Poems
Poem of The Day
By Mark Doty
The jellyfish
float in the bay shallows
like schools of clouds,
a dozen identical — is it right
to call them creatures,
these elaborate sacks
of nothing? All they seem
is shape, and shifting,
and though a whole troop
of undulant cousins
go about their business
within a single wave's span,
every...
float in the bay shallows
like schools of clouds,
a dozen identical — is it right
to call them creatures,
these elaborate sacks
of nothing? All they seem
is shape, and shifting,
and though a whole troop
of undulant cousins
go about their business
within a single wave's span,
every...
Poem of The Day
By Jamie Ayze
Skeleton house
Church
I am homesick
I am teaching myself
To pray
It is true
It is true
It is true.
Translated…
Church
I am homesick
I am teaching myself
To pray
It is true
It is true
It is true.
Translated…
Poem of The Day
By Michael Robins
I dreamed you called without reason, picking up where we left the
water months ago. Origins without metaphor, so much beginning with
the guy who loafed at the nurse’s station. Of all the things from my
second decade, a particular game of chess listening to Hendrix on
Haight Street. Of all the things we’d sleep a little later if …
water months ago. Origins without metaphor, so much beginning with
the guy who loafed at the nurse’s station. Of all the things from my
second decade, a particular game of chess listening to Hendrix on
Haight Street. Of all the things we’d sleep a little later if …
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Featured Poetic Term
Glossary Terms
Related to acrostic, a poem in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet. See Jessica Greenbaum, “A Poem for S.” Tom Disch’s “Abecedary” adapts the principles of an abecedarian poem, while Matthea Harvey’s “The Future of Terror/The Terror of Future” sequence also uses the alphabet as an organizing principle. Poets who have used the abecedarian across whole collections include Mary Jo Bang, in The Bride of E, and Harryette Mullen, in Sleeping with the…
Poem Guides
Poem GuideBy Scott ChallenerThis short poem about dreams is one of the most influential poems of the 20th century.
Poem GuideBy Hannah Brooks-MotlThe child elegy and the 19th-century poet.
Poem GuideBy Don BogenAn overlooked masterpiece depicts a feuding couple and the dreamy freedom just outside their door.
From the Poetry Magazine Archive
- PoemBy Heather ChristleToday you find yourself guilty
as the rim you split
an egg against
You press charges
You spell out your name
like the letters are medals
for good conduct in a bad war
The night moves in with you
into your room
until even your sleep
is not your own
Through... - PoemBy Rita DoveI was sitting at home with my daughter who was young again
a child with a child’s wish to do things over and over
so when she named an old film even I liked
we popped in the disc and sat... - PoemBy Lee Young-juTranslated By Jae KimOnly as an old man did he hear the old saying that a beardless person neither ages nor dies. Shaving his beard with a shaky hand each morning, he discovered new dreams. If I were to be reborn,... please don’t let...
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