The Daily Poem

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...

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...