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Next Line, Please: A new prompt
“Immature poets imitate,” wrote T. S. Eliot. “Mature poets steal.” For next time, I suggest we take a line from someone else and run with it. Here are a bunch of lines that strike…
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AARP on why people read or don’t read poetry: a plug for “Best American Poetry 2024”
Poetry for People Who (Think They) Don’t Like Poetry ‘There’s no wrong doorway’ into the magical world of verse. Enter with us By Maria Speidel & Christina Ianzito, AARP Published July 02, 2025 Poetry fans…
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“Coward, Take My Coward’s Hand”: On “Home of the Brave” [by David Lehman]
"Coward, Take My Coward's Hand," a "Talking Pictures" feature in The American Scholar Looking back at Mark Robson’s Home of the BraveBy David Lehman | August 13, 2020 Much of my early education in film…
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Hooray for Captain Spaulding: Meet the Schnorrer [a cartoon in words]
NOTE: This poem written as a potential cartoon – lacking the drawings. Artists are encouraged to consider illustrating the following. The paintings adorning these lines, by Joe Brainard and David Sallle, should give you…
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“Summer Afternoon” [by David Shapiro]
I wrote a poem endorsing Henry James's view that "summer afternoon" was the sweetest phrase in the language and David Shapiro responded with this riff in October 2008. 10 / 25 / 08 Saturday…
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In Retrospect: Dan Chiasson’s take Harold Bloom’s “Best of the Best”
When The Best of the Best American Poetry, 1988-1997 came out in Spring 1998, it caused a critical firestorm with much hysteria on the part of reviewers offended not by the poems guest editor…
