Latest Poetry Articles

Mar 23

Upcoming Poetry Events

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

This week’s newsletter features upcoming poetry events happening throughout Australia and online. Whether you’re looking to write, listen, or perform, there’s plenty to discover. Check out these open mics, poetry slams, book launches, workshops, festivals and more.

Uplift Poetry ∙ 4 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Elizabeth Walton

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And I’ll be at Mad Poet Newcastle NSW 7pm this Thursday 🏊🏽‍♀️

Uplift Poetry

Mar 17

Poetry Prompts from The Monthly Poet

Turn four words into sixteen lines of poetry

Today we’re thrilled to collaborate with The Monthly Poet for our poetry writing prompts!

Monthly Poet ∙ 7 LIKES ∙ 6 RESTACKS

🌾👁

•

I sent in a poem! Thanks for the opportunity!

Monthly Poet

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Mar 17

Thank you to Uplift Poetry for featuring Monthly Poet.

Each month Monthly Poet offers four words and an open invitation to write a 16-line poem. It doesn’t have to be perfect or even rhyme, and pen names are allowed. Every poem is published, and anyone can take part. You’re very welcome to write one this month.

Poetry Unbound

Mar 8

Thanks, and can you help?

And a question about the story of a poem

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 218 LIKES ∙ 9 RESTACKS

Casey Bottono

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Mar 8

Hi Pádraig,

Thank you for sharing this poem, it's new to me.

My poetic treasure is the Rilke poem I've always known as Pushing Through, but I think it's actually called 'It's Possible'

'It's possible I am pushing through solid rock

In flint-like layers as the ore lies alone

I am such a long way in, I see no way through and no space.

Everything is close to my face, and everything close to my face is stone.

I don't have much knowledge yet in grief

So this massive darkness makes me small.

You be the master, make yourself fierce, break in.

Then your great transforming will happen to me, and my great grief cry will happen to you.'

I found it through a blog post by Elaine Mansfield, after watching her TED talk on what she learned from grief. I carried it with me for a year before I committed to memorising it.

It's a wonderful one to have on hand.

Casey

Lisa Marie Simmons

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Mar 8

Hello Pádraig and wonderful Poetry Unbound community! Happy Sunday!

I love how poems grow with us.

“You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.”

I was a young girl when I found Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise," and those lines felt written for me, not someday me, but the me living through struggles I didn't yet have language for.

I'd grown up surrounded by voices: my adoptive mother's singer-songwriters (Paul Simon's “Sound of Silence”, Joni Mitchell's ache, Dylan's "Hurricane"), my father's jazz legends (Billie, Ella). Arlo Guthrie taught me music could move people to action. But I was searching for people who looked like me, searching for my identity. I found it, among others, in Alice Walker, in Maya Angelou; writers whose masterful language didn't just fire my imagination but reflected it back.

As a teenager, those four lines became my armor. Now, decades later, I love how poems morph with each year that passes another layer, how our focus shifts. The defiance is still there, but so is the lightness: like air, I'll rise. The music changes.

Poetry Unbound

Mar 24

Courage and rage [re-sending; now open to all]

And the call to creativity

[Editor’s note: By mistake, when this post was sent, it was open only to paid subscribers. It is now open to all, and the Poetry Unbound Substack will continue to be readable by everyone. Apologies for the error.]

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 404 LIKES ∙ 64 RESTACKS

Cheryl Clayton

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"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final."

This helps to remember to be open and that there is variability in feelings and I need not feel

stuck. Change comes.

Diane

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Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going.

This has been a mantra for several years. And living in Minneapolis these past few months a daily touchstone. There has been beauty and terror here and the directive to just keep going important when the daily onslaught triggered a freeze response.

Poetry Outdoors

Mar 16

It Has Saved My Life to Know This

Your weekly Mary Oliver poem and writing prompt.

Welcome to Dream Work: A Year-Long Writing Journey with Mary Oliver

Poetry Outdoors ∙ 101 LIKES ∙ 9 RESTACKS

Laura Coleman

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A moving poem and prompt, thank you Ash. 🙏 Here is my offering:

It Has Saved My Life To Know…

I too have felt the fear of death, and

clung to life as though it was all I had.

I too have lived with great loss, and suffered

as one with a mind and heart does.

This changing body, this changing world,

it all happens too fast, or too slow, or maybe

just so.

Oh tender world, nothing remains the same,

trees fall and civilizations crumble, and

life will rise up again.

