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      Three Denarii or Best Offer: An Easter Poem by James A. Tweedie

      The Society
      April 9, 2023
      Culture, Poetry, Satire
      5 Comments
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    • ‘Let Me Hold the Door’: A Poem by Frank Rable

      The Society
      July 21, 2025
      4
    • A Poem for the 100th Anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial, by Warren Bonham

      The Society
      July 21, 2025
      9
    • ‘The Inclusivity Policy of a British School’: A Poem by Susan Jarvis Bryant

      The Society
      July 20, 2025
      15
    • ‘Don’t Call Me Shirley’ and Other Poetry by Brian Yapko

      The Society
      July 20, 2025
      16
    • ‘On the Epstein Files Debacle’: A Poem by Drilon Bajrami

      The Society
      July 19, 2025
      5
    • ‘One Dumb Mistake’: A Sestina by M.D. Skeen

      The Society
      July 19, 2025
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    • 100 Days of Dante Poetry Contest

      The Society
      December 3, 2021
      Dante, From the Society, Poetry, Poetry Contests
      2 Comments
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    • The Society of Classical Poets 2025 Haiku Competition

      The Society
      June 21, 2025
      207
    • Winners of Friends of Falun Gong 2025 Poetry Competition Announced

      The Society
      May 13, 2025
      1
    • 2025 Friends of Falun Gong Poetry Competition

      The Society
      March 31, 2025
    • The Best Poems of 2024: Winners of SCP International Poetry Competition

      The Society
      February 1, 2025
      28
    • Winners of 2024 SCP International High School Poetry Competition Announced

      The Society
      February 1, 2025
      2
    • The Best Haiku of 2024: Winners of the 2024 SCP Haiku Competition

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      September 29, 2024
      14
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The Society of Classical Poets was founded in New York in July, 2012.

‘Mastering Magic’ and Other Poetry by Mike Bryant

The Society
May 22, 2020
Children's, Culture, Humor, Poetry
20 Comments
  Mastering Magic Set the questing mind on fire with magic, Learn the ancient lore then follow through. Effortlessness must be automatic, Forcing sorcery will never do. Wizardry well done is...

‘Oh, What Is Prayer?’ and Other Poetry by Theresa Rodriguez

The Society
May 21, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
13 Comments
  Oh, What Is Prayer? Oh, what is prayer? Is it a mystery, that bridges earth and heaven in a cry, that reaches to the infinite? A sigh, A groan, a whisper, tears that come to be admixed from faith...
John Keats

Keats in the Time of Coronavirus: An Essay

The Society
May 20, 2020
Beauty, Covid-19, Culture, Essays, Poetry
34 Comments
by Sultana Raza In April 1820, Keats was already aware that he had tuberculosis, and in spring of that year, he was experiencing fever, a bad chest, and lots of anxiety, specially about not being able to...

‘Hummingbird Communion’ and Other Spring Poetry by Susan Jarvis Bryant

The Society
May 20, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Villanelle
54 Comments
Hummingbird Communion I watch them play at dawn of day, as molten gold is splashed their way, on feathers flecked with flashing green and rubies fused in morning’s beam, where sleepers dream and...

William Butler Yeats and the Occult: An Essay by Adam Sedia

The Society
May 19, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Essays, Poetry
29 Comments
Clarity and Obscurity Part III Read Part I: The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared Read Part II: "Concrete" Poetry and the Fall of Metaphor by Adam Sedia Modernism produces obscure poetry...

‘Hippocrene’ by Anissa Nedzel Gage

The Society
May 18, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
6 Comments
  O do not chasten me with tales of fine __Fresh wells of wisdom and of warriors bold, __Or sacred veins of Ethiopian gold, Your more than oracles or muses nine, For I've drunk deep of a more...

‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning (1812-1889) and ‘My Next Duchess’ by Lawrence Jones

The Society
May 17, 2020
Culture, Humor, Poetry
8 Comments
  My Last Duchess The Duke of Ferrara recalls his last wife. by Robert Browning That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now: Fra...

‘The Rats of Kathmandu’: Two Sonnets by Peter Hartley

The Society
May 16, 2020
Culture, Humor, Poetry
17 Comments
  I. The rats infesting Kathmandu Airport Appear to co-exist in peace with man And have, it seems, since local time began, Been treated each like some great Juggernaut. Their teeming numbers...

Ten Great Spenserian or Scottish Sonnets

The Society
May 15, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Love Poems, Poetry
22 Comments
Edmund Spenser by Margaret Coats Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) wrote 121 sonnets of rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee, including 87 in his love sequence Amoretti. The Spenserian sonnet differs from the...

Poetry Challenge: ‘My country used to be… ‘

The Society
May 14, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Poetry, Poetry Challenge, Poetry Contests
51 Comments
  New York poet Joe Tessitore challenges poets to begin a poem with these words:   My country used to be...   Post your poem in the comments section below. (Poems should be...

