Articles Index
Spring Poems
A collection of poems for spring, including classics by Tu Fu, William Shakespeare, Thomas Carew, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence & Gerard Manley Hopkins, plus new poems from contemporary poets around the world.
Library: Poems by Robert Frost
Our library of poem texts – selected poems by Robert Frost, in chronological order.
Glossary of Poetic Forms
Traditional poetic forms briefly defined.
SemiCento
When the Frankfurt Buchmesse turned fifty, and Bob Holman was commissioned to write the occasional verse, voila! — a SemiCento... the poem gathers poets from all cultures and times to say Happy Birthday, What Is a Poem?
Poems for Fathers
A collection of classic poems about fatherhood, by Su Tung-p’o, Robert Greene, Ben Jonson, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Edgar A. Guest, Rudyard Kipling, Gerard Manley Hopkins & William Butler Yeats.
Poems for Mothers
A collection of classic poems about motherhood, by Anne Bradstreet, William Blake, Christina Rossetti, Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes.
Library: Poems by John Keats
Our library of poem texts – selected poems by John Keats, in chronological order.
Library: Poems by Walt Whitman
Our library of poem texts – selected poems by Walt Whitman, from his masterwork, <i>Leaves of Grass</i>.
Library: Poems by William Butler Yeats
Our library of poem texts – selected poems by William Butler Yeats, in chronological order.
Howl (noun). Howl (verb). Howl, the poem heard round the world.
Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is the greatest poem of the 2nd half of the 20th century, at least! Is there a new Howl?
Library: Poems by William Blake
Our library of poem texts – selected poems by William Blake, in chronological order.
Fernando Pessoa – Poet as Poetry
With his three heteronyms, imaginary brother poets, Fernando Pessoa was a literary movement all by himself. Here is a brief introduction to his life and the steamer trunk of work he left behind when he died in 1935.
Transgressing the Literary Zeitgeist with Absurdist Poet Ananda Osel
Andrew Wright interviews Ananda Osel, whose work “lives at the logical meeting point of philosophy and Dirty Realism, or minimalism. Not surprisingly, at nearly every turn his work and personal philosophy run antithetical to the prevailing mood of the literary establishment.”
Poems for President Lincoln
A collection of classic poems written about President Abraham Lincoln, by Walt Whitman, James Russell Lowell, Julia Ward Howe, Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sandburg and Hyam Plutzik
O Father Abraham!
Anticipating the rising tide of the civil rights movement, Plutzik’s poem addresses an impassioned plea to the martyred President on behalf of racial justice and the dignity of all Americans.
Remembering Poetry
Memory has become a vestigial organ like the appendix... The battle over writ/spoke, text in hand as prop or homage, poem working on page or stage, rages.
Poems for the New Year
A collection of classic poems for New Year's, by Robert Burns, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Helen Hunt Jackson, Thomas Hardy and John Clare.
Christmas Poems
A collection of classic Christmas poems, by Robert Herrick, Henry Vaughan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Clement Clark Moore (or Major Henry Livingston, Jr.), Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christina Rossetti, G.K. Chesterton, Sara Teasdale, Walter de la Mare, Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost & William Butler Yeats.
Library: Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Our library of poem texts – selected poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in chronological order.
Introducing The Rothko
Bob Holman introduces his new ekphrastic poem form, the Rothko: “Call ‘em haikus. Naw, call ‘em Rothkos, I thought, and make ‘em rectangles like the paintings. And get those colors in there while you’re at it...”
Poets Laureate of the U.S.A.
A Net-annotated list of all the poets who have served the Library of Congress as Consultant (the old title) or Poet Laureate Consultant (the new title), linked to biographies and reference sites.
Poems for Election Day
A selection of classic American poems for Election Day, by Walt Whitman, John Greenleaf Whittier, Vachel Lindsay & William Carlos Williams, and a contemporary post-election blues by Jim Finnegan.
Winter Poems
A collection of poems for winter, including classics by William Shakespeare, Thomas Campion, Robert Burns, Emily Dickinson & Robert Frost, plus new poems from contemporary poets around the world.
Poems for Thanksgiving Day
A selection of American poems for Thanksgiving Day, including a translation of a traditional Iroquois song by Harriet Maxwell Converse and classic poems by Lydia Maria Child, John Greenleaf Whittier, Kate Seymour Maclean, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Thornton W. Burgess and Carl Sandburg.
What's Really Wrong with Poetry Book Contests?
David Alpaugh, who has both run and won a poetry book contest himself, investigates what's wrong with the whole business of selecting poetry books for publication by holding a competition: Fraud is not the problem... why there's a boom in poetry contests...