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Famous Illegible Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Illegible poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous illegible poems. These examples illustrate what a famous illegible poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...cient Continent --

The Light His Action, and the Dark
The Leisure of His Will --
In Him Existence serve or set
A Force illegible....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily



...the dragon. But the fifty years of his reign need not be taken as historical fact.

{29e} The text is here hopelessly illegible, and only the general drift of the meaning can be rescued. For one thing, we have the old myth of a dragon who guards hidden treasure. But with this runs the story of some noble, last of his race, who hides all his wealth within this barrow and there chants his farewell to life’s glories. After his death the dragon takes possession of the hoard and...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...eginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless mo...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...w?

At least they care for poetry to give their lives to it

As we do, too.

My syntax far from perfect, my writing illegible

But somehow I’ll get through, Bloodaxe and Carcourt 

May jeer but an Indian printer’s busy with my ‘Collected’

And, Calcutta typesetters permitting, it will be out this year

With the red gold script of sari cloth on the spine

And **** those dusty grey contemporary voices

Those verses will be mine.

Haslam’s a whole lot better but touchy a...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...where there are none,
That's my job now, I said to the
Dictionary on my desk. The world beyond
My window has grown illegible,
And so has the clock on the wall.
I may strike a match to orient myself

In the meantime, there's the heart
Stopping hush as the building
Empties, the elevators stop running,
The grains of dust stay put.
Hours of quiescent sleuthing
Before the Madonna with the mop

Shuffles down the long corridor
Trying doorknobs, turning mine.
That's ...Read more of this...
by Simic, Charles



...own there endlessly so
tendrils soaked into matted compose
became a root
torqued over the faint springhead
groin whence illegible
matter leaches: worm-borings, spurts of silt
volumes of sporic changes
hair long blown into far follicles
blasted into a chosen place 

Revenge on the head (genitals, breast, untouched)
revenge on the mouth
packed with its inarticulate confessions
revenge on the eyes
green-gray and restless
revenge on the big and searching lips
the tender tongue
re...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne
...

The vaults beneath the mosaic stone 
Contain'd the dead of ages gone: 
Their names were on the graven floor, 
But now illegible with gore; 
The carved crests, and curious hues 
The varied marble's veins diffuse, 
Were smear'd, and slippery — stain'd, and strown 
With broken swords, and helms o'erthrown: 
There were dead above, and the dead below 
Lay cold in many a coffin'd row; 
You might see them piled in sable state, 
By a pale light through a gloomy grate: 
But War had ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry