“Poetry leaves something out,” our columnist Elisa Gabbert says. But that’s hardly the extent of it. By Elisa Gabbert I once heard a student say poetry is language that’s “coherent enough.” I love a ...

In “What is Poetry? Part 1,” Jeffrey Thomson mentions everything from badgers and hurricanes to subways and Times Square. Somehow that makes the “Part 2” poem from his new book, “Half/Life: New & ...

As guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2024, Mary Jo Salter spent last year scouring literary journals for 75 of the best poems from 75 different poets. To appear in the volume is a coveted honor ...

Humans spend most of their waking hours playing with what novelist Rudyard Kipling called “the most powerful drug used by mankind”—words. In the laboratories of our minds, we sort, slice, and string ...

If you think poetry isn't for you, this might be the right time to give it a second chance. Every April in the United States, National Poetry Month invites you to experience and celebrate an art form ...

A framed poster of a stamp depicting Langston Hughes, who wrote some of the best poems in American history. Poetry provides the perfect way to indulge in the escapism of reading without the commitment ...