‘I Loved You…’ by A.S. Pushkin, Translated by Kristina Buric

The Society
May 14, 2020
Culture, Love Poems, Poetry, Translation
1 Comment
I Loved You... I loved you, and I probably still do, and for a while, the feeling may remain, But let my love no longer trouble you... I do not wish to cause you any pain I loved you, and the hopelessness I...

Friends of Falun Gong 2020 Poetry Contest Winners Announced

The Society
May 13, 2020
Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Human Rights in China, Poetry, Poetry Contests, Readings, Video
2 Comments
FIRST PLACE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F96xN0VV7JU The Virus and the Cure by Rob Crisell One hundred years of tyranny, One hundred years of pain and lies. If communists of China win, The...

‘The Pilot’ and Other Poetry by Bruce Dale Wise

The Society
May 12, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
6 Comments
all poems by Bruce Dale Wise   The Pilot by Air Weelbed Suc I saw him flying overhead, a pilot in a plane, and looking down, he gazed upon the anguish and the pain. Although I saw compassion in...

A Reading of “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud (Daffodils)” by William Wordsworth

The Society
May 10, 2020
Beauty, Poetry, Readings, Video
10 Comments
  https://youtu.be/bYg-ITiEEyM   "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud," also known as "Daffodils," the poem by former British Poet Laureate William Wordsworth (1770-1850) read by the President of...

‘The Transatlantic Serpent’s Tale’ and Other Poetry by Glenn Turner

The Society
May 10, 2020
Poetry
9 Comments
  The Transatlantic Serpent’s Tale Do you recall the time when I was born? A time of ferment---Honest Abe was dead. The Civil War had left the country torn, But did not stop the fateful push...

‘Better Stock Than You’ by Beverly Stock, and Other Poetry

The Society
May 9, 2020
Culture, Humor, Poetry
5 Comments
Better Stock Than You after Henry Lawson’s "Prouder Man Than You" by Beverly Stock Your tome of pride be shattered, I’m from better Stock than you. You don’t treat all as equals, And I think...

‘HellWard Canto 11: Poetasters,’ From James Sale’s English Cantos

The Society
May 8, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Epic, Humor, Poetry
12 Comments
The Argument: The Poet, having escaped the HellWard of European and corrupt politicians, emerges into the penultimate HellWard depth where he, with his guide, Dante, meets the Poetasters from America and...

‘Tennyson’ by Don Shook

The Society
May 7, 2020
Culture, Humor, Poetry
1 Comment
  Tennyson thought it better “to have loved and lost, than…” Well, you know the rest. Of course this begs the question most of us can only guess. Is losing ever really good, or is this just...

A Poem Celebrating St. Piran, by Neil Rhind

The Society
May 6, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry, Rhupunt
1 Comment
St. Piran (Feast Day: March 5) A rhupunt Irish heathens, Unbelieving, Strapped poor Piran To a stone then Rolled him over. A cliff! Cut-throats They came to gloat. Though stones don’t...

‘In Praise of Formal Poetry’ by James A. Tweedie

The Society
May 5, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
5 Comments
  In the midst of free-verse critics’ Smug, inchoate analytics __Seasoned with self-righteous pedantry, There are poets who are striving To achieve success reviving __Classical and formal...

Poetry on the CCP Virus (Covid-19), Including Peter Austin Sonnets

The Society
May 4, 2020
Covid-19, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Human Rights in China, Poetry
5 Comments
  Dear Governor, by C.B. Anderson Reopen every workplace, pretty please; Your "cure" has proven worse than the disease. Your lockdown's brought the people to their knees, And now they live in fear...

On Oxford University’s Classics Department Proposing to Drop Homer and Virgil, by Ted Hayes

The Society
May 4, 2020
Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Homer, Poetry
10 Comments
  Oxford "University"? Its preference now: diversity. The Homers, Ovids, Virgils--- Now peanuts for the squirrels! This "school" now gives instruction In Western Civ destruction The classics?...

‘Approaching Storm, Night’ and Other Poems on Spring by Adam Sedia

The Society
May 3, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
2 Comments
  Spring Snow Tyrant Winter reaches __Beyond its frozen tomb, Dares cast its icy mantle __On bud and crocus-bloom. Long it reigned unchallenged __In dark and cold and ice; Thwarted now, it hurls...

A Poem on the Russian Submarine Kursk and Other Poetry by Rod Walford

The Society
May 2, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
7 Comments
Deep Regrets Dedicated to the memory of the 118 men of the Russian submarine Kursk, which exploded and sank in the Barents Sea on August 12th 2000. The protocols of men of power; Agendas passed in...

