Poems
Poem of The Day
By A. Van Jordan
Stratford Shakespearean Festival, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, 1956
Minor chords ring across Stratford farmland. We jazz
wherever we’re called. Local ears lift to see jazz.
Their hearts hear in places their minds roam.
Oh, if the bard could be Black! She’d be jazz.
If...
Minor chords ring across Stratford farmland. We jazz
wherever we’re called. Local ears lift to see jazz.
Their hearts hear in places their minds roam.
Oh, if the bard could be Black! She’d be jazz.
If...
Poem of The Day
By Charif Shanahan
Specks of toothpaste fleck the mirror.
A fan spins dust in the hall.
I find “this is it” too vulgar to accept
So I wait for a new starting point
As though life will begin there and then.
Do you know what I mean?
Not what...
A fan spins dust in the hall.
I find “this is it” too vulgar to accept
So I wait for a new starting point
As though life will begin there and then.
Do you know what I mean?
Not what...
Poem of The Day
By Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Since Love is shivering
in the ice and cold,
since hoarfrost and snow
have ringed him round,
who will come to his aid?
Water!
Earth!
Air!
No, Fire will!
Since the Child is assailed
by pains and ills
and has no breath left
to face his woes,
who will come to his aid?
Fire!
Earth!
Water!
No,...
in the ice and cold,
since hoarfrost and snow
have ringed him round,
who will come to his aid?
Water!
Earth!
Air!
No, Fire will!
Since the Child is assailed
by pains and ills
and has no breath left
to face his woes,
who will come to his aid?
Fire!
Earth!
Water!
No,...
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Featured Poetic Term
Glossary Terms
A newly coined word. Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” is filled with them, including “slithy” and “gimble.”
Poem Guides
Poem GuideBy Kwame Dawes“somethin’ wasn’t right:” How Finney captures an American nightmare.
From the Poetry Magazine Archive
- PoemBy Philip MetresOoze, oud. Ease hearts whose eyes sink low.
Be hourglass in the pillaged O—.
Be wells none see. Unstoppered tears,
O oud, we gather in your bowl.
O ladle of ores, scoop ink here
now seeping from the foreigner,
be sighs, O oud, and cloven aches
in... - PoemBy Linda HoganSome of us are like trees that grow with a spiral grain
as if prepared for the path of the spirit’s journey
to the world of all souls.
It is not an easy path.
A dog stands at the opening constellation
past the great helping... - PoemBy Solmaz SharifAs the dead, so I come
to the city I am of.
Am without.
To watch play out around me
as theater —
audience as the dead are audience
to the life that is not mine.
Is as not
as never.
Turning down Shiraz’s streets
it turns out to be such
a...
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Beat poets
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Georgian poetry