Poetry Daily

The River

They were forest-dreaming as the current took me in its arms and whispered encouragement.

Pascale Petit

from the journal Poetry London

Essay: "When Chicago ... can furnish a profit to grand opera companies and an enthusiastic audience for Poet William Butler Yeats, does it not indicate that idealism hereabouts is triumphing over materialism?" (Sun Times)

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Interview: "Well, I always prefer nuance over argument in poetry. For me, mystery and music come first. Poems persuade by their music, not by their argument." (LARB)

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Report: "The legendary and beloved International Writing Program was told on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs was terminating their federal funding." (Lit Hub)

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What Sparks Poetry

Life in Public

In our series Life in Public, we ask our writers to examine how poetry speaks to different aspects of public experience. What does it mean to say that a poet is, as C. D. Wright has put it, “one with others”? What is poetry’s place in the public sphere today, of all times? How has life in that sphere been expressed in poems? Is all published poetry public speech? What is a private poem? What is occasional poetry? What is political poetry?

This week's issue: Heather Green on Robert Pinsky’s “Forgiveness”