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Begin in delight, end in wisdom.

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    • Poem of the Day

      Voyage

      By Carmen Tafolla
      I was the fourth ship.
                Behind Niña, Pinta, Santa María,
                Lost at sea while watching a seagull,
                Following the wind and sunset skies,
                While the others set their charts.

      I was the fourth ship.
                Breathing in salt and flying with clouds,
               ...

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      A Hymn to the Evening

      By Phillis Wheatley
      Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main
      The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain;
      Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing,
      Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
      Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
      And through the air their mingled music floats.
      Through...

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      Workshop

      By Billy Collins
      I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.
      It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now
      so immediately the poem has my attention,
      like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

      And I like the...

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      An Old Story

      By Tracy K. Smith
      We were made to understand it would be
      Terrible. Every small want, every niggling urge,
      Every hate swollen to a kind of epic wind. 
       
      Livid, the land, and ravaged, like a rageful 
      Dream. The worst of us having taken over 
      And broken the rest utterly...

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      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Object Permanence

      By Alison C. Rollins
      For the time being
      an ampersand is a boy
      clutching his knees
      to his chest as art.

      On high, the god of form
      wears a face on each wrist.
      Only a god can take and give
      time, but the one in front of
      the gun lasts forever.

      The boy...

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From the Current Issue of Poetry Magazine
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Matters of the Father

      By Robin Richardson

      She could live on chips on paint chips potato chips the poker chips he stacked in towers on the nightstand she could live in glass or underground or in his Cadillac she lived inside his head his cowboy boots she...

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      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Mansplaining

      By Jennifer Militello
      Dear sir, your air of authority
      leaves me lost. Eases me from
      a place of ease. Contracts with
      my contradictions to take from me
      a place. Autopilots my autobiography.
      Frightens my fright. Sighs with
      my breath. Wins at my race.
      Your certainty has me curtained.
      Your nerve has...

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      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Twelve

      By Lynn Melnick
      When I was your age I went to a banquet.
      When I was your age I went to a barroom

      and bought cigarettes with quarters
      lifted from the laundry money. Last night

      I did all your laundry. I don’t know why
      I thought this love...

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