The Daily Poem

More Limericks

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s limericks are all about unexpected consequences. Happy reading.Children’s poet and educator Constance Levy earned degrees at Washington Un...

Beard Limericks

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Things are getting hairy. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episode...

Two "Practical" Limericks

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

While limericks can be plenty nonsensical, today’s are downright sensible–especially that of Leigh Mercer, famous for his mathematical wordplay an...

Edward Lear's "There was an Old Man of Thermopylæ"

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s another weekly gimmerick here on the Daily Poem. Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, au...

Nazim Hikmet's "On Living"

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nâzim Hikmet was born on January 15, 1902, in Salonika, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloníki, Greece), where his father served in the Foreign Service. H...

Billy Collins' "Forgetfulness"

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Maybe you remember the experiences recounted in today’s poem—maybe you don’t. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss ...

T. S. Eliot's "Old Deuteronomy"

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

T. S. Eliot is remembered as a great poet, but he is surpassingly underrated as a namer of cats. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd lik...

Robert Penn Warren's "Bearded Oaks"

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Warren (1905-1989) was born in Kentucky and educated at Vanderbilt University and the University of California, Berkeley. Though perhaps best known fo...

Bruce Lansky's "Confession"

05 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Bruce Lansky is an internationally known poet and anthologist. He has a passion for getting children excited about reading and writing poetry. Lansky’...

Two by Ogden Nash

02 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poems from Ogden Nash, “The Ant” and “The Ostrich,” are the perfect marriage of wit and attention. Happy reading. This is a public e...

Oliver Herford's "The Platypus"

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Oliver Herford (2 December 1860 – 5 July 1935), regarded as “the American Oscar Wilde,” was an Anglo-American writer, artist, and illustrator kn...

Gerard Manley Hopkins' "As Kingfishers Catch Fire"

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem begins with humble beasts but wings its way to the loftiest mysteries of existence. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd l...

Margaret Wise Brown's "Wild Black Crows"

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Margaret Wise Brown (May 23, 1910 – November 13, 1952) was an American writer of children's books, including Goodnight Moon (1947) and The Runaway B...

Katherine Craster's "The Centipede's Dilemma"

29 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, written in 1871, actually gave the name to the since-codified psychological phenomenon known as the “centipede effect” or “centi...

Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Morning, Midday, and Evening Sacrifice"

26 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

G. K. Chesterton wrote: “Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay f...

"The Lady of Shalott" Pt. 4

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is the fourth and final section of Tennyson’s Arthurian ballad. I have been reading his 1842 version and (I think) the final stanza i...

"The Lady of Shalott" Pt. 3

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we come to the turning point for the Lady of Shalott. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscrib...

"The Lady of Shalott" Pt. 2

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In part two, the “Lady” sits, weaving, in a world of images but pines for the world of solid realities. This is a public episode. If you'd like to...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" Pt. 1

22 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today is the first of four in which we’ll wend our way through Tennyson’s tragic Arthurian ballad. This is a public episode. If you'd like to disc...

John Hollander's "A Watched Pot"

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a shape poem dedicated to chefs, but (surprise?) it might be about more than cooking.John Hollander, one of contemporary poetry’s ...

William Blake's "The Divine Image"

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, from Songs of Innocence, we meet William Blake struggling to sort out his theological analogies. This is a public episode. If you'...

John Milton's "When I consider how my light is spent"

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, also known as “Sonnet 19,” Milton offers a pious alternative to “raging” against the dying of the light. Happy reading. Thi...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Musical Instrument"

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem muses on the sweet and awful creation of the poet. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other su...

Ben Jonson's "Though I be young"

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a song from Ben Jonson’s final play, The Sad Shepherd (1641). Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss th...

Amy Clampitt's "The Godfather Returns to Color TV"

12 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Just when you thought you were out, The Daily Poem pulls you back in–to poems about movies. Today’s charming and earnest poem imitates the medium ...

