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    • 'Who’s the Villain Now?' and Other Villanelles by C.B. Anderson

      The Society
      November 19, 2021
      Beauty, Humor, Poetry, Villanelle
      24 Comments
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      July 25, 2025
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      ‘History’s Rondel’ and Other Poetry by Cynthia Erlandson

      The Society
      July 24, 2025
      10
    • ‘Aubade at Seven AM’: A Poem by Bruce Dale Wise

      The Society
      July 24, 2025
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      July 23, 2025
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      The Society
      July 23, 2025
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      The Society
      July 22, 2025
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    • Congratulations to FoFG Contest Winners

      The Society
      May 13, 2017
      Deconstructing Communism, From the Society, Human Rights in China, Poetry, Poetry Contests
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      June 21, 2025
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      March 31, 2025
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      February 1, 2025
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      September 29, 2024
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Author The Society

The Society

The Society of Classical Poets was founded in New York in July, 2012.

‘Brother Be’ by Andrew Todd Ramirez

The Society
February 12, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
12 Comments
  Like feathered tip of swooping sparrow Our kinship cuts like that of arrows A brother’s love has weakened me I’ll take the slice, so brother be Shivered dreams of days that past Rivers...

‘William Blake’ by David Paul Behrens

The Society
February 11, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
3 Comments
In another lifetime I was William Blake When I saw his work That was my take He wrote about love And the human heart I thought I was him Right from the start He wrote about London Tiger burning...

‘The Harvest’ by Teri Skultety

The Society
February 10, 2018
Beauty, Poetry
4 Comments
The sparkle on the river, the lights from distant shore, the cold and bitter glitter, the beckoning of more, Is beautiful to look at, ‘tis a pleasing sight to see, like a woman dressed for dinner, in...

‘Those Days and These’ and Other Poetry by Jane Blanchard

The Society
February 9, 2018
Culture, Humor, Poetry
6 Comments
Those Days and These “‘. . . Macbeth does murther sleep.’” —William Shakespeare If only such a villain were __Alone in this regard, The course of human history __Would prove to be less...

‘Between the Trees, Along the Path – Monon Trail, Carmel IN’ by Rosaleen Crowley

The Society
February 8, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
  Between the trees, along the path I hear the woodpecker tap tap tap. Beneath the bridge, cyclists roll through Pedaling and laughing two by two. Friends holding hands, walkers with dogs, A...

‘Flower of Choice’ and Other Poetry by David Watt

The Society
February 7, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry, Short Stories
16 Comments
Flower of Choice On native Australian flowers The wattle bears her gold in early spring As luminescent beads on woody strings, Spreading perfume ‘til the mild air brings Sweetness deep to every living...

‘Cutting Remarks’ by Jennifer Hinders

The Society
February 6, 2018
Humor, Poetry
2 Comments
  How wonderful of God to hold us together, When man is prone to tear us part, Said the surgical student thoughtfully, As he practiced his learned art.   Jennifer Hinders lives outside...

Essay: Unmerited Neglect: A Look at Three Longfellow Poems

The Society
February 5, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Education, Essays, Poetry
5 Comments
By Carter Davis Johnson In a period where American literature was considered peripheral and amateur, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) helped create a national literature to challenge European...

‘The Fall of Jerusalem’ by Ron L. Hodges

The Society
February 4, 2018
Poetry
2 Comments
Jeremiah 52 When Judah rebelled against the Chaldean horde, They sought to gain freedom without help from the Lord, Trusting, instead, in the massive stone of their walls, Like Jericho had before the...

On ‘Hylas and the Nymphs’ Removal from a British Art Museum and Other Poetry by Bruce Dale Wise

The Society
February 3, 2018
Art, Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Poetry
8 Comments
(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Hylas and the Nymphs by Beau Ecs Wilder John William Waterhouse's "Hylas and the Nymphs" must go; enchanting, pretty, water nymphs are far too much to show. Manchester...

‘A Sonnet Riddle’ by Sharon Zhou

The Society
February 3, 2018
Poetry, Riddles
11 Comments
I’m born from a forked tongue’s hissing mutter, An ungrounded half-truth, forceless and tame. Just like a spark struck from flint I shudder At greater forces, a delicate flame, But human speech kindles...

‘The Deer Crossing’ by Ken Allan Dronsfield

The Society
February 2, 2018
Beauty, Poetry
6 Comments
  Sun slowly dipping in the western sky; the winds are light and the pine boughs tossing. From their warm, peaceful beds the meek and shy, walk to the river; time for the crossing. To the fields...

