Massachusetts Poetry Festival 2013 The fifth Mass Poetry Festival, scheduled for May 3–5, 2013, in Salem, MA, brings American’s most admired poets from across the country to a celebration of Massachusetts’ lively contemporary poetry scene. Salem becomes the epicenter of contemporary American poetry, offering rare opportunities to hear first-rate American poets read and discuss their… read more
Playing to the River, poem by Jeff Daniel Marion
American Life in Poetry Column 420; by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate There’s something wonderful about happening upon a musician playing for his or her own pleasure, completely absorbed in the music. Jeff Daniel Marion is a fine poet from east Tennessee. And here’s a woman playing the bagpipes. Playing to the River, poem by… read more
Trick or Treat, poem by Nancy Price
American Life in Poetry Column 396; by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate I’m not alone in noticing how time accelerates as we grow older, and as the seasons grow ever more brief the holidays are gone in a wink. This poem by Nancy Price about Halloween catches a little of that. She’s an Iowan whose… read more
Billy Collins poem The Names commemorates 9-11
Billy Collins poem The Names commemorates 9-11 By Dave Read. The boon and bane of my modern life is the search engine, combined with the fact that writing is a thing done with a keyboard wired to a device that can access the Internet. It is the boon and bane age because it is good… read more
Old Houses, poem by Robert Cording
Old Houses by Robert Cording Year after year after year I have come to love slowly how old houses hold themselves— before November’s drizzled rain or the refreshing light of June— as if they have all come to agree that, in time, the days are no longer a matter of suffering or rejoicing. I have… read more
More Lies, poem by Karin Gottshall
More Lies by Karin Gottshall Sometimes I say I’m going to meet my sister at the café— even though I have no sister—just because it’s such a beautiful thing to say. I’ve always thought so, ever since I read a novel in which two sisters were constantly meeting in cafés. Today, for example, I walked… read more
Window Washer, poem by Christopher Todd Matthews
Window Washer One hand slops suds on, one hustles them down like a blind. Brusque noon glare, filtered thus, loosens and glows. For five or six minutes he owns the place, dismal coffee bar, and us, its huddled underemployed. A blade, black line against the topmost glass, begins, slices off the outer lather, flings it… read more
Back from the Fields, by Peter Everwine
American Life in Poetry: Column 313. By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006 Go for a walk and part of whatever you walk through rides back on your socks. Here Peter Everwine, a California poet, tells us about the seeds that stick to us, in all their beauty and variety. Until nightfall my son ran… read more
Hunter’s Moon, poem by Molly Fisk
Hunter’s Moon by Molly Fisk Early December, dusk, and the sky slips down the rungs of its blue ladder into indigo. A late-quarter moon hangs in the air above the ridge like a broken plate and shines on us all, on the new deputy almost asleep in his four-by-four, lulled by the crackling song of… read more
A Ghost Abandons the Haunted, poem by Katie Cappello
American Life in Poetry: Column 292. By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006 Here’s our Halloween poem for 2010: A Ghost Abandons the Haunted by Katie Cappello You ignore the way light filters through my cells, the way I have of fading out—still there is a constant tug, a stretching, what is left of me… read more