The Daily Poem

Sean Johnson's "How many beards gild the lapses of time"

01 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a hirsute parody of a much better poem. Sorry in advance. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this wit...

Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard's "One morn I left him in his bed"

30 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the 19th century, poems about the loss of children became a little genre of their own. Today’s poem is a decidedly uncharacteristic example of th...

Seamus Heaney's "Poem"

27 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem answers the question you never thought to ask: what do a poem, a barnyard, and a marriage have in common? Happy reading. This is a publ...

Rainer Maria Rilke's "Annunciation to Mary"

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, Rilke imagines the Annunciation from Gabriel’s perspective. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss th...

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's "Dandelions"

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem wonders what it means to recognize and appreciate a gift. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with o...

Naomi Shihab Nye's "My Uncle’s Favorite Coffee Shop"

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem contemplates the ways and “why”s of saying nothing, before culminating in a shattering pun on “nothing.” Happy reading. This is...

W. H. Auden's "Funeral Blues"

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem began its life as a bit of black humor, but lives on as a raw and relatable expression of real grief. Happy reading. This is a public e...

Thomas Hardy's "During Wind and Rain"

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem juxtaposes scenes of summer warmth to scenes of torrential bluster with a seamlessness that would make the best film editor jealous. Ha...

William Carlos Williams' "Love Song"

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem captures the agonies and ecstacies of thinking about the absent beloved. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to disc...

Rhina P. Espaillat’s “Butchering”

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem employs an image worthy of Homer to touch the stark reality of a mother’s intuition. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'...

Beowulf prepares for battle

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a selection from the Old English, Beowulf, translated by R. M. Liuzza. In these lines, Beowulf prepares for a harrowing showdown wit...

T. S. Eliot's "Macavity: The Mystery Cat"

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem answers the question: if cats are the animal world’s “Napoleon of crime,” who is the cat world’s “Napoleon of crime?” Happy...

Robert Graves' Proem to The Iliad

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem comes from Graves’ verse/prose rendering of Homer’s Iliad, The Anger of Achilles, and highlights the inglorious causes of the Troja...

Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth"

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a sonnet for a war-torn world with a collapsing center. “…As the oldest of four children born in rapid succession, Wilfred devel...

Wendy Cope's "Men and Their Boring Arguments"

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem goes out to all of the women who have been stuck between two pugilistic men at a dinner party. Happy reading. This is a public episode....

Anna Kamienska's "On the Threshold of the Poem"

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem asks: “What happens inside a poem?” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers o...

Charles Lamb's "Cleanliness"

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a seemingly innocuous enjoinder to handwashing that nevertheless invites a deeper inspection. Happy reading. This is a public episod...

Friedrich von Schiller's "Light and Warmth"

20 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Anyone with children can recognize the degree to which we enter this life “Warm with the noble vows of youth,/Hallowing [one’s] true arm to the tr...

T. S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday (III)"

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a selection from Eliot’s profound contemplation of conversion and repentance. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd li...

Thomas Campion's "When to Her Lute Corinna Sings"

16 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, the composer-poet identifies with an object he knows inside and out. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to disc...

Aileen Fisher's "I Like It When It’s Mizzly"

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is pure language joy. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bo...

Marianne Moore's "No Swan So Fine"

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem pits art against reality, with the French monarchy as the only clear loser. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to d...

Robert Frost's "Not to Keep"

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

If Robert Frost were a musician, today’s poem might be a B-side to one of his better-known poems. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd ...

Lucille Clifton’s “blessing the boats”

06 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“may you kiss / the wind then turn from it” Today’s poem is a benediction for boats and, maybe, a lot of other things. Happy reading. This is a ...

Pablo Neruda's "Ode to My Socks"

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a contemplation of sometimes-essential footwear that blossoms unexpectedly into a proverb on utility and beauty. Happy reading. This...

William Stafford's "A Message from the Wanderer"

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“That’s the way everything in the world is waiting.” Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribe...

F. S. Flint's "London, my beautiful"

30 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem falls somewhere in the middle of a Venn diagram of haiku and English ode. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to dis...

Scott Cairns' "Idiot Psalm 12"

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a song of (sometimes) hidden nearness. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers...

Matthew Arnold's "The Buried Life"

26 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a frank examination of words and their paradoxical power to create and destroy intimacy, bringing forth the deepest self or walling ...

Jane Taylor's "Twinkle, twinkle, little star"

23 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem has taken on a life of its own; we return, for a moment, to its humble beginnings. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd li...

Dylan Thomas' "Prologue"

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, unusual in its structure and rhyme, turned out to be more of an epilogue: Thomas composed it for inclusion in his Collected Poems, no ...

Wendell Berry's "Sabbath IV, 1996"

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

I may be the only other man who has had some version of the cold-night-existential experience described in today’s poem, but I doubt it. Happy readi...

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Feast”

17 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is one in which “increase of appetite grows by what it feeds on” (or so she says). Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you...

William Wordsworth's "Character of the Happy Warrior"

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

“Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he/That every man in arms should wish to be?” In today’s poem, Wordsworth asks unfamiliar questions. Happy rea...

William Blake's "The Ecchoing Green"

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a snapshot of a lost world. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acc...

Alfred Noyes' "Daddy Fell Into the Pond"

09 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem reminds us of a father’s value. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get ...

Paul J. Pastor's "The Oracle"

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem offers a new year’s resolution worth keeping. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subsc...

Philip Appleman’s “To the Garbage Collectors in Bloomington, Indiana, the First Pickup of the New Year”

05 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It’s that time of (new) year again. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to b...

A. A. Milne’s “King John’s Christmas”

02 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As we say farewell to the Christmas season, today’s poem playfully reminds us that the feast is for the good and bad alike. Happy reading. This is ...

Clare Bevan's "Just Doing My Job"

31 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A poem of innocence and experience for the turning of the year. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subs...

Cecil Day-Lewis' "The Christmas Tree"

29 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A merry continuation of Christmas, and happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to ...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Christmas Bells"

25 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Merry Christmas! The Daily Poem will return next week! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to...

Anna Kamienska's "Elijah Widow"

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem intimates that it may be better to receive than to give. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with ot...

Helen Maria Williams' "To Mrs K____, On Her Sending Me an English Christmas Plum-Cake at Paris"

22 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is an ode to the power of holiday baked goods. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscr...

W. H. Auden's "For the Time Being" pt. 5

19 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s episode brings us to the eternal aftermath of Christmas and the end of For the Time Being. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd...

W. H. Auden's "For the Time Being" pt. 4

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s installment, St. Simeon has finally seen the light and humanity struggles against itself. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you...

W. H. Auden's "For the Time Being" pt. 3

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s selections, the shepherds and wise men are the broken fragments of human life being drawn together around the manger. Happy reading. This...

W. H. Auden's "For the Time Being" pt. 2

16 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

More from Auden’s poem–today the full cast of characters is summoned. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with ...

W. H. Auden "For the Time Being" pt. 1

15 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week’s episodes will feature selections from Auden’s lengthy “Christmas Oratorio,” in which he claimed to treat of “a religious event w...

Ted Kooser's "Christmas Mail"

12 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is for all of the mail carriers. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get a...

John Robert Lee's "XIX: I often wonder whether the prodigal son"

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–from Lee’s new book, After Poems, Psalms–offers memory and the psalter as parallel texts for Lectio Divina. Happy reading.Lee’s...

Robert Frost's "Dust of Snow"

08 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Frost is having one of those days. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access ...

Mary Mapes Dodge's "A Song for St. Nicholas"

05 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is an appeal to the jolly giver of gifts. Happy reading!For more St. Nick poems, head over to the St. Nicholas Center. This is a public...

Luci Shaw's "Holding On"

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a tribute to the kind and lovely Luci Shaw, who died earlier this week. The poem–a contemplation of mortality–is a representativ...

John Keats' "In drear nighted December"

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem speaks of speaking the unspeakable, and feeling the un-feelable. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this...

Jane Kenyon's "Let Evening Come"

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Whether your burgeoning inter-holiday malaise needs pruning or a little low-key encouragement, today’s poem (on a Monday, no less!) might be just th...

Dorianne Laux's "A Short History of the Apple"

28 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem goes out as a palate-cleanser for everyone who may have lost their relish for eating after the Thanksgiving holiday. Happy reading. Thi...

Ben Jonson's "Inviting a Friend to Supper"

26 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is just the thing if you need to make any last-minute invitations to Thanksgiving dinner. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If y...

William Matthews' "Onions"

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is the perfect prelude to Thanksgiving–not only by whetting the appetite, but by uncovering the hidden glories of one of the most end...

George Herbert's "Anagram"

21 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, though brief, is arguably “bigger on the inside,” just like its subject. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to...

Archibald MacLeish's "Ars Poetica"

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s one thing to write a poem claiming poetry should show rather than tell; it is another thing entirely for that poem to follow its own advice. Ha...

Robert Burns' "Epistle to a Young Friend"

17 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem (sometimes printed alternatively as “Letter to a Young Friend”), Scotland’s national poet gives life advice with his character...

Emily Dickinson's "I dwell in Possibility"

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a little more (purposefully) enigmatic than most of Dickinson’s verse. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to d...

Robert Hass' "After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa"

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem may be triggering for anyone who has had to endure a vacation they didn’t plan or really even want to go. Happy reading. This is a pu...

John Keats' "To Autumn"

10 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem comes from a young man (he died at 25) whose Spring and Autumn were the same. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to...

Robert Louis Stevenson's "Sing me a Song of a Lad that is Gone"

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem sings of one of the most painful and irremediable forms of nostalgia. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss...

