Book Talk by the Sea

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Like any other holiday, March 17th can become gimmicky and commercialized, but there is a strong connection...

There is something of a feeling of simple smallness when looking at a Lucille Clifton poem like "blessing the boats," with its lower case...

This March marks forty years since the first official celebration of Women's History Week in 1981. While it is, and should be, impossible...

As we transition from Black History Month to Women's History Month, the voice of Audre Lorde seems the perfect complement to the moment....

You could skip the ten-page Acknowledgements section of Robert Jones Jr.'s debut novel The Prophets if you find it daunting or mundane;...

Today's Poem of the Week comes from Pulitzer Prize-winning and former Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. "An Old Story" is featured in Smith's...

"I had no idea how much these quiet pleasures had retreated from my life while I was rushing around, and now I'm inviting them back in:...

Though hope and gratitude are always necessary to carry us through, we've needed them perhaps more than ever in the last year. Poet Ross...

February may be the month of a certain romantic holiday, but it's also Library Lovers' Month! It's easy to get in the spirit of the...

Nikki Giovanni's work has been read, heard, and celebrated since she published Black Feeling Black Talk herself in 1968. With language...

Each February, we celebrate Black History Month to recognize historical moments and to celebrate the identities and achievements of Black...

As we delve into Black History Month, there are too many exceptional Black poets to even touch the tip of the iceberg in 28 days. Today,...

Perhaps you're sick of the snow poetry I've brought to Poem of the Week by now, and I promise it will abate for a bit! I can make no...

"Every day I choose to try to do good. Much of the garden is harvested and put away for the winter. I will not forget again that we can...

January 17th marked two years since Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver's death. There are days that stick with you, when a moment of...

"When she got back home to Cawber—if she ever got home—she would ask Ruth if she could have a blanket like this, instead of the puffy...

"It was then I started sewing the patchwork with the pieces of old clothes for her. I'd seen one in a shop in town and the little woman...

Winter and snow take on many moods both in our lives and in literary form. In this poem, Kenyon weaves the weather into a charged moment,...

Do you believe in parallel universes? In an infinite number of possibilities for the trajectory of your life? That's the question at the...

Meena Alexander was an Indian poet, raised in India and the Sudan, while later studying in England. Her books of poetry (both verse and...