“Rock Zealots in my Religion Class” by Joseph Chelius
Joseph Chelius works as an editorial director for a health care communications agency in the suburbs of Philadelphia. His work has appeared in Commonweal, Christianity & Literature, Poetry East, Poet Lore,… Read More
“A Failed Georgic” by Jenna Le
Jenna Le is the author of A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2018), which won 2nd Place in the Elgin Awards. and Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011). She was… Read More
“Simile Illogic” by Jesse Waters
A winner of the River Styx International Poetry Contest, runner-up for the Iowa Review Fiction Prize and Finalist in The Starcherone Prize, the DIAGRAM Innovative Fiction Prize and the Paul Bowles Fiction… Read More
“Snout to Tail” by Robert Donohue
Robert Donohue's poetry has appeared in Measure, The Raintown Review and Better Than Starbucks, among others, The Red Harlem Readers gave his verse play, In One Piece (about Vincent Van Gogh),… Read More
“Achilles Recounts the Sacrifice of Iphigenia” by Louisa Schnaithmann
Louisa Schnaithmann is a poet living in the greater Philadelphia area. Her work has been published in Menacing Hedge, Projector Magazine, Rogue Agent, and Voicemail Poems. Her poem “On the Problem of… Read More
“Fixing Broken Things” by Lynn Levin
Lynn Levin's most recent poetry collection, The Minor Virtues, is listed as one of Spring 2020’s best books by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her previous collections include Miss Plastique, Fair Creatures of… 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
“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
“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
“Halloween” by Chad Abushanab
Chad Abushanab is the author of The Last Visit (Autumn House Press 2019), which won the Donald Justice Poetry Prize. He is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at Texas… Read More
Ernest Hilbert’s “Great Bay Estuary” in The Hopkins Review
Ernest Hilbert is the author of Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, and Caligulan, which was selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize. His fourth collection, Last One… Read More
“Hard-Shell Clams” by Marie Ponsot
"We read such poets because we want to know how a poetic intelligence inhabits the world—or invents it." — William Logan… Read More
“piano after war” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the most beloved and acclaimed American poets of the 20th Century. She was the first black poet to win the Pulitzer Prize, which she received for her collection… Read More
“Man on the Moon” by Stephen Edgar
Stephen Edgar is an Australian poet, editor, and indexer. He is the author of eleven books of poetry, including History of the Day (2009); The Red Sea: New & Selected Poems (2012);… Read More
Ernest Hilbert’s “We Make Mountains So We May Move Them” in Asheville Poetry Review
My poem “We Make Mountains So We May Move Them” appears with two others (“West River Notebook” and “In the Hidden Places”) in the fantastic 25th-anniversary issue of the Asheville Poetry Review,… Read More
“Spring” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
"America has two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay." - Thomas Hardy … Read More
“Chosen by the Lion” by Linda Gregg
Linda Gregg passed away on March 19, 2019. She was the author of several books of poetry, including Too Bright to See (Graywolf Press, 1981), Alma (Random House, 1985), Things and Flesh (Graywolf… Read More
“Donal Óg” by Lady Augusta Gregory
Read an anonymous eighth-century Irish poem translated into English and watch a clip of Sean McClory reciting the poem from John Huston's 1987 film The Dead. … Read More
“For a Coming Extinction” by W.S. Merwin
W.S. Merwin, who passed away at his home in Hawaii on March 15, 2019, was one of the most highly regarded poets in the United States. In his long career, he published… Read More
“Reading James Baldwin on My Lunch Hour” by Brooke Palma
Brooke Palma grew up in Philadelphia and currently lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania. An office manager by day and poet by night, she has been published in The Mad Poets’ Review,… Read More
“A Butt” by Adam Crothers
Adam Crothers was born in Belfast in 1984, and works in a library in Cambridge. His first collection of poems, Several Deer (Carcanet, 2016), won the 2017 Shine/Strong Poetry Award and the… Read More
“Colossus, also called The Upside (Manic Phase)” by Rick Mullin
Heart like a bee hive, mind like a Kasai pagoda, I am Theodore Roosevelt in a Marcus Aurelius onesie, built for the long game, coming any minute over a hill near you.… Read More
“Song: To Celia” by Ben Jonson
Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I’ll not look for wine. The thirst that… Read More
“A Flock Made Flesh” by Daniel Klawitter
Among other things, Daniel Klawitter has been an actor, a labor rights activist, the lead singer/lyricist for the Indie rock band Mining for Rain, and a poetry book reviewer for NewPages.com. His… Read More
“University Hospital, Boston” by Mary Oliver
"Mary Oliver's poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing. Her special gift is to connect us with our sources in the natural world, its beauties and terrors and mysteries… Read More
“Youth Becoming” by Terese Coe
Terese Coe’s poems and translations have appeared in Agenda, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Cincinnati Review, Hopkins Review, The Moth, New American Writing, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry Review, The Stinging Fly, Threepenny Review, and… Read More
“New Year’s Eve” by David Livewell
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
Listen to a Recording of Ernest Hilbert Reading Poetry of the First World War at the Free Library
Ernest Hilbert reads poetry of the First World War at the Philadelphia Free Library to commemorate the centenary of the war’s end: “Channel Firing” by Thomas Hardy, “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke,… Read More