Robert Hayden

Robert Hayden’s Relatable Fatigue

There’s a constant attention to the burdens of history in Robert Hayden’s poems. Even amid the beauties of life, the ghosts of the past linger.
Bernadette Mayer

Everyday Life, Revisited—with Bernadette Mayer’s Memory

In the poet’s work, the small and ordinary rise to the level of heroic adventures. If we value human life, then we should value what makes up a life.
A Reading from Homer by Lawrence Alma Tadema, 1885

How Do We Know That Epic Poems Were Recited from Memory?

Scholars once doubted that pre-literate peoples could ever have composed and recited poems as long as the Odyssey. Milman Parry changed that.
Emily Dickinson, circa 1847

17 Poems by Emily Dickinson

A selection of her poems by one of America's greatest poets.
TS Eliot

T.S. Eliot

Remembering the famous modernist poet T.S. Eliot with his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
A falling leaf

Eleven Poems for Fall

Cozy up to autumn with verse from Dylan Thomas, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Frost, Rita Dove, and more.
David Berman

David Berman

Three poems by writer and musician David Berman.
Portrait of William Blake, 1807

William Blake, Radical Abolitionist

Blake’s works offer an alternative to the failures of the Enlightenment, which couldn’t muster a consistent argument for abolition.
John Ashbery by Steve Pyke

Poetry from Independent Voices

Reveal Digital's open access "Independent Voices" collection includes many digitized literary magazines. Those interested in poetry should take note.
Collage of contemporary poets

10 Ekphrastic Poems

Broadly defined, an ekphrastic poem describes another work of art. Here are some by Ocean Vuong, Aziza Barnes, Robert Hayden, Frank O’Hara, Danez Smith, and more.