Siegfried Sassoon's "Picture-Show"

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–published in 1920–is one of the early intersections between poetry and cinema. Happy reading.Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) is best ...

Hart Crane's "Chaplinesque"

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, written a century ago, cinema (and Charlie Chaplin) is already supplying metaphors for the work and experience of modern poets. Hap...

Joseph Stanton's "Edward Hopper's 'New York Movie'"

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem (from an art scholar and master of ekphrastic poetry) features another classic Hopper painting and a contemplative trip to the movies. ...

Cornelius Eady's "Charlie Chaplin Impersonates a Poet"

08 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week The Daily Poem heads to the movies.Cornelius Eady is the founder of the poetry group Cave Canem and his published collections include Vict...

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke's "America, I Sing You Back"

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem both responds to and carries on the work of Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes. Happy reading!Allison Adelle Hedge Coke has written seven...

Two for the Fourth

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s (frequently-paired) poems form an antiphonal song between Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes on the complicated ideal of “being American.”...

Grace Schulman's "American Solitude"

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is lovely, dark, and deep. Loneliness, Americana, Edward Hopper, literary illusions, clams: it has it all. Happy reading!Poet and edito...

John Ciardi's "Mummy Slept Late and Daddy Fixed Breakfast"

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem from John Ciardi goes out to all of the dads who can cook, all of the dads who can’t, all of the children who have endured the latter...

Edgar Allan Poe's "To Helen"

01 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, Poe offers us an ode to the Homeric beauty that is also definitely giving some Stacy’s-mom vibes. This is a public episode. If yo...

Emily Dickinson's "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,"

28 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On one of her darker days, Emily Dickinson dreams of a fate worse than death. Happy(?) reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss thi...

Paul Laurence Dunbar's "The Lawyers' Ways"

28 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Happy birthday to the trailblazing Paul Laurence Dunbar.For more meditations on “lawyers’ ways,” come join our discussion of To Kill a Mockingbi...

Adam's "Bone of My Bone"

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Though rarely anthologized or even contemplated as such, today’s poem is arguably the very first–and its a solid beginning. Happy reading. This is...

William Butler Yeats' "Brown Penny"

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is one of the purest and most earnest offerings from one of the most indefatigable lover-poets of the twentieth century. Happy reading!...

Marianne Moore's "Silence"

24 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for ...

Matthew Hollis' "The Diomedes"

21 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem comes from Matthew Hollis’ remarkable collection, Earth House, which blends explorations of the four cardinal directions and original...

Jim Daniels' "Short-Order Cook"

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem goes out to all the unsung heroes of the grease trap and the fry basket. Happy reading.Jim Daniels is the author of numerous collection...

Lucille Clifton's "cutting greens"

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York, on June 27, 1936. Her first book of poems, Good Times (Random House, 1969), was rated one of the best b...

Robert Graves' "I'd Love to Be a Fairy's Child"

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfre...

Carl Sandburg's "Fog"

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s economical little poem from Carl Sandburg is jam-packed with allusion and metaphor. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like t...

Donald Davidson's "Lee in the Mountains" Pt. 2

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The conclusion to yesterday’s poem. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to b...

Donald Davidson's "Lee in the Mountains" Pt. 1

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, while the host works in the mountains, we are featuring the first half of a longer poem by Fugitive poet Donald Davidson, imagining the inner a...

Robert Bly's "The Moon"

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Bly (born December 23, 1926, in Madison, Minnesota) is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including Stealing Sugar from the Castle...

Jane Kenyon's "Otherwise"

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jane Kenyon (1947–1995), former Poet Laureate of New Hampshire, was the author of four volumes of poetry. Her collected poems were published by Gray...

R. S. Gwynn's "Shakespearean Sonnet"

10 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem isn’t what you think, until you do some thinking–then its exactly what you thought.R. S. Gwynn (born 1948) is the author of six col...

