Cover of Mdlle Riego's Knitting Book

Victorian Knitting Manuals Collection

The first manuals for knitting were printed in the 1830s. Those interested in the history of knitting will find them a rich primary source for research.
: A woman adjusting her dress, London, c. 1865

How to Dress for Dystopia

Some nineteenth-century novelists predicted horrible futures, with perfectly horrible clothing to match.
Two policemen interrogating somebody

How Being Polite with Police Can Backfire

When it comes to interactions with the police, the law favors direct speech. But that's not always the way we're trained to speak to people in power.
Edward Thomas

Poetry from the Trenches of WWI

Tragically killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, Edward Thomas was on the verge of a breakthrough.
Richard Wright sits in an armchair with his hand to his chin, 1950s.

The Haiku of Richard Wright

As he lay bedridden with dysentery, the author wrote an astonishing number of haiku. What inspired him?
Six Tuscan Poets by Giorgio Vasari

The Heretical Origins of the Sonnet

The lyrical poetic form’s origins can be traced back earlier than Petrarch.
Reginald Dwayne Betts

Reginald Dwayne Betts

A 2012 essay from the American Poetry Review on poetry and the architecture of anger.
Ernest Hemingway at the Finca Vigia, Cuba 1946

Ernest Hemingway and Gender Fluidity

Despite his reputation for hypermasculinity, the author was fascinated by different forms of gender expression.
Clockwise: Nicole Sealey, Ishion Hutchinson, Marilyn Nelson, How Nguyen, Cathy Park Hong, WS Merwin

Sonnets by 11 Contemporary Poets

The name of this fourteen-line poetic form comes from the Italian sonetto, meaning "a little sound or song."
Cover for A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear, c. 1875

There Once Was a Poem Called a Limerick

Whose history, they say, isn't quick. It's all such a muddle, it can leave you befuddled, whether you like the clean or the sick.