskey as she cut & pasted the former ditty. It duplicated itself in a most tragic manner. If a TSP matey wants to delete the prior, young pirate’s momma will repeat it – here – but without the oddities.]
.
.
.
A giant tomato
trellis, eight feet tall, rotted
boards, the family’s plush red picnic
blanket, blue twine tied, snagged on
rusty nails – pirate ship sails
across a clear-cut toward thick
trees. Hoots, yells roll down the dirt
road, curl up the hillside. Young pirate’s
momma hangs wet
laundry on the taut clothesline.
Young pirate’s dingy straw
cowboy hat is crammed
sideways (if ye listen, ye hears Stetson
shrieking at the horror), a plastic eye
patch loops over head, his daddy’s
old belt dangles loose on narrow
hips, a cardboard boot
knife scratches ankle between sock
and leather. A long white pipe red stripe
painted is duct taped to a hickory
stick for a sword. Beneath a small man’s
pinstriped thrift store dinner
jacket, young pirate holds
a hook for a hand.
His daddy leans forward in the
saddle, AiiyyMatey!
presses spurs to hairy flanks, gallops
away, young pirate eats
dust (and snacks his momma
packed), urges an unlucky barn
cat along a 2×4 plank. Asks feline
one more time if she knows Jesus –
then shoves Clawdia into the raging
swashbuckling sea. Young
pirate plunders
treasures of the deep until
momma’s dinner bell
diverts his needs.
Heather Eure says
This poem made me smile, Darlene. Particularly the ending. 🙂
Samuel Smith says
Ah, very clever. I enjoyed the careful, quirky detail here.
Paul Willingham says
This Pirate a weathered plank,
did not deign to walk.
But with a club of ash
And a mighty mash,
the pinstriped Yanks were sank.
(An Ode to Bill Mazeroski)
Heather Eure says
How clever of you to make it about baseball!
Samuel Smith says
The Luck of the Irish
Have you heard the tale of Dubious Don —
Of Donald O’Shaughnessy —
Who left his Love in the Emerald moors
For a fortune on the sea?
He signed on a brig to the Orient
With a captain taking gold for trade,
And had barely rounded the first Azores
Ere he threw the man overboard.
He thought the way around Africa
Too steep for the promised gain,
So he steered away from the Orient
On a course for the Spanish Main,
‘Till he came to Haiti, to the City,
And there he reasoned that since
They were so wealthy they should live as kings
If they stayed in Port-au-Prince.
So stay they did. Then the crew took wives
From the poor French colonists there,
But O’Shaughnessy kept in the upper courts,
And there he found a Lady Fair,
And began to learn their ways and their tongue.
And he might be alive there still,
Were it not for a love of banqueting
And a surfeit of ale.
The night he announced the daughter
Of the Governor as his fiance,
He babbled in broken, drunken French —
He told all, O’Shaughnessy.
Then the Governor hung the crewmen
From a cliff overlooking the sea,
Hung the crew with the Captain they had come to loathe:
The Dubious O’Shaughnessy;
And then he promised his daughter
To the son of an old Marquis
Who owned a plantation of sugar cane;
So she forgot O’Shaughnessy.
Heather Eure says
It never ends well for pirates, does it? 😉
JoyAnne O'Donnell says
Pirates Soul
To be a pirate is an oceanic love
the waves carry our light
provided by the sea’s insight
the echo of the shell’s stay with us
inside our dreams bus
blue skies
never tell lies.