Articles

Essay
Learning to Breathe under Water
Considering Muriel Rukeyser’s oceanic work.
By Alicia Ostriker

Essay
Whole Earth Poem Catalog
Is there any blank space left for a new poem, old subjects?
By Jessica Greenbaum

Essay
My Walking Shoes
Working-class origins of an American lyric.
By Afaa Michael Weaver

Essay
Nuptial Matters
How did poetry become an essential part of American wedding ceremonies—and why is it so hard to choose a poem of one’s own?
By Ruth Graham

Essay
Letters from Archibald MacLeish
I was in my 20s when I learned the octogenarian writer was my neighbor, so I wrote him a letter. All I wanted was for his literary greatness to rub off on me; through our correspondence, he became my teacher and more.
By Carl Vigeland

Essay
Nurseries of Verse
The only way to grow poetry is to make it a habit.
By J. Patrick Lewis

Essay
Significant Soil
Meditations on the Merger of T. S. Eliot’s ‘Waste’ and ‘Land.’
By Christina Davis

Articles for Teachers & Students
Caroline Kennedy on Learning Poems by Heart
Poems and teaching resources from Kennedy's new anthology.
By The Editors

Essay
My Sessions with Mark
Mark O’Brien, a poet, journalist, and friend of mine, was confined to an iron lung. But his mind was free.
By Chana Bloch

Articles for Teachers & Students
How to Read a Poem
By Edward Hirsch