Latest Poetry Articles

read poetry

Jan 6

January Poetry Recommendations & Reading Goals

Poetry picks to start your New Year off right

Dear read poetry friends,

read poetry ∙ 65 LIKES ∙ 4 RESTACKS

sea breeze

•

this is just what i've been looking for! just read the sun and her flowers by rupi kaur. the more poetry i read, the more poetry i write.

Poetry Unbound

Jan 11

"how often and how well"

poetry of life and death

Dear friends,

Poetry Unbound ∙ 229 LIKES ∙ 25 RESTACKS

Diane

•

I live in Minneapolis. It is hard to find words to describe what it is like living here at this moment. I have thought often that I've now joined a long line of humanity that has lived under a violent, fascist regime. So much of what happened to Renee Good haunts me. Including that Renee and her wife Becca moved here for safety, for belonging. I see so much courage all around me. The rapid responders, the mutual aid, the noisemakers outside the hotel of the ICE agents, the businesses that refuse to serve ICE, the pastor who told ICE to "take me instead" saying he was not afraid and when they did he refused to bow to their demand to say he was afraid, the protesters who show up on street corners and bridges, or to march on icy streets, the Somoli immigrants who bring tea and sambusas to the protesters. Courage is alive in this beautiful, hurting city. It will be a balm to attend your event here on Friday....

Lyn Taylor Hale

•

Courage, resistance, truth, and deep, deep love were my supervisor-turned-business-partner-turned-most intimate friend. Stan died unexpectedly in June. I got 17 years with him. How often and how well ovum and sperm came together in him. I did not know him during my years in the church but while I was very busy being close-minded, judgmental, and frightened of everything, Stan was across town, a deacon in his own church, acknowledging whatever life handed him, holding people in his blue-eyed gaze and encouraging them every time he was able, and suing the state of VT for the right to marry his beloved husband. The balm of his life poured out everywhere, and it found me in my lostness and just kept repeating in dozens of ways, "you are okay. you are lovely. you are loved." I would still really rather not live in a world without him, what died there was unspeakable grace and forgiveness. I spend every day trying to live forward his life. You are okay. You are lovely. You are loved.

Poetry Unbound

December 21, 2025

Inhabiting the wide world

On the poetry of Marie Howe

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 211 LIKES ∙ 14 RESTACKS

David Levy

•

Dec 21

Let me find my grief, my tears, and cry awhile before I continue this comment. I just finished listening to Padraig’s conversation with Marie Howe. A long sigh, then, a joyous out breath, a bit of laughter. Thank you Padraig and Marie. Your conversation expanded my vision. Dare I say that now, at least until my fears, my demons, reassert themselves, I see everything, or at least, feel the willingness to see everything. As a man with a penis I have spent years wishing I was a woman. I was ashamed of this organ. It had a terrible reputation. What humanity has done with this penis. And to this penis. And then Marie’s poem which sings so delightfully, at least to my ears, of a much more well rounded appraisal of this organ. Surely, the penis is not to blame. It is the human mind that orchestrates such harm and damage to us all. Please, no more, blame not the penis. Our thoughts, our attitudes, so thought driven, have raped us all.

So, what do I see? Smell? Each morning now for at least a year I stand at my two living room windows, coffee in cup in hand, and recite Michael Glaser’s poem “The Presence of Trees”. At the end of the poem, recited twice for there are two windows, I glance to the left out my windows to see the actual creek, and finish the poem with the word “home”. And I am, home.

Thank you Padraig and Marie, your conversation has, at least for now, restored my sense of awe and reverence for the Word. Best, David🏮

Pamela

•

Dec 21

I sit where I always sit to listen to you, Padraig. The room has three walls of windows, and outside the windows there are bushes where birds land, and five bird feeders - one has suet for the woodpecker. But yesterday as I stood watching the finches at the Nyjer feeder (there was a crowd, and a bit of a feeding frenzy), suddenly a great commotion with birds flying into the windows, into the branches of the bushes, none of them landing. Out of nowhere, out of somewhere. swooped a hawk, and inches from the window plucked a finch out of the air and took off. I was horrified at first, and felt some responsibility for the death of that finch. I thought maybe I should stop feeding the birds, because maybe I was handing them over to a predator that didn’t have to work hard to find food. But the fox that lives in the neighborhood has been eating the squirrels. And I recently ate some turkey soup. And what goes around comes around and someday I’ll be eaten by fire or dirt. Thank you for this listening gift on Solstice Day. My gratitude to you and to Marie Howe.