It has saved my life to know that each ending

leads to a beginning,

that death and life are not separate, but

part of the same thread, joined together,

as one cannot be without the other.

The way that light only shines

in the darkness.

Thảo Pixel Poet

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Mar 20

It has saved my life to know this–

that the best therapy is free

that if you step out of your own head

out of people’s rampaging screams

out of the suffocating scrutiny and sexism

into

the

greenery

of a garden

or a local park

or, lucky you, a natural forest

you will soothe

finally.

You will hear the leaves rustle in the wind

tickles your brain

Your steps slowly start to sing

and you’ll realize–

just take one step at a time

just one minute at a time

just one by one

You’re safe.

And you will come through.

This poem stopped precisely at 100 words without planning. This was fun and very relatable. Thanks, Ash, for creating this poetry circle :)!

Poetry Unbound

Mar 29

Belief and wonder

Wondering about belief

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 269 LIKES ∙ 23 RESTACKS

Orna Ross 📚

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I have become a creativist. Raised in the same Hiberno-Roman culture as you, Padraig, complete with a convent boarding school education, I was raised to believe in an omnipotent, patriarchal creator but where I once held God, I now hold the creative process itself.

It came to me as I sat at my desk one day, when I realised that the same process that makes a poem also made our planet, and everything within and without. This spirit, and the practices for body mind and soul that align me with its process, are what guide my days now.

Nancy Shebeneck

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What changes have occurred in your feelings about religion as you’ve gone through your own decades and experiences?

To answer this question would take telling

the story of my whole life.

And it has been an unexpected surprise!

God IS the only language of my life.

(Even when I am not always aware.)

Religion on the other hand does not

speak the same language.

In a conversation with my niece just last week, she stated,

“…and that’s why I don’t believe in organized religion.”

Resembling that remark, I later asked her,

“So what DO you believe/do for spiritual nourishment?”

She said, “I live my life.”

I’m not sure if she knows how richly profound

that statement really was/is.

I’m still examining it, but I believe it is right on.

A couple of quotes that I’ve saved over the years:

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

(Saint Irenaeus)

“Our job is to play our holy part.

To come alive, flaring into bright life.

And then to connect with the others.”

(Casper ter Kuile)

Being alive.

Delighting in the splendors of this creation.

Holding tenderly the sorrows,

both our own and of others.

This is the religion that I have discovered

hiding in plain sight.

Poetry Unbound

Mar 22

Courage and rage

And the call to creativity

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 68 LIKES ∙ 12 RESTACKS

Kathy

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“Just keep going”. There are days - lately a lot of them - when it would be easier to crawl in a hole. But we can’t do that. Just keep going.

Leonard Edgerly

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"Give me your hand" is what resonates with me as I wait in the pre-dawn for my wife to wake up. During the night, I found her hand and held it for a while. It wasn't clear whether she was awake or asleep, but her hand let me know she is still there with me as we let everything happen to us in our seventies.

Poetry Unbound

Mar 15

Rumi speaks of war and love

Translation from Haleh Liza Gafori’s Water

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 497 LIKES ∙ 78 RESTACKS

Author Violet

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Mar 15

"I do not believe that either Rumi or the writers of Gilgamesh were naive about interventions, even though they used the language of love and flowers when speaking about war"

Hi, Anatolian (where Rumi lived) here. Rumi and other poets who lived in the same area in the middle ages could not explicitly state their opinions about war or politics, or they would be beheaded. In fact, following Rumi's poetry with symbols, many other Anatolian (both Turkish, Farsi and Arabic) poets started using symbols to disguise their criticism of the system and the sultans.

David Levy

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Mar 15

Hi, Padraig,

In 1984? I lived in Ireland for a year. In Dublin, I met Frank, a born Dubliner. We met in a writers’ group. Our friendship became a two hour walk every Friday. Frank, somehow, took this time off from work, and we strolled his beloved city. What a gift, for both of us. A two hour bouquet of memories every Friday. What if every angry man, warrior, could meet one other person, and once a week gave a tour of a beloved place, somewhere in this world, taking note of the details, the lovely, beloved, details: a favorite bit of moss, a whiff of roasting hops about to become Guiness, a desert hideaway, an island oasis, a spot where the ocean is fragrant with a salty fishy air, we would all be so busy giving and taking tours, we’d hardly have time for hatred. 🏮

Poetry Outdoors

Mar 24

All Eternity is in the Moment

Your weekly Mary Oliver poem and prompt.