George Starbuck's "Sonnet with a Different Letter at the End of Every Line"

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a “row of perfect rhymes” and an absolute delight. Happy reading.You can find the text of the poem here.George Starbuck was born...

Robert Frost's "My November Guest"

03 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

November mood. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit da...

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' "Lemon Pie"

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is about something very very spooky–a tough crust. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other ...

Seamus Heaney's "Follower"

29 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem reminds us that we are destined to become the parents of our parents. (I also dedicate it to a child who makes me feel better about tha...

Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Spring and Fall"

27 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why do we hate change? Today’s poem hazards a guess. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers o...

Ogden Nash's "A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty"

24 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem may be one of the most poem-y poems Nash ever wrote. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other ...

Wendell Berry's "Sabbath Poem III, 1994"

22 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem Berry draws King Lear into his sabbath reflections. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with othe...

R. S. Thomas' "The Fisherman"

20 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem typifies the earthy clarity that Welsh poet R. S. Thomas perfected in his verse. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like...

J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Root of the Boot"

17 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem traveled across many years and iterations to finally end up on the tongue of Samwise Gamgee in The Fellowship of the Ring. Happy readin...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is both metrical marvel and moving memorial. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscrib...

Robert Frost's "Birches"

14 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a classical example of Frost’s virtuosity in crafting solid figures–here trees, climbing, etc.–that stubbornly defy allegorizi...

Charles and Mary Lamb's "Feigned Courage"

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem couples a vanished past with a timeless present. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subs...

Ted Kooser's "How to Foretell a Change in the Weather"

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

My old knee injury usually alerts me to changes in the weather, but in today’s poem Kooser offers a litany of other indicators. Happy reading. This ...

Linda Pastan's "The Dogwoods"

06 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a tribute to the seasonal liftings-of-the-veil that reveal to us the beauty undergirding the world. Happy reading. This is a public ...

Lewis Carroll's "You Are Old, Father William"

03 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem: the dignity of old age, and Charles Dodgson as the Victorian Weird Al. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to di...

John Donne's "The Relic"

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

John Donne muses on the ineffability of a chaste love and devises a brilliant (or, at any rate, novel) scheme for reuniting with his loved one in the ...

J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Last of the Old Gods"

29 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tolkien was no believer in the power of geo-political solutions to better the state of man, convinced that his duty was to fight “the long defeat”...

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Fable"

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Emerson spent a lot of time observing the natural world. In today’s poem, he couples that pastime with an art form that specializes in human nature....

Geoffrey Hill's "Genesis"

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, a young Geoffrey Hill is looking for a story to believe in. Happy reading.Known as one of the greatest poets of his generation writ...

Prince Hal's soliloquy from Henry IV, pt.1 ("herein will I imitate the sun")

22 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, Shakespeare puts the theatre in political theater via a candid moment with the future King Henry V in Henry IV pt. 1, Act 1, Scene ...

Phineas Fletcher's "A Litany"

19 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a short meditation on grief made enduringly-famous after Orlando Gibbons set it to music. You can hear an arrangement of that piece ...

Richard Wilbur's "The Writer"

17 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem goes out to 6-year-od girls and their dads. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribe...

Alfred Tennyson's "In Memoriam..." 1-3

15 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, a young Tennyson begins the long wrestling with grief. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribe...

Kenn Nesbitt's "Our Teacher's Not a Zombie"

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem may or may not be based on actual events. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers...

Donald Hall's "An Old Life"

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the latter years of his career and life, Donald Hall became something of an expert on growing old (his essay collections Essays After Eighty and A ...

Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Bean Eaters"

08 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, better is a dinner of herbs where love and memory are, than great riches. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to...

Lucy Maud Montgomery's "A Request"

05 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is channeling Anne Shirley in the autumn of her years. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with othe...

Linda Pastan's "Something About the Trees"

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem takes full advantage of the pantoum form’s naturally-contemplative structure–the repeating lines carrying us back and forth between...

Jane Kenyon's "Three Songs at the End of Summer"

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, Kenyon wrestles with the Solomonic thesis that “the end of a thing is better than its beginning.” Happy reading. This is a publ...

Ogden Nash's "The People Upstairs"

29 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Noisy upstairs neighbors have been consternating mankind for as long as second-floors have existed. The all-too-familiar phenomenon has inspired novel...

Emily Dickinson's "How soft a Caterpillar steps —"

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Philosopher Thomas Nagel famously argued that it is impossible to know what it’s like to be a bat. Dickinson, on the other hand, claims to know what...

Randall Jarrell's "The Lost World"

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is the first half of Randall Jarrell’s reverie about his Los Angeles childhood–and one of the most effortless examples of terza rim...

Rudyard Kipling’s “The Ballad of the Clampherdown”

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is the satirical saga of an anachronistic naval battle. Heave ho and happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss ...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Fire of Drift-wood"

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Nothing feels better and hurts worse than nostalgia. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or ...