VERVE Poetry Festival

Jan 7

Victoria Kennefick shares what she's looking for as judge for our Poem of the Festival competition.

"I encourage the poets who enter the VERVE poetry competition to get weird and get real - to allow their idiosyncratic selves to find a space and a place on the page."

I am so honoured and excited to be the judge of this year’s VERVE poetry competition. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to read the work of poets writing right now. I appreciate that those who submit are trusting me with their precious words so I take this responsibility very seriously.

VERVE Poetry ∙ 10 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Poetry Outdoors

Jan 4

The Buddha's Last Instruction

A year-long contemplative journey with Mary Oliver.

Introducing Dream Work: A Year-Long Journey with Mary Oliver.

Poetry Outdoors ∙ 15 LIKES ∙ 2 RESTACKS

Paula Cristobal

•

“Make yourself a light,” said the buddha before he died.

I feel the pores on my skin open and grow into black circles through my body.

All trapped matter is released through them like white vapor before they shrink and close back leaving nothing but soft bones and a fleshy heart inside.

A heart that becomes my new body.

I feel this heart as a candle.

The yellow and orange flames tickle my insides, the blue flames break the barrier and are perceptible from the outside.

The warmest, palest colour.

I’d like to tickle the world.

Joe

•

The only thing

Needed to become a light

Is to be still

Quiet the noise In

In your mind

Let go of your

Endless thoughts

And thereby let

The light within you

Find its way out

Thomas Merton wrote,

There is a light shining

Within everyone

Like a thousand suns

Belonging entirely

To the Divine;

Seek it and you will

Become that light.

Poetry Unbound

December 14, 2025

Oh the places you’ll go!

Lorna Goodison’s Jamaican Inferno

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 202 LIKES ∙ 15 RESTACKS

Tina Sederholm

•

Dec 14

I’ve been pursued by a line I overheard at Northolt Tube Station about 20 years ago. A man on the platform was listening intently on a brick of a mobile phone, and eventually said ‘My friend, the heart is not a bone.’ I’ve wrestled with that phrase ever since, in terms of heartbreak, of love. One day I hope to know enough about love to write the poem/collection that honours that phrase. I keep aiming at it, only to fall short, yet again.

Lyn Taylor Hale

•

Dec 14

Authenticity and agency. What is really mine? (Not my family's, not society's, or a partner's, or a friend's...) And how do I live as close as possible to those truths? How do I act on my own behalf? I lived for many years as someone sort of adjacent to myself. I genuinely believe one of our greatest gifts to everyone we know is to show up as the truest, best version of ourselves. These ideas follow me like a shadow.

Poetry Unbound

Jan 4

A New Year; A New Pantoum

Lines of place and sound and thinking

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 354 LIKES ∙ 40 RESTACKS

Michael T Smith

•

Jan 4

On a hillside, in a home shaped by these hands

Coyotes call and the wind rattles tin

The dog’s soft snore, air moving through ducts

Moonlight slips through parted blinds

Coyotes call and the wind rattles tin

Her body turns slowly in dream, my son’s floors creak

Moonlight slips through parted blinds

Time is like a slingshot between wakings

Her body turns slowly in dream, my son’s floors creak

My heart knocks, twisted back

Time is like a slingshot between wakings

Will I live it right?

My heart knocks, twisted back

The dog’s soft snore, air moving through ducts

Will I live it right

On a hillside, in a home shaped by these hands?

David Brickey Bloomer

•

Jan 4

I’m ashamed, living in Singapore, that I don’t even know this form. I try to make up for that:

oh, peace prize.

of blood, money, power & oil.

laurels laid on quiet graves.

a medal rinsed in sanctioned fire.

of blood, money, power & oil.

they call it history, shaking hands.

a medal rinsed in sanctioned fire.

the cameras blink, the ledgers smile.

they call it history, shaking hands.

children count the nights by drones.

the cameras blink, the ledgers smile.

silence learns its accolades.

children count the nights by drones.

laurels laid on quiet graves.

silence learns its accolades.

oh, peace prize.

