The Poetry Foundation

Filter Results

Ode to Facemasks
By Xi Chuan
Translated By Lucas Klein
If I could, I would put on a facemask and walk into the desert to meet with fairies and angels.

I put on a facemask to resist sandstorms, put on a facemask to resist smog, put on a facemask to make...
To a Wreath of Snow
By Emily Brontë
O transient voyager of heaven!
⁠ ⁠ ⁠ O silent sign of winter skies!
What adverse wind thy sail has driven
⁠ ⁠ ⁠ To dungeons where a prisoner lies?

Methinks the hands that shut the sun
⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠So sternly from this morning's brow
Might still their rebel task have done
⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁠ And checked a thing...
Ode to a Dolly Parton Drag Queen
By Bruce Snider
She lip-syncs “Hello God,” then “9 to 5.”
She struts. Or does she fly? Like the soul,
a rhinestone, she tells us, will never die.
She’s a blush-pink Bible. Patched together,
she’s a cosmic doll. Mirror of a mirror,
she winks, her face the only...
Ant Ode
By Karen Leona Anderson
Black and crackling curiosity,
you can take the crush of my hand
or glass or chair leg and skitter
away, the plastic of animals,
Teflon finger of the nest, chitin-bright
layer-down of trail and track,
mind with the brilliance of leg.

Part honeydew, part nectar,
part dead insect...
Irritation Odes
By Anna Maria Hong
Misery spots Catastrophe scaling
the garden wall. Misery dials M for ________, while Catastrophe
robocalls Fate. Misery swabs her nose and recites
her birthdate. It is possible to be crushed
by the wave, while holding open
the gate. Catastrophe rolls down
a window and coughs in...
- Types/Modes
- Ode
Irritation Odes
By Anna Maria Hong
Misery from Alpha to Omega. Misery
is fluent in Latin and Greek.
Misery is the shield full of fable
and augury. Misery is the hand
holding the shield, numb to
vulnerability. It is possible
to be both arrow and bleed.
Misery makes the same mistake,
inscribing want with...
- Types/Modes
- Ode
Ode to Plastic Cups
By Naomi Ortiz
Weight of both reusable glass plus liquid means
my wrist twists down
the only direction it bends
sends drink to splash on carpets or slippery floor

Worse yet
non-flexing elbow means arm
smacks cup across room with accidental gusto
at least once a week
Beloved coffee cups
shatter into...
Ode to the Head Nod
By Elizabeth Acevedo
the slight angling up of the forehead
neck extension quick jut of chin

meeting the strangers’ eyes
a gilded curtsy to the sunfill in another

in yourself tithe of respect
in an...
T Shot #9: Ode to My Sharps Container
By KB Brookins
Holder of loose blood. Taker of contraptions
I use when I’m brave enough to save myself.
Visual reminder that I can do it. Former container
of pickles so you smell like sour victory. Glass
house of my gender. Chest hair–maker.
Every interaction at the coffee...
Ode to Patrick Swayze
By Tishani Doshi
At fourteen I wanted to devour you,
the twang, the strut, the perfect proletarian
butt in the black pants of you. I wanted a man
like you to sashay into town and teach me
how to be an aeroplane in water. I didn't want
to...
In Celebration of My Uterus
By Anne Sexton
Everyone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings.
They wanted to cut you out
but they will not.
They said you were immeasurably empty
but you are not.
They said you were sick unto dying
but they were wrong.
You are singing like a...
- Living
- Health & Illness
- Gratitude & Apologies
- Meters
- Free Verse
- Techniques
- Confessional
- Types/Modes
- Ode
- + 2 more
Ode to Dalya’s Bald Spot
By Angel Nafis
my sister wraps the throw
around herself on the small
cream loveseat & i know
for sure that she is not
a speck of dirt on a pill.
she coughs & sniffs up all
the lucky air in the room
into her excellent nostrils,
which are endless
holy wells...
Ode to Black Skin
By Ashanti Anderson
You are dark as religion. Remember God
could not have named a modicum of light without you.
You are plum, black currant, passion
fruit in another woman’s garden. You are Black
as and as if by magic. Black not as sin, but a cave’s...
Ode on the Centenary of the Birth of Robert Browning
By George Sterling
As unto lighter strains a boy might turn
     From where great altars burn
And Music’s grave archangels tread the night,
          So I, in seasons past,
          Loved not the bitter might
          And merciless control
Of thy bleak trumpets calling to the soul.
          Their...
Ode to Gossips
By Safia Elhillo
i was mothered by lonely women some
of them wives some of them with

plumes of smoke for husbands all lonely
smelling of onions & milk ...
Ode to the Tiniest Dessert Spoon in All Creation
By Karen An-hwei Lee
In a new translator’s version of Genesis, there’s no Adam.
No serpent. In paradise, I don’t bleed. Fig leaf-free girl,
dear God, I say as we converse fluently without tongues,
joined as two spice-drenched beloveds in a song of songs,
could we please ask...
Ode on a Grecian Urn
By John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:...
Ode to the Electric Fish that Eat Only the Tails of Other Electric Fish,
By Thomas Lux
which regenerate their tails
and also eat only the tails of other electric eels,
presumably smaller, who, in turn, eat ...
Without consulting an ichthyologist — eels
are fish — I defer to biology’s genius.
I know little of their numbers
and habitat, other than they are river dwellers.
Guess which...
Spoon Ode
By Sharon Olds
Spoon of O, spoon of nothing,

spoon of ankh, spoon of poonss,

spoon of the lady at the dressing table,

spoon of , spoon of female,

spoon of , spoon of war,

spoon of the world, spoon of War of the

Worlds, spoon of stick...
This Is a Shout Out (For the Tenants of the Red Little Building on Ocean Avenue)
By Amber Atiya
to mama who on the eve of my birth beat a bitch with a kool-aid spoon
for taking her eldest child’s red balloon (if i wasn’t wet-fisted, all hemmed
up inside cecelia, i’da jumped in)

to the bazaar of milk & afterbirth that...

Quick Tags

poetry-magazineOde to a Dolly Parton Drag Queen

poetry-magazineAnt Ode

poetry-magazineIrritation Odes

poetry-magazineIrritation Odes

poetry-magazineT Shot #9: Ode to My Sharps Container

poetry-magazineOde to Dalya’s Bald Spot

poetry-magazineOde to Black Skin

poetry-magazineOde to Gossips

poetry-magazineOde to the Tiniest Dessert Spoon in All Creation

poetry-magazineOde to the Electric Fish that Eat Only the Tails of Other Electric Fish,

poetry-magazineSpoon Ode

Ode to a Dolly Parton Drag Queen

Ant Ode

Irritation Odes

Irritation Odes

T Shot #9: Ode to My Sharps Container

Ode to Dalya’s Bald Spot

Ode to Black Skin

Ode to Gossips

Ode to the Tiniest Dessert Spoon in All Creation

Ode to the Electric Fish that Eat Only the Tails of Other Electric Fish,

Spoon Ode