• Essay

    A Window Opens

    By Jill Bialosky

    How poetry offers a new way of seeing. 

Featured Content
    • Poetry Off the Shelf
      Audio

      “It's the Language, Stupid.”

      From Poetry Off the ShelfAugust 2017

      Matthew Zapruder discusses the role of language and meaning in poetry and his book of criticism, Why Poetry.

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    • Illustration of a worm on a hook.
      Video

      To Catch a Fish

      From Motionpoems

      “To Catch a Fish” by Eloise Greenfield from Under the Sunday Tree. Copyright © 1988 by Eloise Greenfield, used by permission of Scott Treimel NY.

      Read More
    • A young Julien Poirier
      Featured Blogger

      Julien Poirier: Wet Noodles & Songs

      By Brian Lucas

      I met Julien only a few years ago through mutual friends who rightfully assumed we’d hit it off. One day, we took a stroll around the UC Berkeley campus as...

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    • poem

      August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower

      By Twyla Hansen
      In the middle of rolling grasslands, away from lights,
      a moonless night untethers its wild polka-dots,
      the formations we can name competing for attention
      in a twinkling and crowded sky-bowl.

      Out from the corners, our eyes detect a maverick meteor,
      a transient streak, and lying...

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    • poem

      Childhood

      By Margaret Walker
      When I was a child I knew red miners
      dressed raggedly and wearing carbide lamps.
      I saw them come down red hills to their camps
      dyed with red dust from old Ishkooda mines.
      Night after night I met them on the roads,
      or on the...

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    • poem

      Maybe I’m Amazed

      By Jim Carroll
      Just because there is music
      piped into the most false of revolutions
       
      it cannot clean these senses
      of slow wireless death crawling
      from a slick mirror
      1/8th it’s normal size . . .
       
      Marty was found dead by the man literally
      blue 12 hours after falling out
      at...

      Read More

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Podcasts
Poem Talk

The Hand's Reach: A discussion of Lorenzo Thomas’s “An Arc Still Open”

From Poem TalkAugust 2017

Hosted by Al Filreis and featuring William J. Harris, Aldon Nielsen, and Tyrone Williams.

  • “It's the Language, Stupid.”

    From Poetry Off the ShelfAugust 2017

    Matthew Zapruder discusses the role of language and meaning in poetry and his book of criticism, Why Poetry.

  • Jamila Woods reads "Daddy Dozens"

    From The Poetry Magazine PodcastAugust 2017

    In a special archival edition, the editors discuss Jamila Woods's "Daddy Dozens" published in the April 2015 issue of Poetry.

  • Perihan

    From PoetryNowAugust 2017

    Sara Deniz Akant considers the virtues and meaning of one’s name. Produced by Sarah Geis.

  • All Kinds of Fires Inside Our Heads

    From PoetryNowAugust 2017

    Nikki Wallschlaeger meditates on issues of accountability. Produced by Katie Klocksin.

Featured Collection
Desert flowers.

Poems of Hope and Resilience

The words of others can help to lift us up.

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Featured Biographies
  • Emma Lazarus
    Emma Lazarus
    author

    Emma Lazarus was born in New York City to a wealthy family and educated by private tutors. She began writing and translating...

    Read More
  • Tom Sleigh
    author

    Tom Sleigh is the author of more than nine volumes of poetry, including The Chain (1996), Far Side of the Earth (2003), Space Walk (2007), and Station Zed (2015)....

    Read More
From the Poetry Magazine Archive
Summer Poems

Submit poetry and letters to the editors of Poetry magazine.

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