The Daily Poem

In today’s poem Thomas Merton, 20th-century author and mystic, comes to an understanding of his monastic vocation through a contemplation of John the Baptist’s prenatal gymnastics. Happy reading.

Ted Hughes, one of the giants of twentieth-century British poetry, was born in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire. After serving in the Royal Air Force, Hughes attended Cambridge, where he studied archeology and…

Mark Strand was born on Canada’s Prince Edward Island on April 11, 1934. He received a BA from Antioch College in Ohio in 1957 and attended Yale University, where he was awarded the Cook Prize and th…

Today’s poem is a meta-reflection on the constraints of poetic form that has something to say about all of life’s formal constraints. Happy reading.

Today’s poem–perfect for a Friday–gives us a less familiar (PG-13) Emily Dickinson, dreaming of letting her hair down. Happy reading.

Today’s poem is a classic staple with Literature teachers for its expressive metaphors; it is a classic staple with me because it’s such a cracking-good poem. Happy reading.

Today’s poem captures one of the universal challenges of education: recognizing the distinctions and distances between all human souls, and then bridging them without erasing them. Happy reading.

As the school year begins, today’s poem goes out to all of those everyday saints performing the unseen and unsung acts of love that make life possible for rest of us!

Born Asa Bundy Sheffey on August …

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, sometimes a portrait of your last wife who died under suspicious circumstances is as good as a confession. Happy(?) reading!

Hopefully five days of limericks has made this week a little lighter and a little brighter. See you next week for more of our regularly programming. Till then, happy reading!

Today’s limericks are all about unexpected consequences. Happy reading.

Children’s poet and educator Constance Levy earned degrees at Washington University and currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri. …

Things are getting hairy. Happy reading.

While limericks can be plenty nonsensical, today’s are downright sensible–especially that of Leigh Mercer, famous for his mathematical wordplay and best known for creating the enterprising palindrome…

It’s another weekly gimmerick here on the Daily Poem.

Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary n…

Nâzim Hikmet was born on January 15, 1902, in Salonika, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloníki, Greece), where his father served in the Foreign Service. He was exposed to poetry at an early age through his…

Maybe you remember the experiences recounted in today’s poem—maybe you don’t. Happy reading!

T. S. Eliot is remembered as a great poet, but he is surpassingly underrated as a namer of cats. Happy reading.

Warren (1905-1989) was born in Kentucky and educated at Vanderbilt University and the University of California, Berkeley. Though perhaps best known for his 1946 novel All the King’s Men, he was the a…

Bruce Lansky is an internationally known poet and anthologist. He has a passion for getting children excited about reading and writing poetry. Lansky’s poetry books—including A Bad Case of the Giggle…

Today’s poems from Ogden Nash, “The Ant” and “The Ostrich,” are the perfect marriage of wit and attention. Happy reading.