‘A Robin’s Song’ by Connie Phillips

The Society
February 1, 2018
Beauty, Poetry
6 Comments
  A robin should fly south before the snow, With others in the flocks of migrant birds, Quite safe amid this seas’nal ebb and flow— To miss the chance would surely be absurd! Yet some stay on...

2018 Poetry Competition Winners Announced

The Society
February 1, 2018
Poetry, Poetry Contests
8 Comments
First Place ($500 Prize): C.B. Anderson, Massachusetts “Stonewalls Sometimes a Prison Make” “Praise for the Mother of Summer” “Meritocracy” "Verification" Second Place: Adam Sedia, Indiana “At...

‘Thoughts on January 31, 2018’s Complete Lunar Eclipse’ and Other Poetry by Amy Foreman

The Society
January 31, 2018
Poetry
21 Comments
Read about last night's lunar eclipse here. Thoughts on January 31, 2018’s Complete Lunar Eclipse Reflected Glory, full and bright, Transforming inky, blackest night To wonderland of silver-grey, A...

‘The Drunken’ (A Raven Parody) by J. Simon Harris

The Society
January 30, 2018
Humor, Poetry, The Raven
6 Comments
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I wandered, drunk and weary, Over many a quaint and dimlit alley of forgotten doors— While I plodded, barely standing, suddenly I heard a chanting, As of someone softly...

‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’ and Other Poetry by David Whippman

The Society
January 30, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
10 Comments
  The Last Time I Saw Paris You have imagined how it was, I expect: Troy’s famous towers burning, the city wrecked, the lines of weeping captives marched away, the streets strewn with corpses, the...

‘Sort of Old’ and Other Poetry by Heidi Griminger Blanke

The Society
January 29, 2018
Culture, Humor, Poetry
6 Comments
    Sort of Old I take my senior discount at restaurants and stores. I cover up my gray hairs with Clairol reservoirs My bathroom’s filled with potions I slather on my face. AHAs and...

‘At Lincoln’s Tomb’ and Other Poetry by Adam Sedia

The Society
January 28, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Poetry
11 Comments
At Lincoln’s Tomb Springfield, Illinois, 2016 Be glad you cannot rise to life and stand Outside that tomb to die again from shame At Illinois, your home, your prairieland, Transformed, yet quick to...

‘Firing Truman Capote on a Snowy Evening’ by Con Chapman

The Society
January 27, 2018
Culture, Humor, Poetry
9 Comments
Truman Capote was fired from his job as a copy boy for The New Yorker after he angered Robert Frost. Whose kid this is, I do not know, He seems to have a job here, though. He’s irritating, and quite...

Translation of Dante Canzoni ‘Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona’

The Society
January 26, 2018
Beauty, Dante, Poetry, Translation
3 Comments
By David B. Gosselin The nature of the subject matter discussed in Dante Alighieri’s lyric poetry, his canzoni, has been debated time after time, generation after generation. While the Dantisti as they...

Rediscovering Percy Shelley’s Greatest Work: ‘Prometheus Unbound, with Other Poems’

The Society
January 25, 2018
Beauty, Best Poems, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
8 Comments
By Brett Forester Writing but one fine, enduring poem is a remarkable achievement. Writing a book of great poems is an even rarer triumph. Yet in 1820, British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (born...

‘Stone Walls Sometimes a Prison Make’ by C.B. Anderson

The Society
January 24, 2018
Beauty, Human Rights in China, Poetry
5 Comments
  Stone Walls Sometimes a Prison Make What might have happened once in Carolina To folks whose only wish was for some peace Is commonplace within the Wall of China, Where persons are abused without...

‘The Garden of the Gods’ and Other Poetry by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

The Society
January 23, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
2 Comments
  The Garden of the Gods A Cywydd Llosgyrnog When storm clouds hid the Manitou*, They cloaked invaders from his view: Giants* who engendered fright With fearsome height and thundered tread. Their...

‘Perked Coffee’ and Other Poetry by Bob McGinness

The Society
January 22, 2018
Culture, Humor, Poetry
7 Comments
  Perked Coffee Things today are bad and getting worse, examples always seem to us abound: service for consumers seems perverse, and music does not have that vinyl sound. My garden pruners, they...

Translation of the Iliad’s Beginning by J. Simon Harris

The Society
January 21, 2018
Culture, Education, Epic, Homer, Poetry, Translation
7 Comments
Homer’s Iliad I.1-47. Translation in the epic hexameter, the meter of the Greek. Sing of the wrath, my goddess, of Peleus’ son Achilles, doomed and destructive, which gave the Achaeans numberless...

