American poetry Archives

American poetry

Eye of Death

From The Rose, which will be published this month by Graywolf Press. Me & Amanda went to see David Blaine the night of the Scorpio Eclipse. He held his breath…

There Are More Ways to Show Devotion

by Hanif Abdurraqib,

From I’m Always Looking Up and You’re Jumping, which will be published next year by Random House. At the end of my young boy’s gold rope there was a…

The Person Who Performs

From an interview with the poet Alice Notley conducted by Janique Vigier that was scheduled to appear on the Artforum website in December. Vigier pulled the piece from publication in…

Village of Dolls

by Catherine Barnett,

From Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space, which will be published next month by Graywolf Press. Some people say Tsukimi Ayano makes her life-sized dolls out of…

Poem for Harm

by Matthew Zapruder,

Reflections on harm in language and the trouble with Whitman

Battlefield and Wind Chime

by Tongo Eisen-Martin, Ben Lerner,

Tongo Eisen-Martin’s poems are echo chambers of vernaculars and unofficial languages. He both registers the damage caused by systemic racism and evinces—and by his work extends—the rich modes of resistance…

Six Poems

by Ben Lerner, Michael Palmer,

The formal accomplishment of Michael Palmer’s poetry is in tension with one of his recurrent themes: the limits and slippages of language. A poem dedicated to the trumpeter and composer…

American Expansion

by Helen Vendler,

The innovations of A.R. Ammons

Poetry Slam

by Mark Edmundson,

Or, The decline of American verse

Recantorium

by Charles Bernstein,

For the prevention of speed

by James Sitar,