The choices we make in a poem — line length, tone, diction, point-of-view, etc. — are the poem. Together they make the poem what it is, so that changing one thing changes everything.

This poem adroitly explores complex emotions around the speaker’s decision not to have a child. Nearly every line is interrupted with a caesura (a period, em dash, comma or question mark ...

And although his poems have a brutal side to them, there is an unmistakable tone of hope. In “Shadows,” he speaks of escape, but not in the cowardly sense. He is escaping past sorrows in ...

But now I catch the tone Of leaves. No birds can touch down in the trees Without my seeing them. I count the bees. When you are memorizing a poem, a similar kind of noticing begins at the level of ...

Poetry in the 21st century is both ubiquitous and oddly peripheral. Verses are displayed on subway walls, recited on momentous occasions, and served up in giant fonts on social media, but rarely ...