Listen to Christopher LaRosa’s Musical Setting of Ernest Hilbert’s Poem “Kite”
In 2016, Sara Wilkins commissioned composer Christopher LaRosa to write a piece for cello and voice. He selected Ernest Hilbert’s poem “Kite” for the text. The piece has been performed several times,… Read More
Ernest Hilbert Reviews Kathleen Jamie in The Washington Post
I had the pleasure of reviewing Kathleen Jamie's latest colleciton of essays, Surfacing, for The Washington Post newspaper. … Read More
Ernest Hilbert Reviews The Missing Pages: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript from Genocide to Justice by Hegnar Zitlaian Watenpaugh
Illuminated manuscripts, copied by hand and painstakingly adorned with vibrant colors and gold leaf, predate by centuries Gutenberg’s bible, printed around 1450 using moveable metal type. While such manuscripts are acquired by… Read More
Ernest Hilbert Reads with John Wall Barger at Shakespeare & Co.
Come out to hear Ernest Hilbert and John Wall Barger read from their latest books at Shakespeare & Co. near Rittenhouse Square. The event is free and open to the public. Stop… Read More
Ernest Hilbert Profiles Collector and Poet Dana Gioia for Fine Books & Collections Magazine
Many thanks to editor Rebecca Rego Barry at Fine Books & Collections magazine for running my six-page profile of poet and collector Dana Gioia in the new issue. Bob Dylan wound up… Read More
“New Year Poem” by Philip Larkin
"A poetry from which even people who distrust poetry, most people, can take comfort and delight." - X.J. Kennedy … Read More
“Broad and Washington” by Ernest Hilbert
The BU Literary Society was founded as BU Students for Literary Awareness in the fall of 1997, under the leadership of Jennifer Herron. The group's original members meant to publish a magazine… Read More
“Desk Clerk” by R.S. Gwynn
R.S. (Sam) Gwynn did his undergraduate work at Davidson College. He earned an M.A. and an M.F.A. from the University of Arkansas and taught at Lamar University, where he was University Professor… Read More
“A Christmas Sonnet (For One In Doubt)” by Edwin Arlington Robinson
From the publisher: Edwin Arlington Robinson's finely crafted, formal rhythms mirror the tension the poet sees between life's immutable circumstances and humanity's often tragic attempts to exert control. At once dramatic and… Read More
“The Christmas Tree” by C. Day Lewis
C. Day Lewis , born in Ireland in 1904, was Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in May 1972. He published many volumes of poetry, as well as essays, critical studies,… Read More
“Office Party” by Phyllis McGinley
Phyllis McGinley was famous for her light verse and celebration of Suburban, middle class America. She published several books of poetry, including On the Contrary (1934), One More Manhattan (1937), Husbands Are… Read More
“Christmas Eve: A Gloss” by David Livwell
David Livewell grew up in Philadelphia and won the 2012 T.S. Eliot Award for Poetry for Shackamaxon (Truman State University Press). He is now at work on a second collection.… Read More
“Christmas in Black Rock” by Robert Lowell
“I do think free will is sewn into everything we do; you can't cross a street, light a cigarette, drop saccharine in your coffee without really doing it. Yet the possible alternatives… Read More
“Raking” by David Yezzi
David Yezzi’s latest books of poetry are Birds of the Air and Black Sea (both in the Carnegie Mellon Poets Series). His verse play Schnauzer, produced by The Baltimore Poets Theater in… Read More
“Sentenced to Life” by Clive James
The Austrailian poet, critic, and broadcaster Clive James died on Sunday after a long battle with leukaemia. Diagnosed with the terminal illness in 2010, he wrote some of his most acclaimed… Read More
“One Day is there of the Series” by Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest and most distinctive America poets, was born in Amherst, Massachusetts and spent most of her life living there in isolation in her family home. Though… Read More
“Definition of ‘Fool'” by Marly Youmans
Marly Youmans is the author of fifteen books, including this year’s The Book of the Red King— a poetry collection from Phoenicia Publishing, in which “Definition of Fool” appears— and the forthcoming… Read More
“They Call Me Kaiju” and “Dark Matter” by Jesse Waters
Jesse Waters is currently Director of both the Bowers Writers House at Elizabethtown College and the West Chester University Poetry Center. His first collection of poems, Human Resources, was published by… Read More
“Other Women Don’t Tell You” by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach emigrated from Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old. She is the author of The Many Names for Mother, winner the Wick Poetry Prize (Kent… Read More
“Alchemical Meditation” by Daniel Tobin
Daniel Tobin is the author of eight books of poems, Where the World is Made (University Press of New England, 1999), Double Life (Louisiana State University Press, 2004), The Narrows (Four Way… Read More
“Let it Leak! I’m All Aleak Myself”: Ernest Hilbert Reads from Moby-Dick
Join us as we read Herman Melville’s masterpiece Moby-Dick in its entirety over 25 hours, starting on Saturday, November 9 at 2:00 p.m. and reading through Sunday, November 10 at 3:00 p.m.… Read More
“Look Me in the Face Sonnet” by Thomas Devaney
Thomas Devaney is a poet and the author of You Are the Battery (Black Square Editions, 2019) and Getting to Philadelphia (Hanging Loose Press, 2019). He is the producer and co-director the… Read More
“The Metamorphoses of a Vampire” by Charles Baudelaire (Trans. by Donald Justice)
Charles Baudelaire was one of the most influential of all French poets and is best known for his notorious collection Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil). He is sometimes called… Read More
“The Costume Party” by Juliana Gray
Juliana Gray is the author of two acclaimed poetry collections and an associate professor of English at Alfred University.… Read More
“Four Weeks” by Dora Malech
DORA MALECH is the author of four books of poems, including Stet (Princeton University Press, 2018) and the forthcoming Flourish (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in publications that… Read More
“A Vampire in the Age of AIDS” by Frederick Seidel
"The most frightening American poet ever— phallus-man, hangman of political barbarism— Seidel is the poet the twentieth century deserved." - Calvin Bedient, The Boston Review… Read More
“The Walls Speak” by Teow Lim Goh
Teow Lim Goh is the author of Islanders (Conundrum Press, 2016), a volume of poems on the history of Chinese exclusion at the Angel Island Immigration Station. Her work has been featured… Read More
“The Trap” by Jon Stallworthy
Stallworthy started writing poems when he was only seven years old. He was educated at the Dragon School, Rugby School and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize. His… Read More
From the Vault! “His Eyes Blazed with a Sort of Demonaic Fury, and He Suddenly Made a Grab at My Throat”: Top Five Vampires
Thanks to everyone who helped with this list. "Children of the night. What music they make."… Read More
Quincy R. Lehr’s Poem “Getting Worse with Bigger Dicks”Appears in the Latest Installment of Cocytus: A Dark Web Magazine
Quincy R. Lehr's frantic poem of modern angst and ennui, “Getting Worse with Bigger Dicks” appears in the latest installment of Cocytus: A Dark Web Magazine. To visit and read it, simply… Read More