The Daily Poem

William Procter Matthews III (November 11, 1942 – November 12, 1997) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned a BA from Yale and MFA from the University of North Carolina. The author of eleven books o…

Happy Thanksgiving from The Daily Poem!

Today we pay tribute, with poems by Andrea Cohen and Elizabeth Alexander, to the indispensable golden wonder.

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced…

John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979) was a poet, critic, biographer, and novelist. Born and raised in Kentucky, he earned his BA from Vanderbilt University, where he was the o…

In today’s poem Ted Kooser describes his ideal reader.

In today’s poems, Walt Whitman welcomes the reader.

In today’s poem, Marianne Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) gets candid about poetry itself.

One of American literature’s foremost poets, Marianne Moore’s poetry is characterized by linguis…

Today’s poem is Billy Collins’ take on the time-honored poetic trope: the address to the reader.

Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure…

The English writer and Anglican cleric John Donne is considered now to be the preeminent metaphysical poet of his time. He was born in 1572 to Roman Catholic parents, when practicing that religion wa…

Barbara Ras was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and has lived in Costa Rica, Colombia, California, and Texas. She is the author of The Last Skin (2010), winner of the best poetry award from the T…

Ayodeji Malcolm Guite (/ɡaɪt/; born 12 November 1957) is an English poet, singer-songwriter, Anglican priest, and academic. Born in Nigeria to British expatriate parents, Guite earned degrees from Ca…

During his lifetime, Ogden Nash (born August 19, 1902; died May 19, 1971) was the most widely known, appreciated, and imitated American creator of light verse, a reputation that has continued after h…

Remember, Remember – November 5 was Guy Fawkes Day, an occasion full of complicated remembrances. We mark the day with a traditional English lyric and a November meditation from Malcolm Guite.

We will turn the clocks back this weekend–in fact, many clocks will turn themselves back–and there is no better occasion to meditate with Robert B. Shaw on the ways we keep time and are kept by it.

Stevens moved to Connecticut in 1916, having found employment at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., where he became vice president in 1934. He had also begun to establish an identity for himsel…

Billy Collins spent his tenure as U.S. Poet Laureate launching the Poetry 180 initiative to increase American high school students’ exposure to poetry. In today’s poem he remembers what it was like t…

Poet and critic Robert B. Shaw earned a BA from Harvard University, where he studied with Robert Lowell, and a PhD from Yale University. Influenced by Elizabeth Bishop and Philip Larkin, Shaw’s wry a…

Edward Estlin (E.E.) Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He attended the Cambridge Latin High School, where he studied Latin and Greek. Cummings earned both his BA and MA from Harvard, and…