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Famous Defective Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Baudelaire, Charles
...a boxer, impudence of a faun,
You who gather together the beauty of the boor,
Your big heart swelling with pride at man defective and yellow,
Puget, melancholy emperor of the poor.

Watteau, this carnival of illustrious hearts
Like butterflies, errant and flamboyant,
In the cool decor, with delicate lightning in the chandeliers
Crossing the madness of the twirling ball.

Goya, nightmare of unknown things,
Fetuses roasting on the spit,
Harridans in the mirror and naked...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...But Man by number is to manifest 
His single imperfection, and beget 
Like of his like, his image multiplied, 
In unity defective; which requires 
Collateral love, and dearest amity. 
Thou in thy secresy although alone, 
Best with thyself accompanied, seekest not 
Social communication; yet, so pleased, 
Canst raise thy creature to what highth thou wilt 
Of union or communion, deified: 
I, by conversing, cannot these erect 
From prone; nor in their ways complacence find.Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...lded
 across the breast. 

I see the menials of the earth, laboring; 
I see the prisoners in the prisons;
I see the defective human bodies of the earth; 
I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics; 
I see the pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the earth; 
I see the helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women. 

I see male and female everywhere;
I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs; 
I see the constructiveness o...Read more of this...

by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...Cut the bank for the fill.
Dump sand
pumped out of the river
into the old swale

killing whatever was
there before—including
even the muskrats. Who did it?
There's the guy.

Him in the blue shirt and
turquoise skullcap.
Level it down
for him to build a house

on to build a
house on to build a house on
to build a house
on to build a house on...Read more of this...

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