“Poetry leaves something out,” our columnist Elisa Gabbert says. But that’s hardly the extent of it. By Elisa Gabbert I once heard a student say poetry is language that’s “coherent enough.” I love a ...

In “What is Poetry? Part 1,” Jeffrey Thomson mentions everything from badgers and hurricanes to subways and Times Square. Somehow that makes the “Part 2” poem from his new book, “Half/Life: New & ...

Humans spend most of their waking hours playing with what novelist Rudyard Kipling called “the most powerful drug used by mankind”—words. In the laboratories of our minds, we sort, slice, and string ...

As guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2024, Mary Jo Salter spent last year scouring literary journals for 75 of the best poems from 75 different poets. To appear in the volume is a coveted honor ...

The first day Vladimir Putin sent troops to invade Ukraine, actor AnnaLynne McCord thrust herself onto the internet stage by reciting a poem she had written addressed to the Russian President. With ...

The most striking thing about contemporary poetry is that no one seems quite satisfied with it. Non-poets, who generally don’t read poetry, are only a little less enthusiastic than poets, who do.

Occasionally, I read a debut poetry book and want to grab everyone I know and tell them to read it, too. Vermont poet James Crews’s collection is one such book. These poems react to the world both ...

Nguyễn was born in Vietnam and raised in America. His novel The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as five other awards. His latest book is To Save and to Destroy: Writing as ...

In our fraught modern world, poets are rarely celebrities. But celebrities sometimes get their poems published. Certain people (disgruntled scribblers) may scoff at this. What do Megan Fox, James ...