Three Poems on Spring by C.B. Anderson

The Society
May 1, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
16 Comments
  The Onus of Vernal Duty Surrounding fields and woods unfreeze, The air once more is filled with light, As springtime’s blanket amnesties Dispel the winter’s cheerless night. So long you’ve...

Online SCP Poetry Symposium 2020 – “A Celebration of Meter and Rhyme”

The Society
May 1, 2020
From the Society, Readings, Symposium
8 Comments
Due to the unprecedented circumstances regarding the CCP virus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Symposium has been moved online. The details of the event have been adjusted.   Sunday May 31, 2020 Session 1: 12...

A Sonnet on President Donald J. Trump, by Evan Mantyk

The Society
April 30, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Human Rights in China, Poetry
18 Comments
  Donald J. Trump They laugh at him and sneer as if his lack Of faith in modernism’s unholy gods Can justify each Philistine attack And drown out facts with which they are at odds. Yet from...

‘Human Beings Being Human’ by David L. Hatton

The Society
April 30, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
6 Comments
  It takes patience to learn patience; It takes courage to be brave. One must first find mental freedom To no longer be a slave. Only faith can make us faithful; Truth alone can make us true. Life...

‘Vermont in April’ by T.M. Moore

The Society
April 29, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
10 Comments
  Vermont in April doesn’t seem to know quite how to dress. She thinks she ought to wear bright, flowery things, and yet, she cannot tear herself away from all the clothes that go with winter....

‘Diomedes Speaks’ by James Sale

The Society
April 29, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
4 Comments
We meet Diomedes, the Greek hero of Troy, trapped in a flame with Odysseus in Canto 26 of Dante’s Inferno. Odysseus speaks but Diomedes remains silent. Here, ironically, he speaks through his...

‘Winter’s Breath’ and Other Poetry by Angel L. Villanueva

The Society
April 28, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
4 Comments
  Winter's Breath The sudden chill of winter's sigh Caresses me when autumn flees. My meager warmth she tries to pry, While planting kisses cold and dry; With icy breath she starts to tease. I'm...

A ‘Mock Praise Hymn’ for Zimbabwean Leader Robert Mugabe (1924-2019), by Sheri-Ann O’Shea

The Society
April 27, 2020
Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Humor, Poetry
8 Comments
"Winner: Humanitarian Award" Mugabe’s universally adored. He made his people multi-millionaires--- Zim dollars are the answer to their prayers. Champion of the poor, the sick, the old; A veritable...

‘Eyes Right’ by David Whippman

The Society
April 26, 2020
Beauty, Poetry
5 Comments
  They march in an imaginary parade, All of the dear ones I have ever known, Relatives, friends, impressively arrayed, Saluting them, I stand here all alone. This is no show of military...

Poems on Life During CCP Virus (COVID-19) Lockdown

The Society
April 25, 2020
Covid-19, Culture, Humor, Limerick, Poetry
31 Comments
  The Back-to-Work Protesters Limerick by Mark F. Stone Our minders with power and pensions can rob our hopes, while the Fourth Estate calls us a "mob." They would be less scornful and also more...

‘Beyond His Ken’ and Other Poetry by Peter Austin

The Society
April 25, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
11 Comments
  Beyond His Ken based on a true story The plane was in the skies above Beijing When, let us call her Joy, a stewardess With China Eastern Airlines, saw the ring And heard the heartfelt words, and...

‘Basho’s Frog’ by Conor Kelly

The Society
April 24, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
6 Comments
  That day a dark, vermillion, winter sky, like a Turner water-colour, was seen reflected in an old pond where, nearby, the poet Basho watched a small, unclean and speckled frog jump in the evening...

A Poem for St. George’s Day 2020, by Susan Jarvis Bryant

The Society
April 23, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
32 Comments
  For England & St. George In praise let’s raise our flagons to the conqueror of dragons to the Saint who fought for all he thought was fair. Let’s fly our flags and bellow for that bold,...

‘Golf’ and Other Poetry by Russel Winick

The Society
April 23, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Humor, Poetry
1 Comment
  Golf My friends love golf so much But I do not share the allure. There’re many other ways for me To function like manure.     It’s Love Last night we watched old videos Our...

‘The Statutes of Liberty’ by Martin Hill Ortiz

The Society
April 22, 2020
Beauty, Culture, Poetry
2 Comments
  The statue stands and holds aloft her torch, the Kalahari moon, the Northern Star. A lantern glimmers on a Southern porch; a balefire beacon signals war. These are unbroken shafts of light...

‘Earth Day 2020’ and Other CCP Virus (COVID-19) Poetry

The Society
April 21, 2020
Covid-19, Deconstructing Communism, Human Rights in China, Humor, Poetry, The Environment
12 Comments
Earth Day 2020 Poet's Note: April 22 is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Earth Day is an annual celebration on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for “environmental protection.”...
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