‘The Breaking Season’ by Annabelle Fuller

The Society
January 21, 2018
Beauty, High School Submissions, Poetry
9 Comments
  Lips, soft as velvet, primrose pink, Are rent the blue of bruising ink. They rive and crackle in the cold, Retract in tissue paper folds; Corroded strips as flayed as zinc Teased grey and gaunt,...

‘On Reading Ginsburg’s “Howl”’ and Other Poetry by Gregory Spicer

The Society
January 20, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
13 Comments
  On Reading Ginsburg’s “Howl” Once, I possessed an open mind, Which I assure you was my own. I used it to read Ginsberg’s “Howl” Well, I don’t wish to be unkind But those words seemed...

Review: What Is Shen Yun All About?

The Society
January 19, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Essays, Human Rights in China, Music, Performing Arts, Poetry, Reviews
42 Comments
By Evan Mantyk Advertising for it is everywhere. If you haven’t seen it, you just haven’t been paying attention. A brilliantly colored image depicts a Chinese woman striking an airborne pose. But what is...

‘On President Trump’s First Year in Office’ and Other Poetry by Evan Mantyk

The Society
January 19, 2018
Deconstructing Communism, Humor, Poetry, Riddles
16 Comments
  On President Trump’s First Year in Office An earlier version of this poem was published with an explication in The Epoch Times. In Donald Trump we’ve found a man Who can the tides of time...

‘The Old Westerns’ and Other Poetry by Linda Imbler

The Society
January 18, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
  The Old Westerns No more heroes on horses named Trigger No more rugged, chapped, white hatted figures The bad guys today do not always wear masks At least not the exact kind they did in the...

‘New York Villanelle’ by Michele Herman

The Society
January 17, 2018
Culture, Humor, Poetry, Villanelle
2 Comments
We New Yorkers love our real estate. We measure our bliss by the size of our rooms. We all need a place to park our freight. We apartment hunt on our first date in vacated spaces swept with a broom New...

‘The Oddity’ and Other Poetry by Mark Stevick

The Society
January 16, 2018
Beauty, Humor, Poetry
2 Comments
  The Oddity My pen and me set off to sea but washed up feeling useless; the cadent swell invoked a spell and story of Odysseus. While pen-wrecked there I would not hear those rhythmic words...

‘Dreams as a Child’ and Other Poetry by David Hollywood

The Society
January 15, 2018
Beauty, Poetry
8 Comments
  Dreams as a Child Remember our lives in dreams as a child, When tingled excitement tickled inside, Surging in giggles which shivered our nerves, As hands clasped in joining’s which laughs only...

Essay: The Wit of William Cowper

The Society
January 14, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Humor, Poetry
17 Comments
By James A. Tweedie These days, William Cowper (November 26, 1731 - April 25, 1800) isn’t likely to be found on anyone’s list of “Top Twenty English Poets.” Fifty years after his death, however,...

‘Glacier’ and Other Poetry by Francis Flavin

The Society
January 13, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
6 Comments
  Glacier Sleeping mistress of the land, Whose long repose the ages span, We tread across your fissured gown Until we find in looking down, We can at last discern and trace The chiseled beauty of...

‘To Winter’ by David Gosselin

The Society
January 12, 2018
Beauty, Poetry
17 Comments
When Horae's icy carpets sweep the dale And the heavy boughs shed their frozen tears, The earth is covered with her icy veil And mortals lashed with Time’s cold sneers. Yet let us not run from such...

‘A Great Divide’ and Other Poetry by Joe Tessitore

The Society
January 11, 2018
Beauty, Deconstructing Communism, Humor, Poetry
8 Comments
  A Great Divide "...to form a more perfect union" I walk to the edge of a great divide and I try to talk with the other side but they do not reciprocate they tell me that I'm filled with hate I...

‘The Night When Heaven Cried’ by Sam Gilliland

The Society
January 10, 2018
Beauty, Poetry
19 Comments
  I have been here before, when heaven cried, All my love and longing locked up inside, Where the green grass glowed in the falling rain, So why have I come to this place again? To the place where...

‘The Filtering of English in Iran’ and Other Poetry by Bruce Dale Wise

The Society
January 9, 2018
Culture, Human Rights in China, Poetry
4 Comments
(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) The Filtering of English in Iran by Delir Ecwabeus "...nor did anything terrify the people so much as those encomiums on his Majesty's mercy..." -Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's...
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