Articles

Showing 1-20 of 125 articles
  • Poem Sampler
    By Tom Snarsky

    "Even a five-word poem has a beginning, middle, and end. A one-word poem doesn’t. You can see it all at once.” 

    Image of Aram Saroyan
  • Poem Sampler
    By Tina Chang
    I have come to Lee’s more recent poems as a literary disciple with head bowed, meditating on the divinity his poems invoke, listening for their reverberation and syncopation, sensing for the stir...
    Black and white portrait of Li-Young Lee wearing a suit. Lee is not facing the camera and looks off and to the side.
  • Poem Sampler
    By L. Renée
    Cornelius Eady is a poet who has charted great depths of personal and family histories, of musical landscapes, and of sociocultural influences. Eady’s work explores class and racial disparities, ...
    Image of Cornelius Eady
  • Poem Sampler
    By Noah Baldino, Natalie Earnhart & The Editors
    Kearney’s lyrical poems range across the page, bridging thematic concerns that include politics, African American culture, masks, the trickster figure, and contemporary music. He describes the nontradition...
    Kearney Headshot copy
  • Poem Sampler
    By Amy Wright
    Whether contemplating a newly-observed firefly behavior or spiritual instruction calligraphed by a 12th-century Taoist priestess, Hahn pays “attention to attention,” archiving those turning points...
    Headshot of Kimiko Hahn
  • Poem Sampler
    By Natalie Earnhart & The Editors
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 2014, 2016, 2018, 2023]CAConrad (1966--present) has worked with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. A recipient of a 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry...
    1 A CA Conrad copy
  • Poem Sampler
    By Noah Baldino & The Editors
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 1994, 2005]Though known primarily as a rocker, Patti Smith (1946–present) creatively blurs the boundaries between poetry and song, memoir and lyric. Smith is a...
    Headshot of Patti Smith
  • Poem Sampler
    By Sarah Alcaide-Escue & The Editors
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 1990s, 2020s, 2023]Angela Jackson (1951–present) is a poet, playwright, and novelist who has earned many honors for fiction and poetry, including a 2022 Ruth Lilly...
    Headshot of poet Angela Jackson
  • Poem Sampler
    By Noah Baldino & The Editors
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2023]Sharon Olds (1942–present) was raised, she has said, as a “hellfire Calvinist,” an upbringing that perhaps led to her embrace of the ...
    Sharon Olds 27 BOOKOLDS super Jumbo copy
  • Poem Sampler
    By The Editors & Jenna Peng
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 1960s, 2000s, 2010s, 2023]Haki R. Madhubuti (1942-present) is regarded as an architect of the Black Arts Movement and is founder and publisher of Chicago’s Third...
    Haki Madhubuti.jpg
  • Poem Sampler
    By Sarah Ahmad & The Editors
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 1990s, 2010s, 2023]Sonia Sanchez (1934–present) is the author of more than 20 books, including National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Does Your House Have Lions? (Beacon...
    Headshot of poet Sonia Sanchez
  • Poem Sampler
    By The Editors & Jenna Peng
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s]Arthur Sze (1950–present) is a poet, a translator, and an editor with 11 published books of poetry, including Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press...
    Black and white portrait of poet Arthur Sze
  • Poem Sampler
    By Noah Baldino & The Editors
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 1980, 1990s, 2000s, 2023]I've been at the “business” of poetry for some time; I know that I'm considered more of a “non-militant” writer. As I get older, however...
    Headshot of poet Rita Dove
  • Poem Sampler
    By Benjamin Voigt
    [Jump to poems by publication year: 1990s | 2000s | 2010s]Poet Patricia Smith has never been one to rest on her laurels: though she’s received an impressive number of awards—the Kingsley Tufts, the...
    Poet Patricia Smith wearing a beaded necklace and smiling with her hand on her chin
  • Poem Sampler
    By Benjamin Voigt
    Over the last 30 years, Carl Phillips has carved out a unique place in US poetry, making a career of fusing seeming contradictions. He is a prolific writer with consistent concerns and motifs, and...
    Carl Phillips
  • Poem Sampler
    By Benjamin Voigt
    Few writers are as relentless as Wanda Coleman was. A single mother who grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Coleman often struggled to make ends meet: a reality that poems like “Things...
    Poet Wanda Coleman backstage at the Allen Ginsberg Memorial at the Wadsworth Theatre on June 21, 1997 in Los Angeles, California.
  • Poem Sampler
    By Benjamin Voigt
    By the end of her career, Lucille Clifton had achieved a rare stature. Critically acclaimed and widely read, she was a lodestar, a bright point for the poetry world to follow. Born in 1936, she is...
    Lucille Clifton, July 29, 1995.
  • Poem Sampler
    By Benjamin Voigt
    Though Lorine Niedecker remained a lesser-known figure in the story of 20th-century poetry for many years—she published relatively little and began to find notice only later in life—she wrote important...
    Lorine Niedecker sitting by a lake playing the ukelele.
  • Poem Sampler
    By Benjamin Voigt
    Few poets are as fearless and as innovative as Marilyn Chin. Her life in verse began early: born in Hong Kong but raised in Portland, Oregon, she recalls her grandmother reciting hundreds of Tang...
    Image of Marilyn Chin
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