The Daily Poem

Today’s poem is by Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934), an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist , cultural critic , and farmer. [1] Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Land (1981) and The Unsettling of America (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is a...

Today’s poem is by Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013), an Irish poet , playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature . [1] [2] Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his lifetime. American poet...

Today’s poem is by Rita Frances Dove (born August 28, 1952), an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress . She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointmen...

Today’s poem is by Zbigniew Herbert (IPA:  [ˈzbiɡɲɛf ˈxɛrbɛrt] ( listen ); 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998), a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist . He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. [1] [2] While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled Chord of Light was issued in 1956), soon after he voluntarily ceased submitting most of his wor...

Today’s poem is by William James Collins, aka Billy Collins, (born March 22, 1941) is an American poet who served as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. [1] He was a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York , retiring in 2016. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State...

Today’s poem is by Edgar Allan Poe ( né Edgar Poe ; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849), an American writer , poet , author , editor , and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre . He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States, and of American literature . [1] Poe was on...

Today’s poem is by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886), an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry . [2] Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts , into a prominent family with strong ties to its community. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she bri...

Today’s poem is by Philip Arthur Larkin CH CBE FRSL (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985), an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship , was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived , followed by The Whitsun Weddin...

Today’s poem is by Thomas Lux (December 10, 1946 – February 5, 2017), an American poet who held the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and ran Georgia Tech's "Poetry @ Tech" program. [1] [2] He wrote fourteen books of poetry. [3] —Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access t...

Today’s poem is by Seamus Justin Heaney MRIA ( /ˈʃeɪməs ˈhiːni/ ; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013), an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature . [1] [2] Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his life...

Today’s poem is by John Lawrence Ashbery [1] (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) , an American poet and art critic. [2] Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in poetry, the standard tones of the age." [3] Langdon Hammer, chair of the English Department at Yale University , wrote in 2008, "No...

Today’s poem is by Matthea Harvey , the author of five books of poetry— If the Tabloids are True What Are You? , Of Lamb (an illustrated erasure with images by Amy Jean Porter), Modern Life (a finalist for the National Book Critics Cirlcle Award and a New York Times Notable Book), Sad Little Breathing Machine and Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form . She has also published two ch...

Today’s poem is by Theodore J. Kooser (born 25 April 1939) [1] , an American poet . He won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006. [2] Kooser was one of the first poets laureate selected from the Great Plains, [3] and is known for his conversational style of poetry. [4] —bio via Wikipedia This is a public e...

Today’s poem is by Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany FRSL ( /dʌnˈseɪni/ ; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957, usually Lord Dunsany ) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. Over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays appeared in his lifetime, [1] : 29 (I.A.92)  and a modest amount of material was published posthumously. He gained a name in the 1910s as a great writer in...

Today’s poem is by Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997), a British-born naturalised American poet. [3] She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry . Levertov wrote and published 24 books of poetry, and also criticism and translations. She also edited several anthologies. Among her many awards and honours, she received the Shelley Memorial Award , the Rober...

Today’s poem is by Robert Morgan (born 1944), an American poet , short story writer, and novelist. He studied at North Carolina State University as an engineering and mathematics major, transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an English major, graduating in 1965, and completed an MFA degree at the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 1968. He has taught at Cornell U...

Today’s poem is by Mary Jane Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019), an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize . Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild. It is characterised by a sincere wonderment at the impact of natural imagery, conveyed in unadorned language. In 2007, sh...

Today’s poem is by Pablo Neruda ( /nəˈruːdə/ ; [1] Spanish:  [ˈpaβlo neˈɾuða] ( listen ))(born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto ; 12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature . [2] Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics , poli...

Today’s poem is by Thomas Merton OCSO (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968), an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic , poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion . On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and given the name "Father Louis". [1] [2] He was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani , near Bardstown, Kentucky , living there from 1...

Today’s poem is by Donald Andrew Hall Jr. [1] (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018), an American poet, writer, editor and literary critic. He was the author of over 50 books across several genres from children's literature, biography, memoir, essays, and including 22 volumes of verse. Hall was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy , Harvard , and Oxford . [2] Early in his career, he became the firs...

Today’s poem is by Walter Whitman Jr. ( /ˈhwɪtmən/ ; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American history. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse . [1] Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass , first published in 1855...

Today’s poem is by Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887), an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish and Georgist causes. She is remembered for writing the sonnet " The New Colossus ", which was inspired by the Statue of Liberty , in 1883. [1] Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque, installed in 1903, [2] on the pedestal of the Statue...

Today’s poem is by Walter Whitman Jr. ( /ˈhwɪtmən/ ; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American history. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse . [1] Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass , first published in 1855...

Today’s poem is Thomas Lux (December 10, 1946 – February 5, 2017), an American poet who held the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and ran Georgia Tech's "Poetry @ Tech" program. [1] [2] He wrote fourteen books of poetry. [3] —Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to b...

Today’s poem is by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886), an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry . [2] Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, only ten poems and a letter were published during her lifetime. After her younger sister Lavinia discovered the collection of nearly 1800 poems...