A melancholy December vision in Liverpool invokes a Dickensian ghost with more worldly but still warm realism Down on the canal on Christmas Day Down on the canal on Christmas Day a man walks towards ...

Here are the year’s most notable collections of verse as chosen by our poetry columnist. Credit...Photo illustration by Sebastian Mast Supported by By Elisa Gabbert Elisa Gabbert’s collections of ...

From Seamus Heaney’s collected poems and Simon Armitage’s animal spirits, to prizewinners Karen Solie and Vidyan Ravinthiran Many of 2025’s most notable collections have been powered by a spirit of ...

One of the highlights of my first three years as a literature professor at MIT—and indeed, of my 15-year career as an educator—has been the recent discovery that some of my students, past and present, ...

Months before Andrea Gibson, Colorado's renowned poet laurate, died of terminal ovarian cancer, they sat down for their final television interview on an episode of NBC Chicago's "It's OK to Ask ...

On a recent Friday afternoon, I joined Joe Hoover, S.J., our poetry editor, and James Davis May, the winner of last year’s contest, in a spirited debate to choose the winning poem for the 2025 Foley ...

For 23 years, A.O. Scott was a film critic for the New York Times. For the past five months, he has been the nation’s most prominent poetry critic, writing a monthly column that uses the Times’ ...

It’s National Poetry Month this April. Is it worth celebrating? After all, poetry doesn’t seem to be doing much to alleviate the tension in our communities. Ask some of the middle schoolers I’ve ...

Paul Hetherington has worked with, edited and been on judging panels with numerous poets. In the last decade, he has collaborated with Distinguished Professor Cassandra Atherton on various scholarly ...

The stoic banking center of Zurich is the only city in stolid Switzerland that can claim to have fostered an art movement. Ironically, it was dadaism, which purported to prize meaninglessness over ...

Jennae Cecelia imagines that meeting her 15-year-old self for coffee would be a cathartic experience, even if her younger self would probably show up late, wearing sweatpants. “She lets out a sigh and ...

When I heard that a previously unpublished poem by Robert Frost had been discovered, I was skeptical. I know Frost’s poetry well, having written “Robert Frost: A Life” and, quite recently, a small ...