The Daily Poem

Robert Service's "The Passing of the Year"

02 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Does today’s poem contain the secret to minimizing regret in 2025? Kinda, sorta. Happy reading.In his youth, Robert Service worked in a shipping off...

Helen Hunt Jackson's "New Year's Morning"

01 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Happy New Year (and Happy Reading) from The Daily Poem!Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to academic Calvinist parents, poet, author, and Native America...

T. S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi"

31 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

…I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.Today’s poem ...

William Butler Yeats' "The Magi"

30 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The repetition of the word “unsatisfied” forms a set of bookends in today’s poem. Inside those bookends: earth, sky, and the riches of this worl...

Cecil Day Lewis' "The Christmas Tree"

27 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“the Christmas Tree is a tree of fable,/A phoenix in evergreen”Cecil Day Lewis tackles the leave-taking of Christmas and the emotional upheaval in...

W. H. Auden's Conclusion to For the Time Being

26 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“To those who have seen/The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,/The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.” This is a pu...

W. H. Auden's "Chorus of Angels"

25 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Christ is born! Merry Christmas and happy reading! Today’s poem is a selection from Auden’s superb long poem, For the Time Being: A Christmas Orat...

J. R. R. Tolkien's "Noel"

24 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

J. R. R. Tolkien loved Christmas–we can find ample proof of this in his Letters From Father Christmas, but also in his choosing December 25 as the d...

George Herbert's "Love (III)"

23 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s selection may not be traditionally recognized as a holiday poem, but it interprets the Christmas mystery as well or better than many poems w...

Two Christmas Poems from G. K. Chesterton

20 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poems-“The Inn at the End of the World” and “The House of Christmas”–Chesterton imagines Christmas as a cosmic waystation for w...

Donald Hall's "Christmas Eve in Whitneyville"

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Don’t be fooled by the lack of Dickensian drama: melancholy, materialism, regret, a graveyard–today’s poem is A Christmas Carol for the modern m...

James Merrill's "Christmas Tree"

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s selection is an ideal poem for Advent–a bittersweet shape poem that expresses the “hopes and fears of all the years.”Poet and critic J...

Mary Jo Salter's "Home Movies: A Sort of Ode"

17 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Are home movies the grecian urns of the twentieth century? Today’s poem says, “sort of.”Poet, editor, essayist, playwright, and lyricist Mary Jo...

John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

16 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is, in may ways, the ode of odes. It has inspired volumes upon volumes of poetry and scholarship alike. And yet, it remains nothing mor...

Malcolm Guite's "Launde Abbey on Saint Lucy's Day"

13 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem for St. Lucy’s day is a remembrance of a light “too bright for our infirm delight” dawning in the deepest darkness of the year. T...

Christina Rossetti's "A Christmas Carol"

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–known to many as the musical setting, “In the Bleak Midwinter”–contemplates unprecedented act of loves in the darkest days of t...

Ezra Pound's "The White Stag"

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ezra Pound had his own complicated relationship with fame, exercising a profound influence upon 20th-century literature but being tried for treason in...

Emily Dickinson's "In this short Life that only lasts an hour"

10 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today is the birthday of Emily Dickinson, and to mark the occasion we have selected a poem that manages to sum up the entire paradox of the human cond...

Mark Strand's "The New Poetry Handbook"

09 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Strand was born on Canada’s Prince Edward Island on April 11, 1934. He received a BA from Antioch College in Ohio in 1957 and attended Yale Uni...

Malcolm Guite's "St. Nicholas"

06 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem pays tribute to the great lover of children and the poor, whose day serves as a festive waystation on the journey to Christmas. Happy r...

William Carlos Williams' "The Hunters in the Snow"

05 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem from Williams’ late collection, Pictures from Brueghel, is an ekphrasis on the painting by the same name, and a lesson in disciplined...

Anne Bradstreet's "Verses upon the Burning of our House"

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“We only live, only suspire/ Consumed by either fire or fire.”…are not lines from today’s poem, but one gets the feeling Bradstreet understood...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Snow-Flakes"

03 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

New-fallen snow can be a kind of blank canvas for the poet. In yesterday’s poem, Stevenson wrote over it in whimsical metaphor and simile; in today’...

