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Famous Illegal Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Bishop, Elizabeth
...for Robert Lowell


This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint
still honored in these parts,
the paper chambers flush and fill with light
that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it's hard 
to tell them from the stars--
planets, that is--the tinted ones:
Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green ...Read more of this...



by Tebb, Barry
...legs shaking from the side effects

Of God-knows- what, pacing the tiny ward kitchen cum smoking room,

Denouncing his ‘illegal section’ and ‘poisonous medication’

To an audience of one.

The prospect of TV, Seroxat and Diazepan fazed me:

I was beyond unravelling Meltzer on differentiation 

Of self and object or Rosine Josef Perelberg on ‘Dreaming and Thinking’

Or even the simpler ‘Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis in the United States’ 

So I went out with West Yorks...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...acquaintance with
wine, with drunkenness. But why does the world blame
me for it? Oh! would to God that all which is illegal
might produce drunkenness! For then never here below
should I have seen a shadow of sound reason....Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs