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Famous Not Real Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Not Real poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous not real poems. These examples illustrate what a famous not real poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...is your best name 
For a sort of conscious, frozen catalepsy 
Wherein a man sees all there is around him
As if it were not real, and he were not 
Alive. You may call it anything you please 
That made me powerless to move hand or foot, 
Or to make any other living motion 
Than after a long horror, without hope,
To turn my face again the other way. 
Some force that was not mine opened my eyes, 
And, as I knew it must be,—it was there.” 

Avon covered his eyes—whether to shut 
...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington



...known.

But as the rainbow, neither earth's nor sky's,

Stands in the dripping freshness of lulled rain,

A hope, not real yet not fancy's, lies

Athwart the moment of our ceasing pain.

Somehow, since pain is felt yet felt as ill,

Hope hath a better warrant than being hoped;

Since pain is felt as aught we should not feel

Man hath a Nature's reason for having groped,

Since Time was Time and age and grief his measures,

Towards a better shelter than Tim...Read more of this...
by Pessoa, Fernando
...Not long ago, and there were dragons then 
More to be fought than any of these we see 
That we may foster now. They are not real, 
But not for that the less to be regarded; 
For there are slimy tyrants born of nothing
That harden slowly into seeming life 
And have the strength of madness. I confess, 
Accordingly, the wisdom of your care 
That I look out for them. Whether I would 
Or not, I must; and here we are as one
With our necessity. For though you loom 
A little harsh in...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...eless:
We hanker for the homeliness
 Of den, and hole, and set.

And this identity we feel
- Perhaps not right, perhaps not real -
 Will link us constantly;
I see the rock, the clay, the chalk,
The flattened grass, the swaying stalk,
 And it is you I see....Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip
...to his mouth
Men think they are better than grass

I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay

He was old he is not real nothing is real
Nor the noise of death drawing water

We are the echo of the future

On the door it says what to do to survive
But we were not born to survive
Only to live...Read more of this...
by Merwin, W S



...ike them, I used to think
those cypresses, leaning against the sea,
that take the sea noise up into their branches,
are not real cypresses but casuarinas.
Now captain just call them Canadian cedars.
But cedars, cypresses, or casuarinas,
whoever called them so had a good cause,
watching their bending bodies wail like women
after a storm, when some schooner came home
with news of one more sailor drowned again.
Once the sound "cypress" used to make more sense
than the green "cas...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things