Cover Story

Mary Ann Hoberman Named Children's Poet Laureate
"Whether she’s writing about lonely pets or befuddled fauna or little kids still figuring out the world, Hoberman’s poems are always fundamentally about the language, and about introducing its capacity for magic and puzzlement and emotional meaning to the world’s youngest poetry readers." Michael Atkinson takes a look at Children's Poet Laureate Mary Ann Hoberman.

On Poets

Albert Goldbarth Wins Mark Twain Award for Humorous Poetry

Is there a connection between someone's poems and their obsessions? Richard Siken interviews Albert Goldbarth about his collection of vintage space toys. The first in an occasional series.

The One and the Many

"Mao’s stated revulsion for high culture was perhaps the easiest defense against his own attraction to it. His own poetry, which was widely dispersed and memorized throughout the country, bore much in common with the 'traitor literature' against which he warned." Rachel Aviv stacks up Mao's writing against his revolutionary goals.

On Poetry

He Fancied Nancy

"Simultaneously ambitious and self-effacing, he was aware of an important similarity between his sense of how to assemble images and the capacity he noticed in other poets for making order out of words." Jordan Davis looks at painter among poets Joe Brainard and his little friend Nancy.

Home Appreciation

"Learning to experience poetry does not require lectures or dissection." Susan Thomsen provides a helpful guide for how to get your kids reading and enjoying poetry.

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Reading Guides

Something Antlered This Way Comes

"Taking up a theme she explored in poems such as ‘The Fish’ and ‘The Armadillo,’ ‘The Moose’ meditates on the transcendent power of nature, and its often startling intrusion into our modern lives." Toby Eckert explores Elizabeth Bishop’s fascination with the "curious power of nature" in "The Moose."

How To Read A Poem (and Fall in Love With Poetry)

Curious about poetry, but don't know where or how to begin? We've republished a how to guide by the respected poet Edward Hirsch. Its seventeen sections step you through the elements of poetry. Each section has plenty of links to example of poems in our archive to illustrate Hirsch's points.