Best Poems

. The Best Poems of 2025: Winners of the 14th Annual SCP International Poetry Competition Judges C.B. Anderson, Susan Jarvis Bryant, Margaret Coats,  Evan Mantyk, Reid McGrath, Patricia Rogers Crozier, Joseph S. Salemi, Adam Sedia, James A. Tweedie, Brian Yapko Based on the poems, all written in 2025, excluding poems by judges,...

. The Best Haiku of 2025 The Winner and Runners-Up of the Society of Classical Poets 2025 Haiku Competition Judged by J. Thomas Rimer and Margaret Coats (see their remarks below) See all entries here . COMPETITION WINNER Pine shadow stretchesA spine on the grassy fieldUnobtrusively —Rifka Kaplan-Peck . .s HIGH DISTINCTION . aloha print...

. The Best Poems of 2024: Winners of the 13th Annual SCP International Poetry Competition Judges C.B. Anderson, Susan Jarvis Bryant, Margaret Coats,  Evan Mantyk, Reid McGrath, James Sale, Joseph S. Salemi, Adam Sedia, James A. Tweedie, Brian Yapko Based on the poems, all written in 2024, excluding poems by judges, submitted...

. The Ten Best Poems to Analyze by Adam Sedia The Roman poet Horace famously set forth the twofold purpose of poetry: to teach and to delight. The sheer aesthetic and imaginative language of poetry is often on its own enough to delight, but in analyzing the poem teaching and...

10 Poems on Builders & Buildings by Michael Curtis . Temples and architects, builders and buildings are like poets and poems, each creates rooms, stanzas, within which we and our ideas have life. Sometimes, a poem is inscribed upon a stylobate, column, or entablature. Sometimes the poem is a dedication,...

. The Best Poems of 2023: Winners of the 12th Annual SCP International Poetry Competition Judges Joseph S. Salemi, James Sale, Evan Mantyk, Sally Cook, James A. Tweedie, Susan Jarvis Bryant, Adam Sedia, C.B. Anderson, Reid McGrath Based on the poems, all written in 2023, excluding poems by judges, submitted...

. The 10 Best Poems of Emily Dickinson by Monika Cooper Being presented with an Emily Dickinson poem is like getting a telegram from a strange planet: our own. There may not be any words you don’t know. But she has an idiosyncratic way of putting words together and of...

. . Poetry for Children by Shaun C. Duncan . To speak of poetry for children might appear redundant at first. With rhymed and metered poetry hounded out of every "respectable" corner of the literary establishment these days, it sometimes seems that children's literature might be the last redoubt of...

. 10 Great Poems for Teaching in High School Classrooms by James Sale . 1. Language with a Twist . I Saw a Peacock… I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail I saw a blazing comet drop down hail I saw a Cloud with Ivy circled round I saw...

. Are you looking for a good poem to read at your Christmas party or gathering? Is it a more serious or light-hearted event? Christmas poems come in a great variety of shapes and sizes. They can be short or quite long, such poet Talbot Hook's adaptation of Dickens' A...

. 10 Best Poems for Funerals by Susan Jarvis Bryant The right poem at a funeral service can make that final farewell extra special, but choosing the right one is not an easy task. I have chosen the poems below for their beauty and their variety, which is why they...

. The 23 Best Haiku of 2023 Winner and Runners-up of the Society of Classical Poets 2023 Haiku Competition Judged by J. Thomas Rimer and Margaret Coats (see their remarks below) See all entrants here. . COMPETITION WINNER . . . Swallow, an arrow bursts across the burnished blue I cannot...

. The 10 Best Love Poems of 2022 If you are more of an academic poetry lover who stills enjoy Shakespeare’s love sonnets now and again, then the list for you of the 10 Greatest Love Poems Ever Written is recommended. But, if you find the language of the Renaissance half a...

The Best Poems of 2022: Winners of the 11th Annual SCP International Poetry Competition Judges Joseph S. Salemi, James Sale, Evan Mantyk Past First Place Winners James A. Tweedie (2021) Susan Jarvis Bryant (2020) Joseph Charles MacKenzie (2019) Adam Sedia (2018) C.B. Anderson (2017) James Sale (2016) Ron L. Hodges...

The Best Poems of 2021: Winners of the 10th Annual International SCP Poetry Competition JudgesJoseph S. SalemiJames SaleEvan Mantyk Past First Place Winners Susan Jarvis Bryant (2020)Joseph Charles MacKenzie (2019) Adam Sedia (2018) C.B. Anderson (2017) James Sale (2016) Ron L. Hodges (2015)Reid McGrath (2014)Bruce Dale Wise (2013)Alan Nordstrom (2012) Based...

. The 10 Best Love Poems of 2021 What makes a great love poem? Love is such an emotionally charged topic that the answers to that question are going to vary tremendously depending on who you ask. But all the same, coming up with a good love poem can be...

