When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. By Jeff Gordinier LOVE AND OTHER POEMS By Alex Dimitrov Until the pandemic of 2020, I had never ...

“What dark flower bloomed here,/ what promise led anyone/ down this path, black orchid/ red rose/ how does consciousness separate/ itself from the body?” These lines are part of the first poem (“The ...

Sarah Ruhl’s mother was the first to explain that the word “quarantine” comes from the Italian term “quaranta giorni,” meaning forty days. “Forty days for ships to sit in ports so they would not ...

When Selected Poems first appeared in 1959, Mark Van Doren wrote that Thomas Merton believed that “poetry at its best is contemplation—of things, and of what they signify.” At a time when poets are ...

Robert Frost’s poem “Hyla Brook” concludes with a resounding claim: “We love the things we love for what they are.” Frost’s greatest poems capture the details of his world as it was, from the bend in ...

Oroville teacher William “Bill” Jackson is also a professional magician, lover of theology, and now, a “reluctant poet.” “I never understood, nor enjoyed most poetry,” he writes. “So I never ...