Poetry

By Catherine Tufariello Their shrieks careening dizzily between Delight and outrage, the students in the yard Are playing hard, Though they have little room and nothing green In their asphalt pen.  Nothing but fences, bricks, And at regulation height, a pair of hoops From which gray loops Vestigially descend.  With...

By Evan Mantyk Gov. Mitt Romney was absolutely correct when he declared that government subsidies to PBS should be cut. But he wasn’t right because he was paying lip service to some small-government ideology espoused by Republicans. First, to be fair, here is exactly what Romney had the gall to...

By Aubrey Henderson The sweet silence evades me these long days, When I can close my eyes and hear God speak, Without words, He dissipates the dark haze, Occupying my being with the grand mystique. I never wanted to cause affliction To you or any sentient being, Yet in my...

By Michael T. Young Ice is the past tense of water, is verb condensed to noun, pure speed contracted to a stasis of glitter, a brief foam frozen in marble beads, the memories that can’t recede. It is the practice of winter habits, of hibernating inhabitants hoarding the landscape, seeds...

By Dan Skorbach The tired eyes have earned their time for resting The mind won't think and feet will move no more, And when the smallest pillow seems a blessing That's when the night is almost at your door. And as she enters, with her comes the wonders Echoing hum...

Poetry should be metered, because metered poetry is, quite simply, better than free verse.  This is for the same reason that realist art trumps impressionist art and that Baroque music trumps rock and roll and hip-hop. It is because art, in its best state, is not about the experience of...

By Chen Z'iang (Translated by Lan Hua) The orchids birthed Through spring And summer both Such luxuriant growth How can leaf Be so green Hidden and alone In the forest remote The vermillion flowers Hang from a purplish stem Slowly absorbing The light as the Daytime fades And with the...

By Robert Crawford By August I noticed the lack of care, And now in September I feel the despair; The rusting tools, the vanished rows, Reveal an all too brief affair. The hopeful beginning has come to a close As a meeting place for sinister crows And devious weeds planning...

In the picture above, a Chinese citizen writes the words "Tui Dang" (literally "Quit Party") signifying his resignation from the Chinese Communist Party. Since the publishing of the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” by the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times in November, 2004, Chinese people have been...

By Li Bai  (Translated by Lan Hua) In the rickety tower A hundred feet high My hands could pluck The stars from the sky I dare not speak More than a whisper For fear of disturbing The Immortals nearby   Lan Hua is a writer and translator based in New...

By Dan Skorbach If I could talk to trees and meet with mighty lions, If I could ride the winds and gain the moon’s advice, I’d ask how they command the forces of the wild, And how they see the earthly beings through their eyes. If I could climb a...

By Aubrey Henderson Reluctantly I emerged from natures Soothing womb; forsaking the assuagement Of community, for the dark lament Emanating from the hearts of strangers In a greyhound station.  Countless dangers Swarm from screens like locusts, breeding the descent Of a nation; grief and fear circumvent Reason and compassion, fueling...

By Aubrey Henderson You battle with our demons in the dark. You wake up screaming from your troubled dreams. Memories of the dark day you embarked, On a journey far from the red regime, And left your homeland burning in despair, Cloud your judgment with endless fear and hate. The...

By Evan Mantyk There is a dark and forceful urge to blame The nine-eleven terrorist attacks On religion, on security gone slack, On our country, for all that we feel shame, There’s also an opposite urge not to blame, But to throw our hands up and to step back And...

In this refashioned version of Homer’s Iliad, the mystical hero Achilles’ clashes with the doubting King Agamemnon over a woman, throwing the fate of the Trojan War, and more, into jeopardy. Click here for the Act I. By Evan Mantyk ACT II SCENE I Achilles and Patroclus sit together in...

By Joshua Philipp So deep grown were our rings of sin, lost hope had humankind, lost hope for sight of spring again, our fates could not unwind. Blind and lost, a darkened world, no peace could this heart find, no peace but empty joys unfurled, with blackness in my mind....

Lesson Plans, Readings with Questions, and Sample Essays: Lesson on the Poetry of Bruce Dale Wise (Society of Classical Poets Competition Winner) Bruce Dale Wise poetry (includes questions) Essay Comparing Two Bruce Dale Wise Sonnets (includes questions analyzing the essay)   Lesson on "A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth...

By Tom Zart God has always had his poets Who He watches with love from space. But Satan has his poets too Who try to lead us from our grace. King Solomon was a poet Who spoke of love, life, death and war. That lips were like threads of scarlet...

Translated by Gary Pansey Ridiculing Social Status In Their Proper Places First come officials And then of course their boss, Next come the famous With so much dough to toss; Bodyguards hold down the fort, Execs and doctors fare well, Phony beggars in every port, Lap dancers crowd the stairwell;...

