agendaangle-downangle-leftangleRightarrow-downarrowRightbarscalendarcaret-downcartchildrenhighlightlearningResourceslistmapMarkeropenBookp1pinpoetry-magazineprintquoteLeftquoteRightslideshowtagAudiotagVideoteenstrash-o
Skip to Content

Poems

Begin in delight, end in wisdom.

Explore Poems
Featured Poems
    • Poem of the Day

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Holding Court

      By Jacob Saenz
      Today I became King
      of the Court w/out a diamond-
      encrusted crown thrust upon
      my sweaty head. Instead
      my markings of royalty
      were the t-shirt draping
      my body like a robe soaked
      in champagne & the pain
      in my right knee — a sign
      of a battle...

      Read More
    • poem

      Phenomenal Woman

      By Maya Angelou
      Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
      I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size   
      But when I start to tell them,
      They think I’m telling lies.
      I say,
      It’s in the reach of my arms,
      The span of my hips,   
      The stride of...

      Read More
    • poem

      The River of Girls

      By Tishani Doshi
      This is not really myth or secret.
      This murmur in the mouth
      of the mountain where the sound
      of rain is born. This surging
      past pilgrim town and village well.
      This coin-thin vagina
      and acid stain of bone.
      This doctor with his rusty tools,
      this street cleaner, this...

      Read More
Browse All Poems
Explore Poems
Browse All Subjects and Occasions
Explore Poems by School
Browse All Schools
Editors' Picks
    • poem

      Postfeminism

      By Brenda Shaughnessy
      There are two kinds of people, soldiers and women,
      as Virginia Woolf said. Both for decoration only.

      Now that is too kind. It’s technical: virgins and wolves.
      We have choices now. Two little girls walk into a bar,

      one orders a shirley temple. Shirley...

      Read More
    • poem

      Responding

      By Juliana Spahr
              I


      This is a place without a terrain a government that always          changes an unstable language. Even buildings disappear
                from day to day.

      [gendered pronoun] wanders in this place
         ...

      Read More
Featured Poems
Featured
Browse More
From the Current Issue of Poetry Magazine
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Near-Earth Object

      By John Shoptaw
      Unlike the monarch, though
      the asteroid also slipped
      quietly from its colony
      on its annular migration
      between Jupiter and Mars,
      enticed maybe by
      our planetary pollen
      as the monarch by my neighbor’s
      slender-leaved milkweed.
      Unlike it even when
      the fragrant Cretaceous
      atmosphere meteorized
      the airborne rock,
      flaring it into what might
      have looked to...

      Read More
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine The Truth

      By James Tate
                Mitzy fell asleep as soon as we got home, but I didn’t.
      The evening had upset me. Why did Jack keep asking me if I’d
      been married before? And why did my answer not satisfy him?
      It was...

      Read More
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Lychee Express

      By Adrienne Su
      What would the lovely Yang Guifei,
      concubine to the emperor,
      a Helen of China, have made
      of our gleaming grocery stores,

      always awash in berries, melons,
      tangerines? Her passion for lychees,
      rushed north by a chain of horsemen,
      laid waste to a dynasty.

      She must have understood,
      at least...

      Read More
Read More
Poem Guides
Browse All Poem Guides
See a problem on this page?