LET’S BEGIN by talking about meaning in poetry. It’s always the dragon at the gate whenever you approach the subject. Every poet, I suppose, tries to define for himself what poetry is all about. It’s ...

In 1968, Margaret Ackerman of the University of Arizona authored a paper for The English Journal in which she included a summary of what poetry meant to most of her students: “sentimentality, ...

Humans spend most of their waking hours playing with what novelist Rudyard Kipling called “the most powerful drug used by mankind”—words. In the laboratories of our minds, we sort, slice, and string ...

In “Upstream,” a book of essays, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver wrote: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” I believe attention is not only the beginning of devotion but also of wisdom, ...

Poetry is close to my heart. I would be lost without its very specific magic, its ability to spark wonder and shock and to open up fresh vistas on life in God. But as W. H. Auden famously says in his ...

But growing up, the 26-year-old'sview of poetry was heavily influenced by those two men, "both of whom were writers who have experiences that I didn't identify with as a working-class Salvadoran girl ...

Brenda Cárdenas is Wisconsin’s newest poet laureate. She began her three-year term at the beginning of this year. As the state’s ambassador for poetry, the Milwaukee native hopes to inspire creativity ...

It’s been described as embarrassing, clichéd or “unhelpful singsong.” Many poets dislike it too, but it’s a style they’ve learned from each other.