Winner and Runners-up of the Society of Classical Poets 2021 Haiku Competition Judged by Margaret Coats (see her remarks below) See all entrants here. . WINNER . Fog enshrouds the nightWoven in the heavy mistA thread of fireflies ---Joe Tessitore . . RUNNERS-UP in seasonal order . Spring in the hedgerowsMagpies...

The Best Poems of 2020: Winners of the 9th Annual International SCP Poetry Competition JudgesJoseph S. SalemiJames SaleEvan Mantyk Past First Place Winners Joseph Charles MacKenzie (2019) Adam Sedia (2018) C.B. Anderson (2017) James Sale (2016) Ron L. Hodges (2015), Reid McGrath (2014), Bruce Dale Wise (2013)Alan Nordstrom (2012) Based on...

Winner and Runners-up of The Society of Classical Poets 2020 Haiku Competition Judged by Mike Bryant and Susan Jarvis Bryant See all entrants here.   Thunder-bellied clouds Move slow over heathered hills, Pregnant with June’s rain ---Savannah Leahy, Competition Winner   Sixteen Runners Up   With soft clicks and clucks,...

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 Shakespearean because its three quatrains are linked by rhyming couplets. This variant is sometimes treated as the third important...

The Best Poems of 2019: Winners of 8th Annual International SCP Poetry Competition Thank you to everyone who participated! It was an epic year with an incredible number of exceptional poets contributing their talents. As we've said before, everyone who takes part in this competition, which is reviving the precious...

This piece is sponsored by KidSecured by Evan Mantyk and Kathy Brellan Lord Byron was born George Gordon Byron in London on January 22, 1788 and died just 36 years later in 1824. Yet, despite his short time on Earth, he remains known as one of the greatest English poets...

by Charles Eager William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770—the same year as gave us Beethoven, Hegel, and Hölderlin—and died at the age of eighty, rich in the knowledge of his huge accomplishments, in Rydal Mount, Westmorland, in 1850. In those eighty years, Wordsworth brought a unique poetry...

By David B. Gosselin William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564 - died April 23, 1616) is arguably the greatest writer in any language. His poetry is not only one of the most exalted examples of what an immortal sense of creative identity can accomplish, but it is in a sense...

. by David Bellemare Gosselin Today, seldom is Edgar Allan Poe's voice heard as it's drowned out by the popular notions of Poe as some sort of deranged man whose stories and poetry are simply the product of his own sick mind. The myth of Poe as some sort of...

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 August 4, 1792 - died July 8, 1822) published just such a book: Prometheus Unbound, with...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (born February 27, 1807 - died March 24, 1882) was an American poet of the Romantic period. He served as a professor at Harvard University and was an adept linguist, traveling throughout Europe and immersing himself in European culture and poetry, which he emulated in his poetry. Before...

by Annabelle Fuller John Keats (born October 31, 1795 - died February 23, 1821) began life as the son of a stable-owner, and ended it as an unmarried, poor and tuberculosis-ridden young man. Somewhere along the way, he managed to become one of the most beloved poets of the English...

by Dusty Grein The Man The American poet Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, CA. He spent his first 40 years mostly unknown, and it wasn’t until after returning to the United States from England—where he had his first two books of poetry published—near the...

John Milton (Born December 9, 1608 – died November 8, 1674) was an English poet of the late Renaissance period. He is most noted for his epic poem on the fall of Satan and Adam and Eve’s ejection from the Garden of Eden, Paradise Lost, which he composed after having gone...

By Evan Mantyk From The Iliad, Beowulf, and Shakespearean literature in the West to the Chinese Classic of Poetry, the Indian Ramayana, and the Middle Eastern Epic of Gilgamesh, classical poetry is the foundation of literature in almost every culture historically. Today, if you can understand, appreciate, and write a...

by Conrad Geller People are always asking "What are the best love poems?" or "Where can I find something beautiful to say to the woman I love?" or "...to the man I love?" If you are looking for love poems in more modern language, you will probably find the 10...

By Conrad Geller Poets demonstrably know nothing about death since it is, in Hamlet’s phrase, “the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns.” Yet from the Egyptian Book of the Dead some 4,500 years ago to the latest agony in the current issue of your favorite literary journal, bards...

by Reid McGrath I forewarn you that these are the 10 greatest English Sonnets addressed to or concerning other poets and are not even the 10 greatest short poems concerning other poets. There are innumerable other short poems addressed to other poets which are wonderful and remarkable, from Ezra Pound’s...

Updated: April 26, 2024 10 Greatest Poems Ever Written An Ambitious "Best Poems" List Limited to Poems Originally Written in English and of 50 Lines or Less by Evan Mantyk What is poetry? What is great poetry? The poems below answer these questions. From least greatest (10) to greatest greatest...

The American poet Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, CA. He spent his first 40 years mostly unknown, and it wasn’t until after returning to the United States from England—where he had his first two books of poetry published—near the beginning of the first World...