Welcome to Dream Work: A Year-Long Writing Journey with Mary Oliver

Poetry Outdoors ∙ 48 LIKES ∙ 6 RESTACKS

Van Burbach

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This was a great prompt. Loved the poem and your response. Here is mine:

Changeless Ever-changing Stream

Eternity flows like a mountain stream

Sometimes a rush, sometimes serene.

I walk along and see it change,

But all in all, it stays the same.

The stream is constant as it flows

But as I move, perspective grows.

I see the stream from different views,

With its various shades and hues.

Now rippling round a peaceful pool,

Now splashing over rocks like jewels.

Around each bend, it changes, moods,

The way it sings, the way it moves.

If in one place I could remain,

The stream to me would stay the same,

But I’d miss stories it can tell

And I would not know it half so well.

So I wander along its banks

And seeing more, the more give thanks.

Like moving through eternity,

The changeless stream changes me.

Abbie Shanahan

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14h

I played with some haiku on this one. Let me know if you all think it works:

spring has not arrived

until tiny shadows dance

outside the window

heart rising, racing

her darting form arrives home

to our red altar

body stilled in time

her wings confess the secret

falling and rising

she sips the nectar

lets me taste this offering—

small eternity

Poetry Unbound

Mar 1

“Love / is paying attention”

Action in action

Dear friends,

Pádraig Ó Tuama ∙ 597 LIKES ∙ 80 RESTACKS

Megan Mundy

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Mar 1

The thing that made my heart warm this week was when my neighbour’s tween daughter ran away into a large park at dusk. My neighbour was understandably distressed and put a call out to our street WhatsApp group to keep an eye out for her. At least 10 different people replied immediately saying that they would head out and look for her. It felt like an uprising of love and concern. Of feeling connected to our neighbours. She was found and returned home and everyone was relieved and I felt incredibly grateful to live on a street where we look out for each other. Where a need was expressed and immediately answered by many.

Michael McCarthy

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Mar 1

When my four year old grandson, somewhat reluctantly, still offered me a piece of his cookie this past Friday. When my eight year old granddaughter, with an exuberant smile on her face, gave me a hug for attending the talent show she performed in last evening. When my daughter-in-law and son, consistently and without hesitation, demonstrate so many little ways of care and concern for my wife and I. When my sister, who is battling lung cancer, still shows up each day and chooses to find joy and gratitude in each moment. When good friends act on their beliefs — participating in “No Kings Protests” and “Immigrant Solidarity Prayer Walks.” Moreover, when we also make the time to celebrate the mystery and marvel of life and relationships.

Outlawed Poetry

Mar 28

Lick My Tiramisu

DJ McMeow Strut-Pop Anthem

Lick My Tiramisu DJ McMeow Strut-Pop Anthem

Outlawed Poetry ∙ 4 LIKES

Living Poetry

Mar 25

Celebrate National Poetry Month and 2 years of Living Poetry with us!

Join us for a special reading and conversation on April 3, featuring poets and space holders, Lucia Deyi and Shimrit Janes.

Welcome to Living Poetry. I’m Allie, a poet with roots in the California chaparral.

6 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Shimrit Janes

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Ahhh Allie, am looking forward to being in conversation with you and Lucia so much!

VERVE Poetry Festival

Mar 25

A year of Poem of the Month.

Celebrating the winning poems from the first year of POTM.

Here are the winning poems from the first year of VERVE Poem of the Month. Initiated in 2025 as a way to platform poets, its become a core strand of our programme thanks to you!

VERVE Poetry ∙ 5 LIKES ∙ 3 RESTACKS

Poetry's Substack

Mar 27

Is it a Good Place for Poetry?

A Conversation between Jo Bratten and Jeremy Wikeley

Jeremy Wikeley: The change in the season keeps sending me back to ‘Sunset over Watford’, the last poem in Climacteric, which is also one of my favourites – love as the love of “small things”, the dying daffodils, the sun setting over Metroland. I’ve been thinking about London a lot recently – my London (I can see the mobile mast at Crystal Palace from m…

Poetry London ∙ 23 LIKES ∙ 9 RESTACKS

Fran Lock

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Oh yes, that pressure to be "from", what an interesting read! :)

Poetry, YES!

Mar 26

yes, poetry YES!

March 28, 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 the reading.

