On a recent Friday afternoon, I joined Joe Hoover, S.J., our poetry editor, and James Davis May, the winner of last year’s contest, in a spirited debate to choose the winning poem for the 2025 ...

Reading poetry aloud is an art, a skill that made her Japan national slam poetry champion twice, in 2017 and 2018. Today, she is a board member of the World Poetry Slam Organization. She is also a ...

In one of the opening texts of Nour, an anthology of poetry and imagery by Mustafa, the Canadian poet, singer, songwriter and filmmaker offers a poignant contemplation of his relationship to the ...

So why is it that people who “can’t write poetry” really do stop right there and never write poems? The fear of failure is so huge for poetry. Before we start, we’re thinking about Emily ...

For the past five months, he has been the nation’s most prominent poetry critic, writing a monthly column that uses the Times’ interactive technology to analyze a single poem at a time.

Poetry is the art of language used to convey emotions and experiences. From invoking passion to bringing an audience to a whole new world, poetry is a powerful tool of expression. In honor of ...

“It never really occurred to me to write a poetry book.” That’s how Terese Mason Pierre, the Toronto writer, editor, and workshop leader explains the genesis of her first collection. As poetry editor ...

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t a poet. It doesn’t even matter if you think you don’t like poetry. The first time I went off autopilot, I was in the grocery store. Here’s what came of that.

Hardly any English-language poetry written during successive waves of bubonic plague focused directly on the effects of the disease, for instance, and exceptions often had a purpose external to ...

Jane (Veitzman) Muschenetz, MBA ’06, writes poetry that bridges the gap between science and art. Jane Muschenetz’s poems don’t look like the sonnets you remember studying in high school English.

Swanson recently published her second book of poems. Her poetry is about people, the old and the young, the sick and the dying, and the fleeting moments she observed. It is about the beauty of ...

A version of this story ran in the January / February 2025 issue. Write about the untouchable. Something out of arm’s reach, like freedom, the stars, or you. Write an ode to misfits. A poem of ...