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 94 ("They that have power")

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem, a lover’s plea disguised as a meditation on virtuous restraint, marks the end of our week of sonnets. Happy reading. This is a publi...

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 147 ("My love is as a fever...")

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, the Bard gets bitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dai...

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 ("That time of year...")

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s sonnet details a painful reality: even great poets lose their hair sometimes. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with o...

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 55 ("Not marble...")

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, a (biased) case for poems as the monuments that can outlast monuments. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subsc...

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee...")

03 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–arguably the Bard’s most famous sonnet–will set the stage for four days of dramatically underrated Shakespearean sonnets. Happy r...

Oliver Herford's "The Early Owl"

31 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From a New York Times obituary of Oliver Herford (1860-1935): "His wit…was too original at first to go down with the very delectable highly respecta...

A. A. Milne's "Bad Sir Brian Botany"

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a good reminder about noblesse obliges. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscriber...

Robert Louis Stevenson's "My Bed is a Boat"

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem might be a perfect companion to a bedtime-reading of Where the Wild Things Are on a balmy summer evening. This is a public episode. If ...

Hilaire Belloc's "Rebecca, Who Slammed Doors for Fun and Perished Miserably"

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is another from Belloc–one of his Cautionary Tales for Children just in time for the beginning of a quiet summer (maybe?). This is a ...

Hilaire Belloc's "On the Gift of a Book to a Child"

27 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a series of increasingly vital pleas. Happy reading.For more of Belloc’s advice to the young, find yourself a copy of Cautionary T...

Bonus: "Morituri Salutamus" in full

25 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re feeling out a Saturday bonus episode featuring a reading of “Morituri Salutamus” in its entirety. Happy reading! This is a public ep...

Selections From Longfellow's "Morituri Salutamus"

24 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s episode features selections from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s fifty-year retrospective on his own graduation, the lengthy speech-in-verse,...

Christina Rossetti's "Up-Hill"

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem from Christina Rossetti is not about high school or college, but it might still be about graduation. Happy reading! This is a public ep...

C. P. Cavafy's "Che Fece...Il Gran Rifiuto"

22 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, known, especially in English, as Constantine P. Cavafy and often published as C. P. Cavafy, was a Greek poet, journalist,...

Matthew Zapruder's "Graduation Day"

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Zapruder is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently I Love Hearing Your Dreams, forthcoming from Scribner in September 2024, as...

John Ciardi's "An Emeritus Addresses the School"

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

About the creative process itself, John Ciardi argued in the Writer that “it isn’t easy to make a poem,” adding, “It is better than easy: it i...

Matsuo Bashō's Spring Haiku

17 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poems are all about the ineffable experience of spring. Happy reading! The 17th-century Japanese haiku master Bashō was born Matsuo Kinsaku...

Thomas Nashe's "Spring, the sweet spring"

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–an unambiguous paean to spring–suggests Thomas Nashe and T. S. Eliot had very different feelings about the month of April. Happy re...

Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Spring"

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a more complicated take on spring. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or ...

E. E. Cummings' "[O sweet spontaneous]"

14 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

E.E. Cummings, in full Edward Estlin Cummings, (born October 14, 1894, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.—died September 3, 1962, North Conway, New H...

Phillis Levin's "End of April

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What started as an early spring is now not long for this world. In an attempt to stave off an early summer, we have a week of poems dedicated to the f...

Robert Frost's "Mending Wall"

10 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a Robert Frost classic of which everyone always remembers the wrong part. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to ...

Robert Southey's "His Books"

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth ...

William Butler Yeats' "When You Are Old"

08 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem goes out to all the ‘pilgrim souls.’ Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers ...

John Keats' "How many bards gild the lapses of time"

07 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem, John Keats isn’t worried about authenticity–and that’s just fine. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this wit...

Dorothy Wordsworth's "Loving and Liking"

06 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem reminds us how much is sometimes riding on the proper grammatical distinctions.Born in Cumberland, British Romantic poet and prose writ...

