Poetry Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/section/poetry/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:17:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Poetry Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/section/poetry/ 32 32 “Only the Northern Lights”: The Russo-Ukrainian War and Its Poets https://www.publicbooks.org/only-the-northern-lights-the-russo-ukrainian-war-and-its-poets/ Tue, 03 Dec 2024 16:00:04 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=58173 These poets unsettle a collective sense of melancholy into a generative force, from which a transformed historical imagination can emerge.

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]]> Frivolity Is Not Unserious https://www.publicbooks.org/frivolity-is-not-unserious/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 15:00:29 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=57329 “When we try to write about trauma, no matter what the trauma we wish to explore, it’s the poet’s job to do their homework.”

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]]> “Our Hands”: Reading with DeafBlind Poet John Lee Clark https://www.publicbooks.org/our-hands-reading-with-deafblind-poet-john-lee-clark/ Thu, 04 May 2023 15:00:23 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=52011 Clark’s poetry collection questions how those excluded from spoken conversation devise new avenues for transmission.

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]]> “Maybe it wasn’t a Narrative at All”: Three Poetry Collections https://www.publicbooks.org/maybe-it-wasnt-a-narrative-at-all-three-poetry-collections/ Thu, 09 Mar 2023 16:00:36 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=51266 The best poets tend to trouble conventions, including those they find necessary.

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]]> Invitations to the Voyage https://www.publicbooks.org/invitations-to-the-voyage-ecological-poetry/ Thu, 15 Sep 2022 15:00:31 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=49977 Three new poetry collections depart on a cosmic journey to reckon with ecology and our relations to a suffering earth.

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]]> “Beowulf”: A Horror Show https://www.publicbooks.org/maria-dahvana-headley-beowulf-horror/ Tue, 26 Jul 2022 15:00:48 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=49303 Maria Dahvana Headley’s translation of “Beowulf” forces us to think about what we need to be true about the past, and our access to it.

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]]> Beholding Black Life: A Conversation with Ross Gay, Frank Guridy, & Deborah Paredez https://www.publicbooks.org/beholding-black-life-a-conversation-with-ross-gay-frank-guridy-deborah-paredez/ Wed, 01 Jun 2022 15:00:43 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=48720 “We have to witness everything… You don't do it by yourself.
That mode of looking is not like any individual feat; it is a feat of joining.”

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]]> Poetry for the Deluge https://www.publicbooks.org/environmental-poetry-climate-catastrophe/ Wed, 16 Feb 2022 16:00:05 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=47260 Amid this turbulent present, can poetry call attention to creative forms of survival and persistence, human and nonhuman?

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]]> Seek, Memory … https://www.publicbooks.org/seek-memory/ Tue, 19 Oct 2021 15:00:26 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=45492 If memory is an unreliable narrator, how can it be the medium through which we arrive at the truth about ourselves?

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]]> Nikki Giovanni on Rest, Love, and Care https://www.publicbooks.org/nikki-giovanni-on-rest-love-and-care/ Tue, 05 Oct 2021 15:00:56 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=45130 “There is nothing supreme about being white.”

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