Let Observation with extensive View, Survey Mankind, from China to Peru; Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife, And watch the busy Scenes of crouded Life; Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate, O'er spread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate, Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by vent'rous...

By Bill Coyle Go to the prosperous city, for I have taken pity on its inhabitants, who drink and feast and dance all night in lighted halls yet know their bacchanals lead nowhere in the end. Go to them, now, commend, to those with ears to hear, a lifestyle more...

By Michael T. Young Traffic, a crowd, the tide flooding the bay, whatever will rise and fall, will begin, then end, forgive each moment for what comes along, like wind shoving the clouds, and clouds, the day, like the night calling the sun to come in, the dream where a brief...

In this refashioned version of Homer's Iliad, the mystical hero Achilles clashes with the doubting King Agamemnon over a woman, throwing the fate of the Trojan War, and more, into jeopardy. By Evan Mantyk ACT I SCENE I On the shores of Hellespont, the Achaean King Agamemnon enters looking troubled....

By Joshua Philipp At night alone, I sometimes dream of a place which seems so far away. Quietly sitting by a stream. With words this place so hard to say. In distant lands, its legends told of flowered hills and ancient trees. The weight of wonders, words cannot hold. Its...

By Thomas Newton Just as the Renaissance was fueled by The printing press, the Internet has sounded A call for crafted poetry—a cry For quality that has the crude confounded. The plasma screen’s soft glow directs the Quest For human creative ability. The Classics that endure to feed the best...

By Thomas Newton The Founding Fathers showed the way and built Our sturdy ships to last through all of time. Each has a moral compass showing guilt And innocence, thus exposing crime. The Western Canon’s smoke is drifting past Their sleazy, sinking, ships—all lost upon The sea, steered by a...

(Clearwisdom.net) Ancient Chinese people cherished time, which was revealed in their pursuit for the truth and the Dao, the cultivation of one's mind, the establishment of one's virtue and longevity, and a long-term view of the world. This frame of mind was closely related to traditional Confucian and Daoist beliefs....

By Aubrey Henderson I remember vast fields of Helenium; Yellow, trembling, dancing with fireflies, In the fading light of nature’s atrium, As the storm rolled in; black clouds and thunder’s cries. And cried my heart from my rain drenched chest, For the loss of love which would never bloom. Yet...

By Michael T. Young The pine's elected to the maple's post, the fly's buzzword is vetoed by the day, streams in a presidential race all boast in speeches glittering with icy spray. The squirrels lobby to protect their nuts, the honeysuckle prosecutes the bee, the Sun, pro-lifer that he is,...

On the shores of Gitche Gumee, Of the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood Nokomis, the old woman, Pointing with her finger westward, O'er the water pointing westward, To the purple clouds of sunset.     Fiercely the red sun descending Burned his way along the heavens, Set the sky on fire behind him, As...

By Yolanda Marín-Parker Mathematics is The language that nature speaks To the human fool. Fool – man is – for not Listening to the wonder, Patterns and numbers. Math is everywhere: From the money that you owe, To the leaves in trees. Structure of nature, The science of medicine, Chaos...

The Wu Wei-ter The Contemporary Artist The Modern Artist On a Wind-brushed Night

By Joshua Philipp The winds of change, so soft they blow. In the blink of an eye, a thousand years. Immeasurable is the great river’s flow, to sail, one must remove his fears. So fine, the ship on which we ride, with wind to carry all the sails. Across dark...

By Dan Skorbach I sit with you the silent moon of May, After the chores of day are soundly sleeping. Here, once again, you come to guide the way, For those who in the night are lost and seeking. You cross the boundless sky beneath the stars, And sit so...

By Evan Mantyk The Apocalypse: what would it look like? Half the people now gone, When the gods’ dike That holds back raging waters was half withdrawn. Weeds overgrown, buildings abandoned, Houses like faces of ghosts, And locals who look stranded On an endless cracked concrete coast. In the streets...

By Joshua Philipp Just as flowers fall, so shall we all What meaning to find before time makes its call To love and the spring Softly we’d sing Then what is left, for to dust turn the memories of all. Yet there was a time, so long ago When troubles...

Heaven’s Gate Opens After History’s Long March Over 7,000 years of human civilization, how many heroes have taken the stage? Rise and fall, success and failure are like waves gone by, Love, hate, gratitude, and resentment are like sand taken away by the ocean. Wise men and sages of the...

The American poet Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, CA. He spent his first 40 years mostly unknown, and it wasn’t until after returning to the United States from England—where he had his first two books of poetry published—near the beginning of the first World...

By Evan Mantyk Get this thing out of my mind, It should never undermine, It should go and let me be, It should go and I’ll be free! Tear it out from in my heart, From its madness I can part, From its gladness I can leave, From its sadness...