Bruce Isaacson ∙ 2 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Literary Feast: Poetry and Prose

Mar 27

Hospitable Poetry #8

Robert Charbonneau on "A Modest Love" by Dyer

If you are new to our series, here is the link to find the intro and the previous posts by Renee Emerson, A. A. Kostas, Brit McReynolds, Mark Rico, Esther Jane, Kilby Austin, and Zane Paxton.

Robert Charboneau and Abigail ∙ 28 LIKES ∙ 9 RESTACKS

Ann Collins

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Robert and Abigail! Everyone around the table is charmed by this poem. How can we resist the balance, and the playful logic Dyer uses to make turtles and kings equally vulnerable in love? And all the while, having us share this ride on the slow merry-go-round of our turning earth! This is lovely hospitality. Thank you so much for what you've made here.

M. A. Miller

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The idea of “hospitable poetry” comes through clearly—short, concentrated, but still able to open something up for anyone at the table. I like how the explanation doesn’t strip the poem down but actually adds to the experience of it. That balance between craft and enjoyment feels rare.

The point about compression leading to universality stands out—it explains why something so small can still feel so complete. And that image of poetry being recited at a table, part of conversation and life, not separate from it, gives the whole piece a kind of warmth. It connects with something I’ve been thinking about too—how the most meaningful things are often the ones that are shared simply, not over-explained. I wrote a short piece around that kind of quiet meaning here: https://theeternalnowmm.substack.com/p/the-man-who-tried-to-surprise-god?r=71z4jh

Of Trees & Poetry

Mar 27

Friday & Favourites Vol. 58

Embracing boredom

Dear friends,

Of Trees & Poetry, Julia McMullen, and E R Skulmoski ∙ 33 LIKES ∙ 2 RESTACKS

Victoria Cardona

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13h

Julia, this is such a beautiful reminder of the power of intentional stillness. I loved how you framed “visual interest” not just as decoration, but as a tool for meditation and mental rest. The image of you watching finches instead of staring at a screen—what a gift to yourself!

I think we often underestimate boredom as a creative and reflective space. It’s in these low-pressure moments that our brains can wander, ruminate, and sometimes even stumble on inspiration we didn’t know we were looking for. I love the idea of setting up a little “zone-out zone” in your home—it doesn’t have to be fancy, just something that invites your attention without demanding it.

Also, your “Roman Empire” collection this week is such a perfect mix of inspiration—poetry, art, history, and cookies (because, yes, even creatives need snacks).

Thank you for sharing this. I might need to get my own bird feeder…

Silvia Vega

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Beautiful!

A Poet's Notebook - poetry, essays, readings

Mar 23

Morsels of poetry

Three short poems with audio

These were written in seven minutes (or less), during the first workshop for Alix Klingenberg’s Spring Dreaming circle (which was a lot of fun). I consider them fragments more than finished wholes, and I know there’s a thing going on at the moment about not publishing your work right away, letting it have time to fully develop and what have you, but I truly believe th…

Sarah Thompson ∙ 16 LIKES ∙ 4 RESTACKS

Michelle R. Smith, LIMHP

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Beautiful! Thank you for sharing!

Sara Joy Tiberio

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These are all so lovely. I especially love the last one and the focus on the word "plume". Your voice was a comfort today.

10 poetry notebooks

Mar 26

Pen & Page Prompt #23

This Week: When Your Body Knows First

10 poetry notebooks ∙ 7 LIKES ∙ 2 RESTACKS

Laurel

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I’m usually not prompted to write a poem by what’s in front of me but I am often prompted to draw something. I keep my drawing materials in my room and there are always extra supplies in the Art Room at the Seniors Residence where I live. It might be pencil crayons or crayons or acrylic paint. I might keep it, display it or toss it out. I have a display case on the wall outside my room. I need to get some display boards to hang on my walls or lean on the dresser.

teatablepoet

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The beggening of my poem, which came first through subtle observations of the consistency of the moment. I actually found this prompt at the perfect moment, so I wrote from present tense. Slowly the poem turned into an over thought observation, an explanation of nonsensical realizations... But I liked how it started so here goes:

Let us race together, hair as a quirky, beating heart. As often it's persistentce, still and solitary, isolated elementary. From what is the rest

Let us undress, fast as the pace of this dancing race, quickly, wind rips shredds from our linen,

What has become of us but timmid?

Remissing souls in focus knots. A painting of the still life, rotting,

The sudden reaching forth of cotastrophy, remembering briefly, individual mortalities. Having come to causalities, through fallacies of, what fantastical iterations coinside. With what roughed through the stumbling bodies.

