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Poem of The Day

From the magazine:Self-Portrait

By Winniebell Xinyu Zong
Chunyan took her first breath near summer.
Her name: Portrait of Spring. Keyue, a baby
tied by the waist to a tree, gazed at his parents
hunched over far fields, sowing seeds.
On the family dog, he fell asleep, dreaming
of slack season. One faith, two middle children,
match made at first meet. Her calm gaze upon
the stranger boy peeling…
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Poem of The Day

From the magazine:

In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes

By Eduardo C. Corral

in a Tex-Mex restaurant. His co-workers,
unable to utter his name, renamed him Jalapeño.

If I ask for a goldfish, he spits a glob of phlegm
into a jar of water. The silver letters

on his black belt spell Sangrón. Once,...
Poem of The Day

Hedgehog

By Paul Muldoon
The snail moves like a
Hovercraft, held up by a
Rubber cushion of itself,
Sharing its secret

With the hedgehog. The hedgehog
Shares its secret with no one.
We say, Hedgehog, come out
Of yourself and we will love you.

We mean no harm. We want
Only to listen...
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Featured Poetic Term

Glossary Terms

Doggerel

Bad verse traditionally characterized by clichés, clumsiness, and irregular meter. It is often unintentionally humorous. The “giftedly bad” William McGonagall was an accomplished doggerelist, as demonstrated in “The Tay Bridge Disaster”:

            It must have been an awful sight,
            To witness in the dusky moonlight,
            While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
            Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
            Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
            I must now conclude my lay
            By telling the world…
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Poem Guides

From the Poetry Magazine Archive

  • Poem

    From the magazine:

    Turnstile Jumping

    By Janelle Tan
    the card machine is broken again.

    on the platform, a boy
    jumps the turnstile behind me.

    i notice him, walking toward the tracks
    with no look back.
    some days the turnstiles swing forward,
    and i don’t look back.
    some days by the emergency exit a hand on...
  • Poem

    From the magazine:

    notes on domesticity

    By t’ai freedom ford
    there are no spoons left      too much tasting & stirring      the eggs
    are cooked just so & speckled white with goat cheese but’ve gone
    cold, of course      as always      but the toast is warm & unburnt
    fake butter buttered      smeared with jammy fruit...
  • Poem

    From the magazine:

    Queer Appalachia

    By RK Fauth
    Take me to the holler.
    I want to see the cows
    Big Mamaw’s grave and
    something about tobacco fields.

    I don’t recall all you said at Barley’s, but you
    introduced yourself with an anecdote
    about toothbrushes made from
    chewed-up willow branches and
    coyotes loping along a
    wooded backyard—Uncle Clark’s
    and...

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