“Poetry leaves something out,” our columnist Elisa Gabbert says. But that’s hardly the extent of it. By Elisa Gabbert I once heard a student say poetry is language that’s “coherent enough.” I love a ...

It’s National Poetry Month this April. Is it worth celebrating? After all, poetry doesn’t seem to be doing much to alleviate the tension in our communities. Ask some of the middle schoolers I’ve ...

One of the highlights of my first three years as a literature professor at MIT—and indeed, of my 15-year career as an educator—has been the recent discovery that some of my students, past and present, ...

Weeks after the coronavirus pandemic started taking root in the United States, editor Alice Quinn wanted to capture that sudden rupture of daily life. Quinn sensed that poets, taking on "the role of ...

Billy Collins believes in the beauty of short poems. He says they show how poetry can squeeze a lot of meaning into tight spaces. His new collection of short poems is called "Musical Tables," and ...