Robert Louis Stevenson's "Winter-Time"

02 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a master-class in elementary poetic instruction. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other s...

Craig Arnold's "Meditation on a Grapefruit"

29 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Craig Arnold, born November 16, 1967 was an American poet and professor. His first book of poems, Shells (1999), was selected by W.S. Merwin for the Y...

Anna Kamieńska's "Small Things"

28 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Anna Kamienska was a poet, translator, critic, essayist, and editor. She published numerous collections of her own work and translated poetry from sev...

Jacqueline Woodson's "lessons"

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem punctuates the precious value of time spent with family around food. Happy reading.Jacqueline Woodson received a 2023 Guggenheim Found...

Blaise Cendrars' "Menus"

26 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes a list is much more than a list. Happy reading.Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961) was the pseudonym of Frédéric Sauser, the Swiss son of a Fren...

Bill Holm's "Bread Soup: An Old Icelandic Recipe"

25 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem opens a week of poetry about food. Happy eating reading.Bill Holm was born in 1943 on a farm outside Minneota, Minnesota. He received a...

James Matthew Wilson's "Agricola: A Song for Planting

22 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, from Wilson’s 2018 The Hanging God, takes a candid look at all the ways we overestimate, misunderstand, misrepresent, and undervalue...

Wendell Berry's "The Thought of Something Else"

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, from Berry’s 1969 collection, Openings, doubles as a tribute to one of the loveliest and homiest bookstores in the world. Happy read...

John Masefield's "Cargoes"

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem evokes entire worlds of vivid images and complex emotions with little more than a carefully-crafted list. Happy reading. This is a publ...

Emily Dickinson's "I fear a Man of frugal Speech"

19 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem was written by Dickinson when she was thirty-three and old enough to know. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to di...

William Blake's "The Tyger"

18 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, one of English literature’s most extracted and anthologized, is still best appreciated when read in light of the momentous collectio...

Jessica Greenbaum's "A Poem for S."

15 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is also a poem for “ABC”–which is to say, it’s a brilliantly executed example of the alphabetic form known as the abecedarian. ...

Rhina P. Espaillat's "Changeling"

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rhina P. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. After Espaillat’s great-uncle opposed the regime, h...

Sylvia Plath's "Gold Mouths Cry"

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, Plath (who died at 30) contrasts the transience of youth and nature with the seeming permanence of art and artifice. (I even make t...

from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Hiawatha's Wooing"

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a selection from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s American epic, The Song of Hiawatha. The passage is structured beautifully so that t...

Charles Wolfe's "The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna"

11 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today's poem is an enduring memorial for a hastily interred hero. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or ge...

Kenneth Grahame's "A Song of Mr. Toad"

08 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kenneth Grahame (8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) is best remembered for the classic of children's literature The Wind in the Willows (1908). Scottish by...

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "A Common Inference"

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) wrote fiction and nonfiction works including several collections of poetry and her most famous short story, “Th...

Robert Morgan's "Bellrope"

06 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“The line through the hole in the dark…trembling/with its high connections.”Robert Morgan (born 1944) is an American poet, short story writer, n...

Gwendolyn Brooks' "First fight. Then fiddle."

05 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is about politics (but this, too, shall pass). Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscr...

Thomas Hardy's "The Shadow on the Stone"

05 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a reluctant reckoning with the present absence created by grief. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other ...

Luci Shaw's "Judas, Peter"

01 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Luci Shaw was born in 1928 in London, England, and has lived in Canada, Australia and the U.S.A. A graduate of Wheaton College, she became co-founder ...

Jonathan Swift's "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed"

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, while everyone else is dressing up to become something terrible, the acerbic Jonathan Swift gives us a domestic horror story in rev...

Kenn Nesbitt's "Halloween Party"

30 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is the stuff real nightmares are made of. Happy reading.Nesbitt’s poetry for children is “irrepressible, unpredictable, and raucous...

William Shakespeare's "Advice to Laertes" (from Hamlet I.3)

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is some of the greatest ironic advice ever offered on the stage–do as Polonius says, not as he does, and you’ll be just fine. Happy...

