Famous Misread Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Dream Song 23: The Lay of Ike

by John Berryman
 This is the lay of Ike.
Here's to the glory of the Grewt White-”awk-”
who has been running-”er-”er-”things in recent-”ech-”
in the United-”If your screen is black,
ladies & gentlemen, we-”I like-”
at the Point he was already terrific-”sick

to a second term, having done no wrong-”
no right-”no · right-”having let the Army-”bang-”
defend itself from Joe, let venom' Strauss
bile Oppenheimer out of use-”use Robb,
who'll later...Read more of this...

Do not be ashamed

by Wendell Berry
 You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had...Read more of this...

Entanglements

by Barry Tebb
 Why is it that in dreams I have visited -

As teacher or pupil - almost every college and school

In our once so green and pleasant land?

Hardly a subject from art to anthropology I have not

In dream seminar or floating spinning classroom

Studied or tried my prentice hand at, or learned

At the sandalled feet of some guru; as this minute

I returned...Read more of this...

On The Porch At The Frost Place Franconia N. H

by William Matthews
 So here the great man stood,
fermenting malice and poems
we have to be nearly as fierce
against ourselves as he
not to misread by their disguises.
Blue in dawn haze, the tamarack
across the road is new since Frost
and thirty feet tall already.
No doubt he liked to scorch off
morning fog by simply staring through it
long enough so that what he saw
grew visible. "Watching the...Read more of this...

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