All is worth a day of reverie

Messy Ink Poetry

Mar 29

Night Stretches Thin

Across my body

I used to enjoy these nights with you reading each other like our favourite books pulling at the covers to get a better look ever since your passing I trudge through the day with sleep as my only motivator when the time comes so does all my energy and I lie there knowing tomorrow will go the same way

Messy Ink Poetry ∙ 9 LIKES ∙ 4 RESTACKS

Plein Air Poetry

Mar 27

The Cool, Enduring Stillness Hidden Within Kentucky Forestlands

A painting and a poem

Missing the Forest

Plein Air Poetry ∙ 13 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Madeline Hall

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Love love love this one

Poetry Outdoors

Mar 9

The Land That Raised Us

Your weekly Mary Oliver poem and writing prompt.

Welcome to Dream Work: A Year-Long Writing Journey with Mary Oliver

Poetry Outdoors ∙ 81 LIKES ∙ 9 RESTACKS

Marion Gibbon

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Mar 13

The Downs

When I was young

I walked up and down the Downs

My Dad would teach me the lore

Of plants and trees, of survival

I so loved that slow, undulating land

the springtime would see the cowslips

Bloom in their magnificence

I was raised on the doorstep of these hills

I wandered for miles and saw the seasons as they turned.

I would look out, and on clear days, you could

see the sea under cloud-filled skies, turning angry

as the rain descended and drenched you

reminding you of strength and limitations.

As evening descended, the skies would darken

but the stars would shine out to remind us

that we are all made from stardust

and as we wander and wonder our lives

become so full of awe as we descend to our mundane lives.

Van Burbach

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Mar 15

Lake Michigan Memories

Lake Michigan is still the same, the sand dunes and the waves.

They remind me of so many things from my childhood days.

Some memories are bright and clear, sparkling, like jewels,

Or like sunlight dancing on a wave top as it curls.

But beneath the sparkling white caps are waters deep and cold,

Hidden and forbidden, like the recesses of my soul.

This place calls me like a song, a home it longs to be,

But still I fear I don’t belong in the lives of those around me.

poetry camera

Mar 25

poetry cam batch 2: now half the price

We’re excited to release a second batch of Poetry Cameras, available now for $699 $349.

kelin ∙ 18 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Jiji

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Thank you for making various languages available! I also hope you add a feature that prints the actual photo with the poem attached underneath. It would be just like writing a memo on a Polaroid picture to remember the moment, because memories of a scene fade so quickly.

Chase McCoy

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I know the camera can't generate poems and print without an internet connection, but can I take photos on the go when offline and print them when back on wifi?

Sheetghost Poetry

Mar 23

Poetry Prompt of the Week: Tell It Slant

In this contemplative prompt, sneak up on a truth too big to state directly.

I want us to swing for the fences this week. This little newsletter is always focused on the craft of poetry. Every week, I try to point to a new device for you to try out or tinker with. I talk a lot about poetic principles, like a poem teaching the reader how to read it, how it needs to set something up, build it out and then complicate it, surprising…

Robert Wood Lynn ∙ 9 LIKES ∙ 1 RESTACKS

Nimita Kaul

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Really enjoyed reading this post. I think unknowingly I've been trying to mould my poetry in slants :D Glad I read this today and to have such reference(s)!

The Shore Poetry

Mar 21

The Shore Issue 29 — Spring 2026

Dear Friends of The Shore,

The Shore Poetry ∙ 19 LIKES ∙ 3 RESTACKS

Top 25 Poetry Articles on Substack

Best Poetry Articles

Upcoming Poetry Events

Poetry Prompts from The Monthly Poet

Thanks, and can you help?

Courage and rage [re-sending; now open to all]

It Has Saved My Life to Know This

Belief and wonder

Courage and rage

Rumi speaks of war and love

All Eternity is in the Moment

“Love / is paying attention”

Lick My Tiramisu

Celebrate National Poetry Month and 2 years of Living Poetry with us!

A year of Poem of the Month.

Is it a Good Place for Poetry?

yes, poetry YES!

Hospitable Poetry #8

Friday & Favourites Vol. 58

Morsels of poetry

Pen & Page Prompt #23

Night Stretches Thin

The Cool, Enduring Stillness Hidden Within Kentucky Forestlands

The Land That Raised Us

poetry cam batch 2: now half the price

Poetry Prompt of the Week: Tell It Slant

The Shore Issue 29 — Spring 2026

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