Poems
Poem of The Day
By Agha Shahid Ali
Those intervals
between the day’s
five calls to prayer
the women of the house
pulling thick threads
through vegetables
rosaries of ginger
of rustling peppers
in autumn drying for winter
in those intervals this rug
part of Grandma’s dowry
folded
so the Devil’s shadow
would not desecrate
Mecca scarlet-woven
with minarets of gold
but then the...
between the day’s
five calls to prayer
the women of the house
pulling thick threads
through vegetables
rosaries of ginger
of rustling peppers
in autumn drying for winter
in those intervals this rug
part of Grandma’s dowry
folded
so the Devil’s shadow
would not desecrate
Mecca scarlet-woven
with minarets of gold
but then the...
Poem of The Day
By Gertrude Stein
The house was just twinkling in the moon light,
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twinkling in...
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twinkling in...
Poem of The Day
By W. E. B. Du Bois
Of course you have faced the dilemma: it is announced, they all smirk and rise. If they are ultra, they remove their hats and look ecstatic; then they look at you. What shall you do? Noblesse oblige; you cannot be...
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Featured Poetic Term
Glossary Terms
A figurative compound word that takes the place of an ordinary noun. Many kennings rely on myths or legends to make meaning and are found in Old Germanic, Norse, and English poetry, including The Seafarer, in which the ocean is called a “whale-path.” (See Ezra Pound’s translation). “The Oven Bird” by Robert Frost also includes examples such as “mid-wood” and “petal-fall.” The speaker in Frank Bidart’s poem, “The Third Hour of the Night,” mentions a creature referred to as the “wound-dresser.” See…
Poem Guides
Poem GuideBy Christopher SpaideA madcap fracas! Law and dastards clash! All As!
Poem GuideBy Joy KatzRobert Hass, Baudelaire, Marx, and a bomb-building anarchist.
From the Poetry Magazine Archive
- PoemBy Kimiko HahnWithout the sun filtered through closed eyelids,
without the siren along the service road,
without Grandpa’s ginger-colored hair,
Mother’s lipstick, Daughter’s manicure,
firecrackers, a monkey’s ass, a cherry, Rei’s lost elephant,
without communist or past tense,
or a character seeing her own chopped-off feet dancing... - PoemBy Elizabeth Acevedoit’s the being alone, i think, the emails but not voices. dominicans be funny, the way we love to touch — every greeting a cheek kiss, a shoulder clap, a loud.
it gots to be my period, the bloating, the insurance commercial where... - PoemBy Cortney Lamar CharlestonBy way of my mother, the deacon with the slick gray hair and money
clip in his pocket can claim a percentage of my body like tithe rights.
And on this Sunday, as with every other Sunday, he is a slender
ebony panel...
Schools and Movements
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Affrilachian poets
- Glossary Terms
Objectivist Poets
- Glossary Terms
Black Arts Movement
- Glossary Terms
Victorian
- Glossary Terms
Black Mountain poets