Poetry Culture

Jan 1

26 Thoughts for 2026

On loss, silence, hope, and persistence.

Continuing the tradition from 2025, here are 26 thoughts for 2026.

Poetry Culture ∙ 16 LIKES ∙ 9 RESTACKS

Patrick Kirby

•

Jan 3

Ive prepared an annual poem of reflection for several years now. Here is this year's attempt. http://open.substack.com/pub/preceperi/p/weighbridge This is probably my favourite line:

Lies wear the pristine uniform of fact

while truth stammers in rags.

Keen on your thoughts.

#poetry #feedback #contemplation

Natalia’s Daydreams

•

Jan 2

Can’t believe ciabatta has only been around for 44 years! Also, great thoughts !!

Poetry Culture

Jan 10

What script have other people written for you?

A different kind of year-end reset, part three

All the world’s a stage,

Poetry Culture ∙ 6 LIKES ∙ 4 RESTACKS

Holy Poetry

Jan 7

He Loved Nature Like Crazy

After a long stretch in the state penitentiary and seven years of sobriety he was pedaling home from his AA group in a hard rain. His bike his only transportation. He swerved violently to avoid every sidewalk swimming worm trying to escape its flooded dungeon. He loved nature like crazy. Each missed worm was a relief, an amendment to his constituti…

Holy Poetry ∙ 18 LIKES ∙ 2 RESTACKS

J.S. Edwards

•

Frank, LOVE the final version of this, having seen an earlier one in workshop. Beautiful.

Maria Cataldo-Cunniff

•

Frank! I screamed "Oh my God!!!" at your last line. And that exclamation was really a prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving. This poem holds the heartbreaking and glorious paradox of human existence up to the light. I am not exaggerating when I say it's the most hopeful thing I've heard or read in a VERY long time. "Holy Paschal Mystery, Batman!"

Poetry Rise

December 31, 2025

Before Midnight, Ask Yourself This One Question

With the year coming to a close in T-minus 13 hours (here in EST anyway) and many of us rushing around to tie up any last loose ends before we don the sparkly outfit and head off into the hopeful night, this time of year can feel like a checklist rather than a threshold.

Maverick L. Malone ∙ 9 LIKES ∙ 2 RESTACKS

Emma Goldman-Sherman

•

Dec 31

Yes, I love what I wrote this year! Thank you for the reframe!

Haifa

•

Jan 3

Yes!

Till 2024, I was just another girl who had overflowing thoughts and never knew much

but around April 2025 was when I realized my tiny words could be written poetically

and that I could be a writer too!

And tbh, if there's something I'm grateful about going well in 2025 then it's my decision to start writing.

Here's a little poem of mine I wrote last year! :

Thousands of light,

loud and bright.

Millions of stars,

shining high.

One moon.

One night.

Whispering to the queit streets,

and the winter air.

The soft secrets of the universe's forgotten nights.

By my window,

I sit and watch.

Empty streets turn into busy nights.

Life moving in it's rhythmic pace,

somehow aligning with the beat of my heart.

Did I see,

the stumble of the kid beside the lonely tree

or the cat trembling in the winter's cold plea

or the leaf that fell too soon than meant to be

or my little world crumbling down, slipping away from me.

So I sit and write,

what I feel.

In words that feel foriegn yet serene.

In here is where I belong,

within the words of my queit unfolding heart,

just moving along~

Poetry Unbound

December 7, 2025

You cannot extinguish

that which lights itself

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 445 LIKES ∙ 39 RESTACKS

Sean

•

Dec 7

I love what you say about a poem’s meaning. The ambiguity, allowing us to receive it where we are, is a gift of the poet to her readers.

Trying to tuck a flood inside a drawer speaks to me of what I might try to hide - grief, sadness, dissatisfaction - and the mess that this will make, has made, of things. There is no hiding from the Wind, but that does not stop me from trying! ED seems to understand the futility of this. That gives me a chance to see it, too.

