Purchase this and other timeless New Criterion essays in our hard-copy reprint series. From those decades, we have fewer than two poems a year, many, like most of his sculptures, unfinished. From his ...

This man—me—walks into a pub on Broadway in the golden early September of 2001, opens his notebook on the bar, and starts trying to write a poem. My work is interrupted by an old man called Joey Stone ...

T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month. It also happens to be National Poetry Month. Many schoolchildren will be admonished to pay attention to poetry these next few weeks - read, analyze, ...

The poems of Philip Larkin have had a curious publication history. He produced just three mature collections, The Less Deceived in 1955, The Whitsun Weddings in 1964, and High Windows in 1974. No ...

Imagine that your class had been studying William Shakespeare’s famous poem ‘Sonnet 18’ as a National 5 Critical Essay text. For an essay question on theme, you could write this basic introduction: ...

An inventory of some of the themes included in his huge collection Hesperides, this is also a winning celebration of sheer abundance The Argument of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and ...

In a poem, a writer uses language, form and structure to present an idea in a new way; the words on the page become a way to communicate between the poet’s mind and the reader's. When reading poetry a ...

To welcome National Poetry Month, we take a listen to former Poet Laureate Billy Collins read his poem, "Introduction to Poetry." Former Poet Laureate Billy Collins reads his poem 'Introduction to ...