Preparedness

For all your days prepare,

   And meet them ever alike:

When you are the anvil, bear—

   When you are the hammer, strike.

41,493

poems

4,155

poets

207

poetic terms

Browse the collection

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

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

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

Selected

FOUNDED IN 1912 BY HARRIET MONROE …

E. E. Cummings

The name of the author is the first to go …

Billy Collins

FIRST POEMS …

Polly Chase

You know the straight man in your building …

Aaron Smith

Not even you can quite escape …

Alice Bidwell Wesenberg

Into the gloom of the deep, dark night, …

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“But can you forge a nail?” the blond boy asks, …

A.E. Stallings

two poems …

David Wagoner

The glossary

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