There’s perhaps another poem to be written, about that floor. Or maybe I should set down the pen and get out the mop!

Dwight Lee Wolter

•

Dec 7

A birthday candle atop a cake

Cannot be blown out, it’a a fake!

You blow it out, it reignites!

Each attempt excites, excites!

All candles are made to burn

First the light, then just the wick

Eventually we all might learn

Light without dark is just a trick.

- Dwight Lee Wolter

Poetry, YES!

Jan 8

Yes, Poetry, YES!

January 10, 2026

Yes, there will be a Zoom poetry reading and discussion this Saturday. Click on the underlined link below at the appointed time to join.

Bruce Isaacson ∙ 2 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Of Trees & Poetry

Jan 9

Craft & Play Vol. 44

the building blocks of a poem

Dear friends,

Julia McMullen, E R Skulmoski, and Of Trees & Poetry ∙ 13 LIKES ∙ 2 RESTACKS

Dustin Cowart

•

Fire

For it is into the furnace

I must go, to meet my

Redeemed soul, because I am a mere

Echo of that which He made whole.

Abigail

•

I marvel at how the brain loves constraints. It can be difficult find the words when they can be ANY word. A limiting factor such as counting syllables or an initial letter is so helpful. Incidentally, my son wrote an acrostic for my birthday with gems like "Abstains from sinning (mostly of the time)" and "Ingenious at thinking of new meals." 🤣 Long live the acrostic!

Plein Air Poetry

Jan 9

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse is Under Construction

A painting from Maine and a poem about grief and joy

Plein Air Poetry, Alexandra McIntosh, and Brad Davis ∙ 21 LIKES ∙ 6 RESTACKS

Melanie Bettinelli

•

What a beautiful poem. Thank you.

I love the way the lighthouse under construction becomes a metaphor for grief, the way it pulls you apart and then you have to put yourself back together again.

The interweaving of past and present is so beautiful, the way the overheard conversation turns to memories of your mother, the way the memorial plaque on the bench chimes in with another reminder of death, and then the "place" of the inscription becomes the "place" that is "mother". The blurring between memory and hope and dream and dream disappointed, all captured in such a simple phrase: "this feels like a memory".

And I think of the way birds are often psychopomps in poetry, guiding the souls of the dead to an afterlife-- but the robin is always a cheerful bird, bespeaking luck and goodness. The way the Pevensie children trust the robin in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

My favorite lines, and the hinge of the poem, I think: "She was my first place,

her heartbeat my first surf, the crash of blood through her arteries

my first song."

David Kirkby

•

I deeply enjoyed this, Alex.

In a beautiful poem, this (for me) was the standout line:

"her heartbeat my first surf, the crash of blood through her arteries

my first song."

Joy and grief are inextricably linked. I have described them elsewhere as different faces of the same coin - which is life. Grief can be denied, obscured, buried - even forgotten - but to do so is to hide something which is central to self aware existence, and if we do not acknowledge it, and accept it, our joys are also tarnished.

Each implies the other.

A lighthouse is a marvellous metaphor for all kinds of things. A lighthouse being rebuilt, all the more so. A fabulous subject for Brad to paint.

As for those rocks - liquidly layered, hot squeezed and warped, tilted and fractured...

Delicious!

Best Wishes - Dave :)

Messy Ink Poetry

Jan 4

Head First

Is adventure

head first is adventure it's throat full of stomach and heart soaring in your ears it's jumping first and asking later and loving every minute of the drop

Messy Ink Poetry ∙ 42 LIKES ∙ 10 RESTACKS

John Dempster

•

“crown first and doubt last / lungs burning with belief alone”

Perfect

Cipher

•

Like a leap of faith :)

Sheetghost Poetry

Jan 5

Poetry Prompt of the Week: Explore the Arbitrary

In this generative prompt, write without knowing where you are going, just get somewhere interesting by telling it slant.

