9 Cat Poems for Cat People
The only reason I read The New Yorker’s hyped short story Cat Person was because I thought it was going to be about, well, cats. I was sorely disappointed as there was only a brief mention of cats. Despite being a necessary story for our current political climate, and one I enjoyed, I was left with two things:
1. An obsession with the internet’s obsession with the story
2. The need to read about cats
The former was quickly remedied with a hearty scroll through twitter, but I didn’t have time to read an entire Murakami novel to satisfy the latter. Like any good reader, I turned to poetry. So, if you too found yourself lamenting the lack of cats in Cat Person, quickly sate your feline appetite with these cat poems (for cat people).
February by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood’s February describes a cat as a cozy companion during the gloomy winter months.
Poem (as the cat) by William Carlos Williams
This excerpt of Poem (as the cat) by William Carlos Williams appears to be a kittish take on his Red Wheelbarrow:
As the cat
climbed over
the top of
the jamcloset
forefoot
The Naming of Cats by T.S. Eliot
It’s no secret that T.S. Eliot loved cats, as he wrote an entire poetry collection about them. You’ll find the poem The Naming of Cats in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
Having Slept, The Cat Gets Up by Kobayashi Issa
The life of a cat in three lines:
Having slept, the cat gets up,
yawns, goes out
to make love.
Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats by Sylvia Plath
Unlike the The New Yorker story, Sylvia Plath’s Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats is actually about a cat person.
She Sights a Bird Emily Dickinson
In this excerpt of She Sights a Bird Emily Dickinson’s idiosyncratic dashes perfectly evoke the tension of a cat about the pounce:
She sights a Bird—she chuckles—
She flattens—then she crawls—
She runs without the look of feet—
Her eyes increase to Balls—
The Cat and The Cat II by Charles Baudelaire
King of gloom, Charles Baudelaire captures the duality of cats in two cat poems.
The Cat and The Moon by W.B. Yeats
Two of the greatest symbols of the occult come together in this excerpt of Yeats’s adorable poem about a cat trying to teach the moon to dance:
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Cat Poem by Get Lit
Finally, Slam Poetry duo Get lit have one of the best cat poems of all time:
Want more than just cat poems? We’ve got 10 of the best books for cat lovers, too.
