John Lundberg

In honor of Memorial Day, I've selected two poems from the past and one from the present to help remember the sacrifices of our soldiers.

Laurence Binyon's poem "For the Fallen" is often recited during remembrance services overseas. Binyon wrote the poem in 1914, shortly after the...

Kristen Dupard, a high school senior from Mississippi, won the 2012 Poetry Out Loud national recitation contest on Tuesday. It was a long road for Kristen, who had to advance from her classroom to a school-wide competition, then on through regional/state competitions, just to make the finals in Washington, D.C....

Poetry of the Taliban, a soon-to-be-released collection of poetry written by Taliban fighters, faced a storm of criticism this past week. The book's editors -- two scholars -- acknowledged that one strongly voiced complaint they hear is that their book will be giving voice to terrorists.

Richard...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg did far more than pay lip service to National Poem in Your Pocket Day (which took place this past Thursday), he wrote a poem about it. His spunky and ambitious effort, "50.5 Million Can't Be Wrong," celebrates the city as a Mecca for...

It's been a little more than a year since the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and residents of the prefecture are still dealing with the aftermath. Some are turning to poetry as a way to stay strong and to heal.

A free iPhone/iPad app that features poems written...

We're already in the thick of National Poetry Month, an annual opportunity for journalists to quote the opening to T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" (yes, you're very clever), and, more to the point, a chance for lovers of poetry to celebrate and call attention to the art.

The Academy of...

Whether you've been missing your daily dose of literature, or you just want something to read other than Dr. Zizmor's ubiquitous dermatology ads, you'll be happy to hear that poetry is coming back to New York's subway system.

The MTA has a long history of promoting poetry (literally) underground. It...

In his "Ode to Autumn," John Keats somewhat cheekily asks the question, "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?" Well, spring is back and singing again. And as for autumn, Mr. Keats, scholars revealed last week that the rosy-hued plains that inspired your great ode might well...

We'll start with a little quiz this week. See if you can guess who wrote this lyric:

The pinkish bud has opened,
Rushing to the pale-blue violet
And, stirred by a light breeze,
The lily of the valley has bent over the grass.

Move over John Carter, another action hero is headed to the big screen -- and would you believe it's Edgar Allan Poe? Indeed, the famed poet and fiction writer will appear this spring in The Raven, under the direction of V for Vendetta's James McTeigue. And unlike recent...

Poetry will have a place at this summer's Olympic Games in London thanks to the Winning Words program, conceived of by National Poetry Day founder William Sieghart. Sieghart is working with London's Olympic organizing groups to display poetry throughout the city's Olympic Park. The project aims to bring some of...

Kapil Sibal, a senior leader in India's congress, will release his second book of poems, My World Within, later this week. It's the latest of many books of poetry penned by India's politicians in recent years, where the practice has come to seem almost a requirement for public office. A...

The romance of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning got a lot of attention last week when scans of their love letters, previously available for viewing only at Wellesley college, went online just in time for Valentine's Day (The Huffington Post had nice coverage of the news here).
...

Sure, it's a cliché, but poets do write about love an awful lot. And it's a rare poem that makes a convincing case that its author doesn't need all this love business. But in honor of the single people on Valentine's Day, I've tracked down a few poems you won't...

The great Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska died this past Wednesday at the age of 88. And while she was never one for travel herself, her poetry did, and it touched millions around the world. Among her myriad admirers was Woody Allen, who, in the 2010 documentary Sometimes Life is Bearable,...

This past Wednesday was Robert Burns day in Scotland. The annual birthday celebrations in honor of the great 18th Century poet featured the traditional bagpipe music and boozy dinners, and, this year, the release of a Burns Night iPod app to help make the most of your celebrations....

Chinese writer and activist Zhu Yufu was charged with publishing a provocative poem this past week (the official charge was "inciting subversion of state power"). Zhu's poem is entitled "It's Time," and here it is in translation:

It's time
It's time, Chinese people!
It's time,
The square...

The fifth season of the American-Idol style poetry competition Million's Poet premiered this past Tuesday in the Middle East, and it seems that the Arab world's most-watched TV show is only getting more popular: in the run-up to this season, it attracted more than 20,000 applicants from more than 20...

The death of Kim Jong-il and the installation of his son Kim Jong-un as North Korea's new "Supreme Leader" has the internet abuzz with speculation as to why Jong-il's other sons were passed over for the position. The International Business Times covered the story with the headline, Poetry,...

For the past 14 years, Greg Clugston, a reporter for Salem Radio Network (SRN) News, has written and performed a Christmas poem for the White House Press Corps based on Clement Clarke Moore's classic "A Visit from St. Nicholas". The reading is usually a press-only affair, but this...