This is not the poetry of Mideast politics but the poetry of people – peoples – caught up in Mideast politics, whether the scene is set in the Auschwitz death camp or the Aida refugee camp.
The Writing Life: How to Be a Famous Author
The writing life should be simpler than this, right? No, it’s not easy, and it never will be. Because we want to be famous. And that’s good, and not.
My Last Villanelle
I admire a well-executed villanelle in the same way I admire a Baroque Tromp-l’oeil ceiling
I See You in There: the Villanelle
Like most poetry built on refrains, the villanelle steers away from narrative ideals, away from conversation and linear exchange
Donald Hall’s “The Back Chamber”
From the time I was 8 until I was 14, I spent a week each summer at my grandmother’s house in Shreveport. I would sleep in the second bedroom, which was always called “the back room” even though it and my grandmother’s bedroom formed the back of the house. It was the room with a […]
The Village Watched: A Random Act of Poetry
There were so many great conversations, visual and verbal, offered up for this month’s collaborative prompt between The High Calling’s PhotoPlay and Random Acts of Poetry.
My Sestina is a Space Six-Shooter
My favorite poetic form, the sestina, gives me space to explore implication.
Write Your First Sestina: It’s a Matter of Pride
The sestina, like a song, helps us say what we want to say without really saying it.
National Poetry Month: Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich (1929 – ) is no stranger to controversy. During the 1960s, her poetry became more confrontational, exploring women’s issues, racism and the Vietnam War. In 1973, she published Diving Into the Wreck, which won the National Book Award for poetry and which Rich shared with her fellow nominees Alica Walker and Audre Lord. […]
National Poetry Month: Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967) is another writer whose poetry, like Walt Whitman and Robert Frost’s, could qualify him as “America’s Poet.”
National Poetry Month: Gary Soto
Need poetry teaching resources? Check out our collection of poets, poems, and poetry classroom discussions led by poets and professors.
National Poetry Month: Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) has been called “America’s Poet.” When he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 (and he kept revising and republishing it for a long time), he changed the direction of American poetry and letters. For decades, some of his poems were memorized in schoolrooms across the United States. Time […]
Love Poems 3
Love poems. With a little help from Mars, Venus, and the moon.
Poems on Poetry
Where do poems hide? Dogwood sweet, shaded near my feet, reaching dark-limbed to serve up day. They also hide until people die, kicking at the dirt.
John Updike Poems: Endpoint of a Writer’s Life
John Updike’s ‘Endpoint and Other Poems’ was published posthumously after a long and stellar writing career.
Breadcrumbs, Coffee, Butter and Love Poems
Coffee, breadcrumbs, butter, and love. What more do your poems need?
Adam and Eve Poems by the Narrow Lake
Pleating hems, plying fringes, nesting. All here, in poems of Adam and Eve.
Favorite InsideOut Poems
Dream and love poems, from the pollen of a sunflower to blue sky and a curry leaf. Plus, a poem on the pain of senility.
The Great Fires, Poems 1982-1992 by Jack Gilbert
Jack Gilbert’s poems are lyrical and clean, like clear ice.
Poem: When Morning Comes
A poem of attentiveness, Russian sage, and the empty peach.