Culture

  We shake our heads, and wonder, “Why?” aloud each time some speeding truck plows through a crowd, or grinning gunman gloats at blood and breath spilled and extinguished by his date with...

A Poet’s Lament - for Charles Southerland, whose brilliant prose style I so painfully tried to imitate and incorporate Nobody cried when poetry died a long, slow death - a final breath, maybe even a last...

White Is A Color, Too It seems strange to have to say this After what that great man taught, Yet I have seen so much amiss That I fear we all forgot. I’m here to share an opinion, Which might be a...

by Lew Icarus Bede The way I dealt with T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland was to write a poem, equally desperate, in that same allusive style—with notes. That unpublished poem Cicadas' Voices, written in the...

by David Watt I recently came across the following “square poem” attributed to Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carrol). Please note that each of the six lines may be read horizontally, or...

Congratulations to contest winners David Whippman (First Place), Randal Burd (Second Place), Theresa Rodriguez (Third Place), and Dusty Thorne (Fourth Place). Mr. Whippman's winning poem is below. Other poems...

A Journey to the East by Evan Mantyk is a historical and poetical fairytale adventure styled after Journey to the West, by Ming Dynasty writer Wu Cheng’en. The first nine chapters of the former may be read...

Bunny by Sally Cook Indebted to a simple spark of life, You missed your chance at Europe’s wondrous door. A conscientious mother and a wife, You danced your dance upon an inland shore. Your simple...

  Write a short poem that begins with one line from any Shakespeare play or poem. The poem should be two to four lines in length. Post it in the comments section below under your full name and general...

Riddle No. 1 So astounding is this part— A major muscle, like your heart. And so astonishing its job, Without it you would be a blob: You couldn’t stand or lift or bend— You’d be a pretzel in...

Irrelephant Within the room there’s something big, But management ignores it. A redwood tree, not tiny twig? Concern they haven’t for it. Though elephant is in the room, It’s on the mouse they...

  Dust to lust to disgust to trust to must to just to dust.     Wm. Walters is a professor of English and linguistics at Rock Valley College, in Rockford, IL. His poems have appeared...

Streamlined In some alternative reality I have remained unmarried, all alone. Would that have been a better way for me - Some Spartan bachelor flat, my comfort zone? Just having to look after number...

  This poem recounts the famous mythical battle, “Centauromachy.” It unfolds in the ancient home of the Lapiths in the region of Thessaly, Greece, a generation or two before the Trojan War. King...

  —from A Gallery of Ethopaths What generates the half-assed views That this dimwit nation spews? Why are persons mindless lemmings? From what source is this stuff stemming? Collapse of...

  For Lori Kaye and Riley Howell I sing in praise of Lori Gilbert Kaye. When racist hatred paid a deadly call On Congregation Chabad of Poway, She stood and “took a bullet for us all.” I sing of...

Epigrams on the Decay within Academia   Liberal Artifice "Progressives," through advanced miseducation, Have shaken our fair land to its foundation.   Gustatory Chiasmus Good taste is...

Read the poetry of the recently departed John Whitworth at Trinacria or The Poetry Archive. by Sally Cook Any ordinary poet composing a landscape piece might easily imagine a dull blue sky, one small white...

An Ode to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 50 Years Later A Poetic Summary of Tom Stoppard’s Award-Winning Play As Seen Through the Eyes of Its Two Leading Characters Says Rosencrantz to Guildenstern, “I...

Venting Be angry, and do not sin. —Ephesians 4.26 We're told a large volcano roils and seethes beneath the soil of Yellowstone. The steam that rises all throughout the park, and wreathes its many...

The Fall of the Fourth Estate a rondeau The Media: the Fourth Estate* Performed disgracefully of late: Delivering the news askew, Allowing certain viewpoints through To fuel the discontent and...

Translation by Matthew Wildermuth Note: In the time of its composition—the first decade of the 13th century—Tristan was already a timeless story of heroism and romance, yet in the hands of a great...

  Birthday Apology William Shakespeare was born April 26, 1564 If all the world’s a stage, and all the men are women, myne eye be true, I gauge; her beard doth need a...

Gallipoli, 1915 There are none left on earth can ever tell At first hand of this mortal waste of war Hard-fought one hundred years ago and more, The stench of death, of corpses left to swell, Their...

  O, curse Zahran Hashim and, yes, Abu Mohammad too, for evil at the Shangri-la and Batticalao, just two, of all those vicious men, who hit Sri Lanka's calm. O, Lord, the people cry aloud; they long...

  Tosspot tulip, withered, bowed and bent; __Severed stem embedded in a vase. __Natal bed a now-forsaken place. __Glory passed; its bloom and beauty spent. Birthed, bedecked, betrothed, by bulb and...

A special holiday post featuring "My Cross" by Joe Tessitore of New York, New York; "Pietá" by Tonya McQuade of Los Gatos, California; "The Pietá" by Michael Charles Maibach of Alexandria, Virginia.

They fell into a numbing sleep Perchance to darkly dream. The kettle for their tea was boiling; The plants were rich and green. They stoned themselves on television And marriage habits bad; Their...

The Cathedral, Burning by T. M. Moore Flames wreck the walls and ceilings that had stood for centuries, scorch ancient timbers, raze to ash that sanctuary made for praise, and cruelly crumble sacred...

  The Life That Is Not Life “I’m getting ready for my trip now.” —Aurelia Brouwers (who chose to be euthanized at age 29 in the Netherlands) You said it was the humane thing to do __For those...

The Society of Classical Poets is holding its first Poetry and Culture Symposium at the Princeton Club in Manhattan, on Monday, June 17, 4 to 8 p.m. Register here. The Symposium will feature prominent poets...

  Today poetic form is ostracised. It’s stifled and suppressed, deemed obsolete; classed as archaic, stuffy and effete, a vestige of the past to be chastised. Make no mistake, the ‘advice’...

  The Canada Geese used to migrate each year. They’d summer up there and spend winter down here. Their nests were in Canada, home of their birth. From there they would fly to the ends of the...

District E for former Greenpeace Activist Patrick Moore by Eric Awesud Ble It always was at night when people simply disappeared. Names were removed from registers; such memories were seared. The...

  The Graeco-Roman historian Lucius Dio Cassius, in his Roman History, describes “dark dinners” that were given by the emperor Domitian to specially chosen guests.   Domitian’s dinners...

Damon’s Song (from Eclogue 8) by Vergil / translation from Latin by Olivia May Translator's note: Vergil’s Eclogue 8 presents a singing competition between two shepherds, Damon and Alphesiboeus, whose...

When we listen To his sweet song, Did he then know It'd live this long? A song that gives To every age, A timeless sense Of history's page. Reminding you, Reminding me, Love songs can...

The Melancholy Snowman Though stony-eyed, I watched the finches glide. The chimney smoke, the builder slide, At night, I gave the constellations words, The House, the Builder, and the Birds. My silver...

  The Water of Life To die Of thirst Is nigh The worst And saddest way A life may end, Since quickened clay Cannot transcend Its fundamental need For fluid that's designed To irrigate and...

April 18, 2019 is Poem in Your Pocket Day, part of National Poetry Month. On this day, people are encouraged to carry a poem in their pockets and share it with others. This day is primarily used by teachers...