What I like most about New Year’s is that it is, ultimately, just an arbitrary turning-over of a counting system—January 1 having no special distinction, after all, in the natural or celestial world. (The start/finish line of the solar year had to be somewhere, so why not here?) Humans, however, tie meaning to it anyway. This is what we do. It is the sa…

Robert Wood Lynn ∙ 18 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Dragoneye

•

Thank you Robert for these excellent points. (Thanks to @jopomojo@substack.com for the link.)

So happy to discover Berman's slantwise work https://open.substack.com/pub/robertwoodlynn/p/poetry-prompt-of-the-week-explore?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

In addition to the upending descriptors the use of A and B POVs make his writing like watching a reality show. Gritty and and more tactile.

Jonathan Potter

•

https://open.substack.com/pub/jopomojo/p/prompts?r=5v6j7&utm_medium=ios

10 poetry notebooks

December 27, 2025

Pen & Page Prompt #16

This Week: Where We Arrive...at Last

10 poetry notebooks ∙ 25 LIKES ∙ 3 RESTACKS

J. Zheng

•

Dec 27

水果 / The Fruit

When the fruit finally ripened, we were already strangers. Ours was a brief season of intimacy, it was nothing unfamiliar to me. Then something sweet began to swell, and you, the wiser gardener, chose to prune the branch. You believed this tree did not belong in the garden you were tending, and I, seeing the truth of the soil, agreed. We preserved our routines. We moved on. But sometimes, in the quiet between tasks, I feel a phantom weight in my palm. A question, sweet and unbruised, appears. I wonder, is this how Eve felt in the Garden of Eden?

Lyndsey Parsons

•

Dec 27

I loved this prompt. My heart needed a way to process the mix of things that always happen this time of year. Thank you!

Poetry Rise

Jan 8

Winter Prompts for the Poetic Soul

I don’t know about you but winter for me is low-inspiration time. My creative output isn’t super fertile and tends to mirror the seasons, so during winter, I often need prompts to get the ideas flowing.

Maverick L. Malone ∙ 13 LIKES

David Silva

•

The leaves sense winter

Change colors and dance away

They know life is short

Alyssa

•

Trusting unseen work beneath the frozen ground. I whisper, as Mother Earth is deep in meditation, still roots will return.

Uplift Poetry

December 16, 2025

Poetry Events Directory

Open mics, poetry slams, book launches, workshops, festivals and more!

Check out our new Poetry Events Directory! We’ve listed open mics, poetry slams, book launches, workshops, festivals and more happening throughout Australia.

Uplift Poetry ∙ 20 LIKES ∙ 2 RESTACKS

Nevena Bor

•

Let’s connect

Poetry Outdoors

12:01 AM

Maybe Death isn't Darkness after all.

A weekly poem and writing prompt inspired by Mary Oliver.

Dreamwork: A Year-Long Journey with Mary Oliver

Poetry Outdoors ∙ 27 LIKES ∙ 3 RESTACKS

PresentWordTravels-by Sammi 静辰

•

Thank you Ash, for sharing this beautifully inspiring poem by Mary Oliver — and for responding to it with such delightful and poetic attention! I love the prompt you offered too.

In response to your calling with good intention, I’d like to share a poem I wrote a while ago in this post, it's about death and becoming.

https://presentwordtravels.substack.com/p/the-dark-embrace

Jenna Nicole Stevens

•

15h

A beautiful piece 🤍 I’ve been through periods of grief twice in the last couple of months, and I found this very comforting.

The Poetry Oracle by Melody Godfred

7:11 AM

Introducing: The Poetry Oracle

Don't call it a new beginning... call it an evolution.

When it came time to write this post explaining the changes coming to my Substack, I couldn’t actually remember when I started it. When I checked the date, I gasped: October 2021.

Melody Godfred

Poetry Rise

Jan 6

When Winter Whispers: How to Hone Your Skills this Season

And questions to get you started

Like the seasons, humans are cyclical beings.

Maverick L. Malone ∙ 11 LIKES

Anita Joy Edwards

•

Thank you so much for this article. I asked myself those questions, and realised my current poem has hit a roadblock because I'm writing from the wrong reason: not from enjoyment, but because I am trying to meet others' expectations. The roadblock is now clearing. Again, thank you.

10 poetry notebooks

Jan 8