Poetry

In an era where free verse often dominates the literary landscape, structure can feel like an act of rebellion. The …

Children dancing in a circle Nursery rhymes are the wallpaper of childhood memory. They loop in the brain, predictable as …

There is a particular silence that falls when a riddle is asked. It is not the silence of emptiness, but …

The image is almost too easy to conjure. The disheveled hair, the erratic schedule, the propensity for public outbursts. We …

Seventeen sounds. That is all it takes to build a world. The haiku does not explain; it shows. It strips …

The written word preserves poetry, but the spoken word breathes life back into it. In a convergence of eras and …

The digital noise of the modern world often drowns out the subtle, rhythmic cadence of formal verse, yet the Society …

Shen Yun dancer striking a dynamic airborne pose against a bright background The advertisements are ubiquitous, coloring the grey sidewalks …

Language is a trickster. We trust our eyes to distinguish the “knight” in iron armor from the “night” of starless …

In the landscape of contemporary verse, the sonnet stands as a testament to disciplined beauty. It is a form that …

Edmund Spenser oil painting Edmund Spenser, the architect of the rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee, often monopolizes the conversation. …

Teaching poetry isn’t just about scanning meter or hunting for metaphors; it is about unlocking a strange, new logic where …

Classical poetry serves as the bedrock of literature across cultures. From the structured verses of the Iliad in the West …

The blank page is often the poet’s first terror. It is a white silence waiting to be broken. But what …

There is a particular kind of silence that falls with snow—a muting of the world that allows the loudest memories …

The clerihew is a creature of delightful clumsiness. Invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley in 1905, this biographical quatrain typically thrives …

The sestina stands as one of the most intricate puzzles in the canon of poetic forms. Born among the troubadours …

The Atmospheric Win The literary landscape has a new focal point this season as Paul A. Freeman secures the top …

There is a certain heaviness to the Canon. The leather-bound spines of Dante, the dusty heft of Milton, the melancholic …

The shadow of Good Friday casts a long silhouette over the human experience. It is a narrative composed of wood …

The literary journey of Susan Jarvis Bryant began long before she put pen to paper in the coastal plains of …

May 12th marks a peculiar spot on the literary calendar. It is the birthday of Edward Lear, the Victorian artist …

From the ancient courts of King Solomon to the misty mountains of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the riddle has always been more …

The death of Edgar Allan Poe remains as fragmented and shadowy as the verses he left behind. Found delirious on …

There is a particular intimidation that comes with William Shakespeare. His iambic pentameter sits like a fortress, unassailable and perfect, …

We do not create from a void. Every syllable we utter carries the fossils of a time before writing, before …

In the quiet, often overlooked corridors of contemporary verse, a detonation occurred mid-January. It was not a whisper of free …

The intersection of pedagogy and poetry often produces a specific kind of voice: one that values structure not as a …

“Select, all ye who write, a subject fit, A subject not too mighty for your wit! Before you lay your …

The season arrives in a flurry of red and gold. It enters our homes in cardboard boxes, wrapped in glossy …

The Weight of the Manuscript For those with a drawer full of polished pages, the Donald Justice Poetry Prize offers …

Scales of Justice representing the balance of a riddle What has no subject one can tell, Yet tries to make …

The year is 353 AD, the ninth year of the Yonghe era. In the lush, mountainous landscape of Shanyin, forty-two …

The convergence of classical form and digital immediacy creates a strange, resonant atmosphere. It is not the marble halls of …

The ear catches the sound before the mind processes the meaning. In the vast, often shadowed catalog of Edgar Allan …

There is a distinct weight to a collection that insists on structure in an era often defined by free verse. …

Literature is rarely a solitary endeavor; it is a conversation across centuries. Sometimes that conversation is a whisper of reverence, …

July arrives with a specific heat, a humidity that clings to the skin like a memory. We mark the fourth …

In an era increasingly dominated by algorithmic generation and digital haste, the persistence of the human hand remains a quiet …

Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown and Adam Sedia In the cacophony of modern literary celebrity, silence is often …

The calendar turns, and the shadow falls again. September 11 is not merely a date; it is a scar on …

The beep of a heart monitor doesn’t sound like a lyre. The antiseptic sting of an ICU in Queens bears …

poems Classical Book Review: A Brief Look at In the beginning, there was only a silent, oily chaos. From this …

In a literary landscape often fractured by the abstract and the formless, the Society of Classical Poets stands as a …

Abbie Farwell Brown, writing in 1902, painted the North not merely as a cardinal direction, but as a realm of …

Poetry often lives quietly on the page, waiting for the mind’s ear to give it breath. The Society of Classical …

Theresa Rodriguez, Sonnets. 2nd edition. Shanti Arts, 2020. Literary critic William Empson famously devoted his attention to the concept of …

The modern literary landscape often feels like a hostile environment for the formalist. For decades, a quiet bias has permeated …

Cultivators of the Earth and Meter A distinct connection often exists between the tending of soil and the pruning of …

Selecting the right words for a funeral service often feels like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. The …

To seek a manual for relationships in the biographies of poets is a fool’s errand; they often knew little of …

The ear is a creature of habit. It craves the steady march of the iamb, that da-DUM da-DUM heartbeat that …