“Trumpet Player” by Langston Hughes
"Langston Hughes is a titanic figure in 20th-century American Literature...a powerful interpreter of the American experience . . . His poems are as vital as ever." - Philadelphia Inquirer… Read More
David Bowie and Lou Reed Perform Together on Bowie’s 50th Birthday
Two rock legends share the stage at David Bowie's 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden in 1997. It's hard to accept that they are both gone now. … Read More
“The Relic” by John Donne
"Wonder—exciting vigour, intenseness and peculiarity of thought, using at well almost boundless stores of capacious memory, and exercised on subjects, where we have no right to expect it—this is the wit of… Read More
“Destinations” by Anthony Hecht
"Hecht's poetry works the fault lines of human failing, gauging the pitfalls of pride and what he called 'the infections of the ego.'" - David Yezzi… Read More
Philip Levine Reads from his Debut Poetry Collection ‘On The Edge’
Thanks to the online digital archive of The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University, you can listen to a recording of former U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine reading his early poetry.… Read More
“Anasazi” by Terese Coe
Terese Coe’s poems and translations have appeared in Threepenny Review, Poetry, New American Writing, Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Cincinnati Review, New Writing Scotland, The Moth, the TLS, Poetry Review, New Walk… Read More
“Whereabouts” by Kevin Cutrer
Kevin Cutrer was born in the American South, has lived in South America, and now resides in the southernmost neighborhood of Boston. His first poetry collection, Lord’s Own Anointed, was published in… Read More
“The Peppers in December” by Rick Mullin
Rick Mullin's collection, Stignatz & the User of Vicenza, will be published in January by Dos Madres Press, Loveland, Ohio.… Read More
“There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House” by Emily Dickinson
"Other poets have published to the world verse which, we think, should have been delivered privately to the three or four in a position to decipher the postmark. Emily locked away in… Read More
“Hail holy Light, offspring of Heav’n first-born…” by John Milton
"Milton ministers superbly to our need to comprehend how variously magnificent and strange the English language is, how finely it can communicate what we wish to say, how dextrously it can help… Read More
“A Dirge” by Christina Rossetti
"Of all Victorian women poets, posterity has been kindest to Christina Rossetti....Her poetry is increasingly being recognized as among the most beautiful and innovative of the period by either sex." -- The… Read More
“The Little Vagabond” by William Blake
"Blake neither wrote nor drew for the many, hardly for work'y-day men at all, rather for children and angels; himself 'a divine child,' whose playthings were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens… Read More
“Giving Thanks” by Tony Harrison
"A poet of great technical accomplishment whose work insists that it is speech rather than page-bound silence"-- Sean O'Brien… Read More
“The Arctic Ox (or Goat)” by Marianne Moore
"More than any modern poet, she gives us the feeling that life is softly exploding around us, within easy reach." --John Ashberry… Read More
“Sunset Threnody” by Yusef Komunyakaa
"The best writing we've had from the long war in Vietnam has been prose so far. Yusef Komunyakaa's 'Dien Cai Dau' changes that." -- William Matthews… Read More
“All the Dead Dears” by Sylvia Plath
“The fiercest poet of our time”-- Anne Stevenson… Read More
“Madman Bucket List: A Study for my ‘Lemon Meringue Pie Thrown in Face of George Bush’ Poem” by James Feichthaler
James Feichthaler runs an open-mic poetry reading called "The Dead Bards of Philadelphia" at the Venice Island Performing Arts Center in Manayunk, PA. The self-proclaimed "forrealist poet" is set to release… Read More
“A High-Toned Old Christian Woman” by Wallace Stevens
"One of the most considerable poets of the last hundred years...Poems that are as distinguished as any written in this century." --Thom Gunn… Read More
“Rhapsody on a Windy Night” by T.S. Eliot
"A thorough knowledge of Eliot is compulsory for anyone interested in contemporary literature. Whether he is liked or disliked is of no importance, but he must be read." --Northrop Frye… Read More
“Blades” by C.K. Williams
“Williams’s work reflects the moral self-questioning of Herbert, the plain-spokenness and the yearning toward nature of Wordsworth, the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart of the later Yeats.” -- Brian Phillips… Read More
“The White House” by Claude McKay
"He managed to use traditional poetic forms as satisfying vehicles for the expression of his impatience with racism; but at the same time, McKay refused to allow social relevance to become an… Read More
“Never More Will the Wind” by H.D.
"H.D. by the end of her career became not only the most gifted woman poet of our century, but one of the most original poets—the more I read her the more I… Read More
“The Unsettled Motorcyclist’s Vision of his Death” by Thom Gunn
"What appeals to these two transatlantic groups of readers might be quite distant when seriously considered, but the quality in Gunn’s poetry that magnetized them both is an exquisite combination: English grace… Read More
“On The Beach” by Rick Mullin
Rick Mullin is the author of four volumes of poetry, including Sonnets from the Voyage of the Beagle, and Soutine, both published by Dos Madres Press, Loveland, OH. His work has appeared… Read More
“Variation on an Old Saying” by Christine Yurick
Christine Yurick’s poems have appeared in journals print and online and are forthcoming in American Arts Quarterly and 823 on High. She is the founding editor of Think Journal. She lives with… Read More
“Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom” by Louise Bogan
"Beyond the Bogan poems is a woman, intense, proud, strong-willed...Her poems can be read and reread: they keep yielding new meanings, as all good poetry should." -- Theodore Roethke… Read More
“Dockery and Son” by Philip Larkin
"Larkin wrote in clipped, lucid stanzas, about the failures and remorse of age, about stunted lives and spoiled desires." -- J.D. McClatchy… Read More
“There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sara Teasdale
"Teasdale's enduring legacy will be her genius for the song, for the pure lyric in which words seem to have fallen in place without art or effort." --Louis Untermeyer… Read More
“Unidentified Flying Object” by Robert Hayden
"Hayden was a remembrancer, a poet of faith and superb execution, and one of the best teachers by example one can find in the poetry of the twentieth century, or in any… Read More
“Party-Time! Excellent!” by Quincy R. Lehr
Quincy R. Lehr's most recent books are Heimat (2014) and The Dark Lord of the Tiki Bar (2015). He lives in Brooklyn, where he is the associate editor of The Raintown… Read More