Bob Hicok's "O My Pa-Pa"

28 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Bob Hicok was born in 1960 in Michigan and worked for many years in the automotive die industry. A published poet long before he earned his MFA, Hicok...

J. R. R. Tolkien's "When winter first begins to bite"

25 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem commemorates the Council of Elrond, testifies to the love (and fussiness) of hobbits, and even boasts a possible Shakespearean connecti...

Henry Taylor's "Somewhere Along the Way"

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Poet and translator Henry Taylor was born in Lincoln, Virginia on June 21, 1942. He earned a BA from the University of Virginia and an MA from Hollins...

Amy Lowell's "Trades"

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a particularly novel example of an ancient writerly tradition: writing about how hard it is to write. Happy reading.On February 9, 1...

Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Heaven-Haven"

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, subtitled “a nun takes the veil,” is one of Hopkins’ earliest surviving works. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd...

Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat"

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Though its author remained otherwise undistinguished, today's poem–with all its ecstasy, agony, and irony–has become almost as essential to the Am...

Billy Collins' "Shoveling Snow With Buddha"

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is an appreciation of little things. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or g...

James Whitcomb Riley's "When the Frost is on the Punkin"

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem celebrates the crisp, cool days of early Autumn as the most hospitable season of the year. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If ...

John Masefield's "Laugh and Be Merry"

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The world-wandering John Masefield waxes Solomonic in today’s poem. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with othe...

Donald Hall's "My Son, My Executioner"

15 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is for everyone who knows that children keep you young, but also know how old you feel while it’s happening.Hall, taken aback by the ...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Sonnet: On Receiving a Letter Informing Me of the Birth of a Son"

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The title of today’s poem is a mouthful, but it is fittingly emblematic of the poet’s full heart. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you...

Ben Jonson's "On My First Sonne"

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Never have rhyming couplets been so full of pathos as in today’s poem, where they symbolize the bond between father and son, tragically cut short. T...

John Keats' "To Autumn"

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If pumpkin-spice-everything or the sea of puffy vests and Ugg boots at the cider stand are getting you down, let today’s poem remind you of all that...

David McCord's "Mr. Macklin's Jack O'Lantern"

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem offers a folksy look at the subtleties of terror. Happy reading.David Thompson Watson McCord was born on December 15, 1897, in New York...

Ogden Nash's "A Word to Husbands"

08 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem offers a recipe for domestic bliss. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or ge...

Walter Savage Landor's "To Robert Browning"

08 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Though we remember Browning far more readily than we do Landor, this poem dates from a period when their fortunes were reversed and the latter was eag...

J. R. R. Tolkien's "Mythopoeia"

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a defense of myths and myth-making, inspired by an argument with C. S. Lewis. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like...

R. S. Thomas' "Poetry for Supper"

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ronald Stuart Thomas (29 March 1913 – 25 September 2000), published as R. S. Thomas, was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest noted for nationalism, spi...

Dorothy Parker's "The Trifler"

02 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet and writer of fiction, plays and screenplays based in New York...

Louis Untermeyer's "A Man"

01 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem offers a needful portrait of ‘manly talk.’ Happy reading.Louis Untermeyer was the author, editor or compiler, and translator of mor...

William Butler Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium"

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is one of the most-discussed pieces of twentieth-century verse and, love it or hate it, features one of literature’s best extended me...

Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If the strained relationship between science and Romanticism had an anthem, it might be today’s poem. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If yo...

Matthew Arnold's "Shakespeare"

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem demonstrates that, unlike Arnold’s sideburns, loving the Bard never goes out of style. Although remembered now for his elegantly argu...

James Wright's "A Blessing"

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

James Arlington Wright was born on December 13, 1927, in Martins Ferry, Ohio. His father worked for fifty years at a glass factory, and his mother lef...

Wendy Cope's "Emily Dickinson"

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, from the delightfully clever Wendy Cope, epitomizes the rare and complicated light verse form: the double-dactyl.Wendy Cope was raised...

Donald Hall's "The Baseball Players"

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is for all those already wondering what they will do when the baseball season ends next month. Happy reading. This is a public episode....