Emily Dickinson's "Tell all the truth but tell it slant–"

04 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is almost too bright for our infirm delight. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscrib...

H. D.'s "Eurydice"

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem features a failed resurrection and a response that spirals through all the customary stages of grief.Hilda Doolittle was born on Septem...

C. S. Lewis' "Stephen to Lazarus"

01 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his ...

Paul Ruffin's "We Write Nasty Notes at the Academic Conference"

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Find somebody to watch the kids while you giggle through today’s poem. Happy reading.Respected editor, publisher, writer and poet, Paul Ruffin often...

A. E. Stallings' "Dead Language Lesson"

29 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem ponders what love makes of language. Happy reading.A.E. (Alicia) Stallings is the Oxford Professor of Poetry. She grew up in Decatur, G...

Scott Cairns' "Musée"

26 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is inspired by one of our favorites here at the Daily Poem.Librettist, essayist, translator, and author of ten poetry collections, Scot...

Ted Kooser's "After Years"

25 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ted Kooser, who worked in insurance for thirty-five years before becoming U.S. Poet Laureate, turns 85 today. Many happy returns of the day to him, an...

T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

24 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you measured out your life in coffee spoons? Feeling like a pair of ragged claws today? Afraid to eat messy food while other people are watching?...

William Shakespeare's "It Was a Lover and His Lass"

23 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Happy birthday to the Bard!NB: Anyone itching to dig deeper into Shakespeare’s plays should look no further than one of our sister podcasts, The Pla...

Louise Glück's "The Wild Iris"

22 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Louise Glück was born in New York City in 1943. She is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Winter Recipes from the Collective (2021)...

Francis Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven"

19 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Francis Thompson was born in Northwest England in 1859. The son of Catholic converts, as a boy he was initially educated for the priesthood. When he w...

William Ernest Henley's "Invictus"

18 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–benign anthem of the resilient human spirit or a hymn to radical autonomy?–has divided audiences for more than a century.Born in Gl...

John Donne's "No Man Is an Island"

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What do John Donne, Paul Simon, and AC/DC have in common? Today’s poem. Happy reading! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with ...

Walt Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!"

16 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today it’s Whitman (and Dylan) on the march of progress. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acces...

Wendell Berry's "The Plan"

15 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem imagines what you might do when you’re through paying taxes. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subsc...

Seamus Heaney's "A Basket of Chestnuts"

12 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is an ekphrasis on a portrait of the poet himself–all that the portrait does and doesn’t capture or convey. This is a public episod...

Billy Collins' "Candle Hat"

11 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is a lighter take on the self-portrait ekphrasis. What is it about the self-portrait that is so intriguing to poets, anyway? This is a ...

Elizabeth Jennings' "Rembrandt's Late Self-Portraits"

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) was born in Boston, Lincolnshire but moved to Oxford at the age of six where she lived for the rest of her life. She st...

Richard Howard's "Gustave Dore"

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Howard (born Oct 13, 1929, died march 31, 2022) was credited with introducing modern French fiction—particularly examples of the Nouveau Rom...

Edwin Markham's "The Man With the Hoe"

08 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

ekphrasis: “Description” in Greek. An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative ...

Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter"

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem is in honor of April being (according to now-outdated tradition) the last prudent month till Autumn in which to eat oysters. Happy read...

Derek Walcott's "Sea Grapes"

04 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

West Indian poet and playwright Derek Walcott made his debut as an 18-year-old with In a Green Night. For many years he divided his time among Saint L...

George Herbert's "The Church-floore"

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s poem: George Herbert meditating on the simple profundity of a single, sustained metaphor. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you...

Ogden Nash's "Very Like a Whale"

02 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s poem–a layered, jokingly-serious response to one of last week’s–comes from Ogden Nash, dubbed the ‘Laurate of Light Verse.’ Which ...

Gerard Manley Hopkins' "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection"

01 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A joyous Eastertide and happy reading to you all! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonu...