Cat Poems

by Elizabeth Bishop (Contributor), Stevie Smith (Contributor), Ezra Pound (Contributor)

You Know How a Cat will bring a mouse it has caught and lay it at your feet so each morning I bring you a poem that I've written when I woke up in the night as my tribute to your beauty & a promise of my love. -James Laughlin Across the ages, cats have provided their adopted humans with companionship, affection, mystery, and innumerable metaphors. Cats raise a mirror up to their beholders; cats endlessly captivate and hypnotise, frustrate and delight. To poets, in particular, these enigmatic creatures are the most delightful and beguiling of muses, as they purr, prowl, hunt, play, meow, and nap, often oblivious to their so-called masters. Cat Poems offers a litter of odes to our beloved felines by some of the greatest poets of all time.

Genres: Poetry, Cats, Nonfiction, Animals, Adult, Classics

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and writer from Worcester, Massachusetts. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956. and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. She is considered one of the most important and distinguished American poets of the 20th century.

Reviews

[Becs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this poetry collection would be designed for cat lovers, and as such would portray some of the quintessential cat traits. Namely that they're ignorant, rude and dismissive creatures who choose to love you when they're good and ready, not when you force their paw. I wanted to read about their funny characters, but instead I felt like this was probably written by a dog lover.

There were four poems which I felt "got" what cats are really like, complete with seed-heads stuck all over them; they captured the playful nature of cats and the bond their humans have with them. However, I really did struggle with the delivery of some of the poems. I appreciate that this collection brings together a number of different styles from multiple different languages and mythology which should form a strong foundation for great cat poems, but I felt like the delivery wasn't compelling or engaging enough to have any impact.

So whilst I wouldn't necessarily recommend this collection, Gavin Ewart's Sonnet "Cat Logic" was incredible and warrants a special mention; it was the only poem which I felt portrayed something genuinely thought provoking and a little different:

“Cat sentimentality is a human thing. Cats are indifferent, their minds can’t comprehend the concept ‘I shall die’, they just go on living.”

[Dessi Bocheva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cute, quick read and needed boost of serotonin. The concept itself is simple: books about cats so there's no real narrative from the start to the end of the collection (that I could spot). There were a few strange/uncomfortable poems that I didn't really think fit in and I suspect were added to meet the quota someone set but oh well. I did enjoy the sheer variety of poets in this book, kind of amazed at how many people write poems about cats but it can get a bit repetitive in terms of descriptions.

[ahu ☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

meow

[Luc · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little poem book with you guessed it cats! After hearing that a friend of mine wanted to read more poems I followed up and bought this little book as a first gateway into reading poems.

This bundle is like you would think a collection of poems with one thing in common, they all have something to do with cats.

Like I said I wanted to try my hand at reading more poems. It’s such a genre I haven’t had much experience in and it’s always good to broaden your horizon. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a great start in my opinion. The poems were sometimes hard to follow and I skimmed over a few which didn’t make sense at all. Maybe it’s on my behave for not being experienced in reading poetry but I feel like with a topic like cats it should be accessible to everyone.

I would recommend you watch a lot of cat video’s instead of reading this. That way I think you would have spent your time better.

[Odette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben niet zo van het woord ‘heerlijk’, maar toch: heerlijk herkenbaar.

[Gaston · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a book with poems about cats.

[hannah schwirtz · Rating 3 out of 5]

wei cliche ass et vun mallarme seng katz blanche ze nennen

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable selection of verse about our feline friends, nicely varied in terms of the time period, original language of composition, and outlook on cats’ contradictory qualities. I was unaware that Angela Carter and Muriel Spark had ever written poetry. There are perhaps too many poems by Stevie Smith – six in total! – though I did enjoy their jokey rhymes.

Some favorite lines:

“Cat sentimentality is a human thing. Cats / are indifferent, their minds can’t comprehend / the concept ‘I shall die’, they just go on living.” (from “Sonnet: Cat Logic” by Gavin Ewart)

“For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.” (from “Jubilate Agno” by Christopher Smart)

“These adorable things. When my life gives out, they’d eat me up in a second.” (from “I’ll Call Those Things My Cats” by Kim Hyesoon)

[Gaby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could have made 5 stars, had it not been for Stevie Smith...

[Erica]

And your eyes are green
With the violence of murder

[Sarah M · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was fine, there were a few that I liked but the rest didn’t resonate too much with me

[Inkym · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very enjoyable collection, but I would think so because I love cats and that's all you really need to like to enjoy this book. It contains a nice variety of poems so there are some to suit many different tastes.

[Evelyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enchanting, for anyone who likes and dislikes cats, by some known and lesser known poets

[Regina Andreassen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I expected much more than what I found here, this collection was rather mediocre; some poems were truly beautiful but many were bland, whilst others seemed to have been written by poets who do not seem to have ever built a strong bond with cats and/or have only a superficial understanding of how loving and caring these beautiful, gentle, noble, loyal, magnificent creatures are when they feel understood and beloved. I would have given it only 2 stars had it not being for the inclusion of Baudelaire, Apollinaire and Ewart’s respective poems, their poems make up for the sterile, ill -informed, apathetic poems, poorly written poems also included here, I honestly don’t know why those poems were included in this book, and after reading some other reviews it becomes evident that I am not the only one who feels this way!

I can’t wait until Goodreads introduces half starts. 2 stars simply doesn’t feel right so I chose 3.

[Jordan Lee Parker✨️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute-enough read that is ultimately hampered by its desire to include only "the World's greatest poets" — 'Cat Poems' ends up being a collection of works by some of poetry's "biggest names" that "happen to reference" cats instead of actually being a collection of poetry "about" cats. There are many poems in this book that simply include the word "cat" and delve into nothing else about our feline friends.

There are some exceptional pieces, such as Gavin Ewart's 'Sonnet: Cat Logic', and the book is certainly a fun little thing that I'm happy to have on my shelf to flick through from time to time. However, ultimately, I'm left concluding the following:

we need better poems about cats.

[Haydon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection that shows a variety of outlooks on a single creature (kinda like when a class of artists have to paint the same vase and the results are startlingly different). Some great poetry in here (and some not so great - looking at you Stevie Smith), but it is an overall enjoyable read.

[Kei · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was nice.

[Hattie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A joy

[An · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gotta love a good cat poem

[Lex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute cat poem compilation! Some were adorable, some pensive, some strange; much like cats themselves. Meandered to rhyme and free verse melodies.

[Anna Druery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection. Many of the poems compare a cat do a god and I have no criticisms

[Makayla Crockett · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Innocent

[Leena-Maaretta Dixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars!
Some poems were really good, and some a little boring.

[Kath (kath_reads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a poetry collection about cats. Some were really enjoying to read but majority of the poems didn't make sense to me. Others only have the word "cat" in them. I appreciated the variety of poems (translated from different languages and publication dates) though.

[verbena · Rating 2 out of 5]

nobody needs this many poems about a cat. This is how we get Andrew Lloyd Webber and nobody wants that

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you ever need a reminder of how lovely, mysterious and indescribable cats are, pick this up! Some poems were better than others.

[Kimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

It's personal preference, but I just didn't enjoy a lot of the poems.

[Lullaby · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What magic lies in beauty”

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this slim volume after browsing through and being seriously charmed by ‘The Galloping Cat’ (who gallops around doing good!!!). Despite having read an entire collected version of her works, none of these cat poems by Smith were familiar to me – a dog bias, by Faber?! Although I liked many of the poems, it’s mainly because they were about cats. Still, I liked a high proportion than I usually do, in collections.

The Cat, Laurence Ferlinghetti:

‘She hears
the music of the spheres and
the hum in the wires of houses
and the hum of the universe
in interstellar spaces
but
prefers domestic places
and the hum of the heater’

Favourites:

The Hound Puss by Stevie Smith
She Sights a Bird by Emily Dickinson
Magnificat by Ferdinand Pessoa
On a cold, rainy, February night by Eliot Weinberger
Friskers by Stevie Smith
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear
The Galloping Cat by Stevie Smith
Jubliate Agno by Christopher Smart
Propriety by Kawai Chigestsu-Ni
Mediterranean March by Ezra Pound
Chopin by Amy Lowell
Little Fable by Franz Kafka
The Retired Cat by William Cowper
The Cat by Guilliame Apollinaire

[Peter Longden · Rating 5 out of 5]

#thesealeychallenge Day 16
‘Cat Poems’ by The World’s Greatest Poets
A theme choice today and this is a delightful little book about the nature of cats and cat ‘ownership’ for, let it be said, cats are not ‘owned’, as the cat ‘Blanche’ in Eliot Weimberger’s untitled poem, confesses: “‘I’m only pretending to be Mallarme’s cat.’”
Being a ‘cat person’, I can confirm the truth of these observations and delight in them. Great poets like Baudelaire, Bishop, Kafka, Rilke and Yeats contribute to this cat treasure trove. Even the cover is all cat: the cat’s face has gilded eyes that seem to close disdainfully as it is moved in the light!
Beautiful!