A crayon drawing by George Morrison showing a lake and a horizon line, with various shapes falling from the sky.
Essay
By Petala Ironcloud

The Idea of an Entire Life, by Billy-Ray Belcourt, is at once a love letter to poetry and queer Indigeneity—and a sustained act of refusal. 

Poem

poetry-magazine

From “Feed”

By Tommy Pico
Dear reader,

I’ve been thinking
a lot about stretch denim
that doesn’t also have a stretchy waistband
(by which I mean nature’s cruelest disagreements)
and I’ve been thinking
about the slobbering of  heat that is the promise of spring. Today, to wear out the woozy, to...
Poem

poetry-magazine

WHEREAS

By Layli Long Soldier
WHEREAS a string-bean blue-eyed man leans back into a swig of beer work-weary lips at the dark bottle keeping cool in short sleeves and khakis he enters the discussion;

Whereas his wrist loose at the bottleneck to come across as candid...
Poem

poetry-magazinein defense of gold

By José Olivarez
i know it’s unnecessary, but hear me out:
as a kid, even the gold kept in the mall
was fake. chains that…

Poem of the day

poetry-magazineMiguel

By César Vallejo
Translated By Don Paterson
I'm sitting here on the old patio
beside your absence. It is a black well.
We'd be playing, now. . . I can hear Mama yell   ...
Read More
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FROM THE CURRENT ISSUE OF

Poetry Magazine

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In time I have come to comprehend this: that you believe in the world by touching its every
face.
quoteLeft
— Rick Barot
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The best life is the life
Lived out
unmeasured.
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— Ricard Reis, tr. by Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari
Poem

poetry-magazine

Proof

By Cornelius Eady
Poem

poetry-magazineSentences

By Dāshaun Washington
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I am so alive it
gnaws.
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— Nur Turkmani
Poem

poetry-magazineScimitar

By Arthur Sze
quoteRight
the universe
blacker and more beautiful than
I
imagined.
quoteLeft
— January Gill O’Neil

The Poetry Foundation transforms lives through the power of words. Our work aims to amplify poetry and celebrate poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry.

Featured Poets

A bald woman in a shoulder-less black top showing a ring in one of her hands

CM Burroughs

CM Burroughs is associate professor of poetry at Columbia College Chicago. She is the author of the …. Read More