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Take a Look

Take history
Take power

At no point sufficient
Accident of memory

The common truth
Conditions of visibility

Unstable orbits
Explain nothing

In the history
Of contestation

Truth cure—it’s a start
Unfit for use

Nescio, not knowing
Task or matter

Insufficient uncertainties
Pose limits of understanding

The commission
Memory itself

41,493

poems

4,155

poets

207

poetic terms

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01

By feeling

Grief, desire, revolt, wonder. Start where the poem meets your life.

Emotions →
02

By form

Follow the sonnet, ghazal, villanelle, ode, and every shape in between.

The glossary →
03

By constellation

Move between a poet, their influences, peers, translations, and afterlives.

Poets →

Selected

Poems worth returning to

In what sense …

Carl Rakosi

But Ukraine is a country of the baroque. …

Yuri Andrukhovych

My shadow followed me to San Diego …

Marilyn Chin

Moonpoison, mullock of sacrifice, …

Joseph Gordon Macleod

My Mother’s Teeth—died twice, once in 1965, all pulled out from gum disease. Once again on August 3, 2015. The fake teeth sit in a box in the garage. When she died, I touched them, smelled them, thought I heard a whimper. I shoved the teeth into my mouth. But having two sets of teeth only made me hungrier. When my mother died, I saw myself in the mirror, her words in a ring around my mouth, like powder from a donut. Her last words were in English. She asked for a Sprite. I wonder whether her last thought was in Chinese. I wonder what her last thought was. I used to think that a dead person’s words die with them. Now I know that they scatter, looking for meaning to attach to like a scent. My mother used to collect orange blossoms in a small shallow bowl. I pass the tree each spring. …

Victoria Chang

It caught my eye a while ago, lit up …

Billy Collins

MARCH 1993 …

Philip Booth

The last time I saw father alive he was using …

Mary Ruefle

The glossary

The language about poetry

From aubade to zuihitsu, 207 definitions of the forms, figures, and schools that shape the line.

Explore the glossary→
Accentual verseAccentual-syllabic verseAcmeismAlcaicAlexandrineAmbiguity