Richard Wilbur's "Advice to a Prophet"

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Wilbur was born in New York City on March 1, 1921 and studied at Amherst College before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. He later...

Countee Cullen's "Yet Do I Marvel"

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cullen’s exact birthplace is unknown, but in 1918, at the age of 15, Countee LeRoy was adopted by Reverend Frederick A. Cullen, the minster to the l...

Samuel Johnson's "On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet"

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, the inimitably magnanimous Dr. Johnson eulogizes the man of “The single talent well employed.” Happy birthday to the good docto...

Lear and Cordelia ("Come, let's away to prison")

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a passage of blank verse from Act 5, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s King Lear. In the action of the play the scene is a prelude to trage...

A. A. Milne's "Us Two"

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Some Mondays call for a poem that is uncomplicated and perfectly delightful–and Milne never disappoints. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If...

Rudyard Kipling's "The Roman Centurion's Song"

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in Britis...

Ted Kooser's "A Happy Birthday"

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There comes a point in every life when “birthday” goes from meaning "pizza party” to meaning “memento mori.” Today’s poem goes out to ever...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam: 27"

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today the age-old question of loss and grief is answered…by the man who raised it in the first place. This is a public episode. If you'd like to dis...

Alice Dunbar-Nelson's "I Sit and Sew"

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nelson is likely best known for her literary output as a poet. She regularly published in Opportunity and Crisis magazines between 1917 and 1928. Her ...

Dorianne Laux's "I Dare You"

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The author of several collections of poetry–most recently Life on Earth–Dorianne Laux was the recipient of the Oregon Book Award and a finalist fo...

John Donne's "Resurrection"

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–#6 in Donne’s La Corona sonnet cycle–is an ideal consummation for many of the themes introduced in this week’s selections. Now ...

John Donne's "Divine Meditation 10: 'Death be not proud...'"

05 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, Donne’s best-known poem, but maybe not his last word on death. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with ot...

John Donne's "Divine Meditation 7: 'At the round earth's imagined corners...'"

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem dramatizes Donne’s inner turmoil and conflicting desires, but is not without hope. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd ...

John Donne's "Temple"

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s Holy Sonnet is the fourth in Donne’s underrated (if a poet as great as Donne can have underrated work) sonnet cycle, La Corona. The title ...

John Donne's "Divine Meditation 1"

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today marks the beginning of a week of Donne’s “Holy Sonnets” (interpreted generously to also include selections from his sonnet cycle, “La Co...

Scott Cairns' "Change Your Life"

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, one of our favorite living poets asks questions about one of our favorite poems. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to disc...

Thomas Merton's "The Quickening Of St. John The Baptist"

29 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem Thomas Merton, 20th-century author and mystic, comes to an understanding of his monastic vocation through a contemplation of John th...

Ted Hughes' "The Thought-Fox"

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ted Hughes, one of the giants of twentieth-century British poetry, was born in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire. After serving in the Royal Air Force, Hughes at...

Mark Strand's "The Prediction"

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Strand was born on Canada’s Prince Edward Island on April 11, 1934. He received a BA from Antioch College in Ohio in 1957 and attended Yale Uni...

John Keats' "On the Sonnet"

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a meta-reflection on the constraints of poetic form that has something to say about all of life’s formal constraints. Happy readin...

Emily Dickinson's "Wild nights - Wild nights!"

23 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–perfect for a Friday–gives us a less familiar (PG-13) Emily Dickinson, dreaming of letting her hair down. Happy reading. This is a ...

John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a classic staple with Literature teachers for its expressive metaphors; it is a classic staple with me because it’s such a crackin...

Langston Hughes' "Theme For English B"

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem captures one of the universal challenges of education: recognizing the distinctions and distances between all human souls, and then bri...

Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays"

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As the school year begins, today’s poem goes out to all of those everyday saints performing the unseen and unsung acts of love that make life possib...

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, sometimes a portrait of your last wife who died under suspicious circumstances is as good as a confession. Happy(?)...

Even More Limericks

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hopefully five days of limericks has made this week a little lighter and a little brighter. See you next week for more of our regularly programming. T...