“Song of the Lotos-Eaters” by Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson
"Our readers will, we think, agree that this is admirable characteristic; and that the singers of this song must have made pretty free with the intoxicating fruit. How they got home you… Read More
“Sonnet to Insomnia” by Moira Egan
Moira Egan is an American poet who lives in Rome. She is the author of Cleave (WWPH 2004), which was nominated for the National Book Award and was a Finalist for the… Read More
“At the Fishhouses” by Elizabeth Bishop
Maybe this will cool us down a bit today . . . … Read More
“Today” by Frank O’Hara
"[Frank O'Hara's] work seems to me to represent the last stage in the adaptation of twentieth-century avant-garde sensibility to poetry about contemporary American experience. In its music and its language and in… Read More
“The Starvefish” by Katy Evans-Bush
"Poems full of life, wit, and vitality." - Linda Grant… Read More
“After Summer Fell Apart” by Yusef Komunyakaa
"Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for Neon Vernacular, but perhaps best known for Dien Cai Dau, poems chronicling his experiences as a journalist in Vietnam, Komunyakaa is one of this… Read More
“Apprentice Work” by James Byrne
James Byrne is the Editor and co-founder of The Wolf poetry magazine (www.wolfmagazine.co.uk). His debut collection, Passages of Time, was published by Flipped Eye in 2003. His second collection, Blood/Sugar, will be… Read More
“Two Butterflies Went Out at Noon” by Emily Dickinson
"Although Emily Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was… Read More
“Several Voices Out of a Cloud” by Louise Bogan
Thanks to Jan Schreiber who sent this in as a response to Niall McDevitt's poem. … Read More
“An Archive of Confessions, A Genealogy of Confessions” by Joshua Clover
Joshua Clover is the author of two books of poems, The Totality for Kids (University of California Press, 2006), and Madonna anno domini (1997), which was chosen by Jorie Graham to receive… Read More
“Felix Randal” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Apart from a few uncharacteristic poems scattered in periodicals, Hopkins was not published during his own lifetime. His good friend Robert Bridges (1844-1930), whom he met at Oxford and who became Poet… Read More
“THUD!” by Quincy Lehr
Where’ve our tortured artists gone, Catullus or Syd Barrett? Chasing after the latest grant and following the carrot.… Read More
“Amoretti LXVII: Like as a Huntsman” by Edmund Spenser
"Be bolde, Be bolde, and everywhere, Be bold." - Edmund Spenser… Read More
“Silviculture” by Cecily Parks
Cecily Parks’s first book of poems, Field Folly Snow (University of Georgia Press 2008), was a finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award and the Glasgow/Shenandoah Prize for Emerging Writers. Her… Read More
“A Radio With Guts” by Charles Bukowski
"Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink." - Charles Bukowski, inspirational saying on Ernest Hilbert's desk… Read More
“Museum” by Glyn Maxwell
"Maxwell is hardly a flashy poet. (His early work was wicked in an Audenesque way, without Auden’s demonic language or perverse views.) If you read too fast, you miss his subtlety, his… Read More
“Calais” by Glyn Maxwell
"Glyn Maxwell's originality lies in his astounding ability to orchestrate asides, parenthetical quips, side-of-the-mouth ruminations into a formal verse with a bravura not dared before." - Derek Walcott… Read More
“Ghazal” by Mimi Khalvati
Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran, Iran and has lived most of her life in England. She trained at Drama Centre London and has worked as an actor and director in the… Read More
“Strawberries” by Edwin Morgan
"I don’t think the future of poetry is all that black. I think it will be possible to write long poems again. The space age will perhaps bring a kind of epic… Read More
“Occupational Hazard” by Sophie Hannah
"Sophie Hannah is among the best at comprehending, in rhyming verse, the indignity of having a body and the nobility of having a heart." - Jeremy Noel Todd, Guardian… Read More
“And Indians” by Glyn Maxwell
"Poetry is words in space, representing words in time." - Glyn Maxwell… Read More
“Valentine” by Carol Ann Duffy
"Poetry and prayer are very similar." - Carol Ann Duffy… Read More
“The Air” by Don Paterson
"A poem is just a little machine for remembering itself." — Don Paterson… Read More
“Closing” by Deborah Warren
Deborah Warren was born in Boston, MA in 1946. Her poetry collections are: The Size of Happiness (2003, Waywiser Press, London), runner-up for the 2000 T. S. Eliot Prize; Zero Meridian, which… Read More
“Bath” by Rachel Hadas
Rachel Hadas is the author of more than a dozen books, most recently The River of Forgetfulness (2006), a collection of poems, and Classics (2007) a selection of prose.… Read More
“The Dead” by Don Paterson
"A poetic form is essentially a codified pattern of silence. We have a little silence at the end of a line, a bigger one at the end of a stanza, and a… Read More
“Sportsmanship” by Ernest Hilbert, in the New Issue of 32 Poems
"32 Poems has generated a lot of buzz in the literary community, and for once, the buzz was deserved; this modest journal contained a dazzling array of poetry . . . I… Read More
“The Persian Version” by Robert Graves
"If there's no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money." - Robert Graves… Read More
“When I Heard the Learned Astronomer” by Walt Whitman
An example of a free verse poem that resolves to the simplicity of iambic pentameter for the final line when the speaker gazes up in natural wonder at the night sky. … Read More