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 ...

In 1852, the March and April issues of La Revue de Paris carried an essay by Charles Baudelaire (1821–67), “Edgar Allan Poe, His Life and Works.” This was the first version of Baudelaire’s preface to ...

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 ...

Our perhaps forgivable tendency to group the Romantic tribe of early 19th-century poets under a single collective title is a disservice both to history and to literature. Byron opened his Don Juan ...

The British poet, who also wrote plays, fiction and published poetry in translation, analysed almost 1,000 poems for her much-loved series ...

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 ...

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 ...

From a young age, words surrounded poet Danez Smith. Growing up in a community filled with storytellers whom they loved to ...