Poems
Poem of The Day
By Ellen June Wright
When you wake from a troubled sleep,
after you’ve used the bathroom, don’t go back.
Walk down the hall and push her hollow-core
door open. She’ll be there, smaller than the last time
you visited her, sitting on the side of the bed
having just used her commode. Before
she can ask, walk to it and lift the cover,
then the seat. Pull out…
after you’ve used the bathroom, don’t go back.
Walk down the hall and push her hollow-core
door open. She’ll be there, smaller than the last time
you visited her, sitting on the side of the bed
having just used her commode. Before
she can ask, walk to it and lift the cover,
then the seat. Pull out…
Poem of The Day
By Natasha Trethewey
I am four in this photograph, standing
on a wide strip of Mississippi beach,
my hands on the flowered hips
of a bright bikini. My toes dig in,
curl around wet sand. The sun cuts
the rippling Gulf in flashes with each
tidal rush. Minnows dart...
on a wide strip of Mississippi beach,
my hands on the flowered hips
of a bright bikini. My toes dig in,
curl around wet sand. The sun cuts
the rippling Gulf in flashes with each
tidal rush. Minnows dart...
Poem
By Nathanael Jones
In this song a drum takes itself apart. To keep pace move along tracks, dissolve into the points where mechanized production still retains a pulse. Skipping on and yet skipping the dance floor. Permanence is played at, implied, an arrhythmia as pavement. Perform arching gestures and observe an equally visible inversion take shape…
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Featured Poetic Term
Glossary Terms
A Malaysian verse form in quatrains with an intricate repeating pattern.
Poem Guides
Poem GuideBy Stephanie BurtTracing the many conflicting meanings of the word "blood."
Poem GuideBy Caitlin KimballThis poem finds its author not raving but frowning.
Poem GuideBy Robin EkissLucille Clifton celebrates self-discovery in “won’t you celebrate with me.”
From the Poetry Magazine Archive
- PoemBy John Lee ClarkA Deaf Blind poet doesn’t like to read sitting up. A Deaf Blind poet likes to read Braille magazines on the john. A Deaf Blind poet is in the habit of composing nineteenth-century letters and pressing Alt+S. A Deaf Blind poet is a terrible...
- PoemBy Suzi F. GarciaA muster of peacocks show off their tails, but instead of feathers, knives. And smoke where their voices should be. I breathe gray until it fills my throat, choking on tulle. On the loudspeaker, a mutation of a voiceover, a...
- PoemBy Raymond Antrobus1
My ear amps whistle like they are singing
to Echo, goddess of noise,
the raveled knot of tongues,
of blaring birds, consonant crumbs
of dull doorbells, sounds swamped
in my misty hearing aid tubes.
Gaudí believed in holy sound
and built a cathedral to contain it,
pulling...
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Pantoum
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Scansion
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Sijo
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Dactyl
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Invocation