One of the most powerful videos to come out of the turmoil in Iran is of a woman reciting a poem from the rooftops of Tehran at night. Recorded on the eve of the first wave of violent crackdowns against protesters, the poem gives voice to the inner turmoil of...

Richard Shelton's first interest in a prisoner's poetry was born from curiosity rather than charity. In 1970, a convicted murderer named Charles Schmid--on death row at the Arizona State Prison in Florence--wrote Shelton and asked him to critique his work. Shelton, then a professor at the University of Arizona, accepted....

It boasts the same live audience, the same glitzy stage, the same young hopefuls bearing their souls before a panel of celebrity judges (only this time, two of the judges are wearing a thobe).

Prince of Poets has all the trappings of an American Idol-style mega-show, but...

It's times like this I wish I lived in New York City. Poets House, a national poetry library and literary center, is sponsoring its 14th annual poetry walk across the Brooklyn Bridge on Monday (June 8th). Participants will gather on the Manhattan side, joined by poets Hettie Jones, Galway...

When the British newspaper The Guardian asked Carol Ann Duffy how poetry is changing, she emphasized its growing diversity: "There are so many more voices: other cultures, women, performance poets...The edge is now the centre." The new poet laureate is, herself, an embodiment of that diversity. She is Britain's first...

Mike Huckabee published a poem on his website last week and you can add his name to the growing list of famous people who should never share their poetry again.  He'll slide in nicely just below Bono (shudder).

How bad is the Huckster's verse?  I've read the poem...

As part of her remarks introducing the first ever White House Poetry Jam, Michelle Obama said of democracy, "It has room for lots of voices, which sometimes take us out of our comfort zones, but that's what makes it so meaningful." One could say the same thing about poetry, and...

On Wednesday, U2 lead singer Bono will read a poem on BBC radio that he penned for Elvis Presley. It's entitled "Elvis: American David," and while the network is playing it up as "unique" and "purposefully quintessential," the rest of the British press--which got a hold of a copy--is panning...

So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost.
Evil, be thou my good.

No, we're definitely not talking about 17 Again.

Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures, producers of The Dark Knight and 300, are moving forward with a big budget...

The Obama administration will pass the 100 day mark this week, and you Obamaphiles out there that don't want to let go of the early, heady times might be interested in Starting Today: Poems for the First 100 Days, a poetic embodiment of the beginning of Obama's presidency. The...

This past Tuesday, The Poetry Foundation awarded its prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize to Fanny Howe in recognition of her lifetime of accomplishments.  The prize includes an eye-opening award of $100,000. And Howe can now count herself in the company of past Ruth Lilly Prize winners, a list that...

This week, as a way of celebrating National Poetry Month, I'm posting a favorite poem, and I encourage you to add your own in the comments section below. Hopefully, we can get an interesting little anthology going. At the very least, we'll have a collection of poems that have profoundly...

It's been raining for three days here in Washington DC and that can only mean that April has arrived. After wringing out your pant legs you can take some solace in the fact that it is, once again, National Poetry Month, an event hatched by the Academy of American Poets...

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" is coming to theaters. And if that makes you want to hide your children, hold off for a moment. The movie isn't an incarnation of the watershed poem itself, it's based on the obscenity trial that the poem sparked.

"Howl" was first published in 1956 by famed...

This past week, Seamus Heaney was awarded the prestigious David Cohen prize for his life's work in poetry. It gave Heaney (who turns 70 next month) the chance to reflect on his career, and gives us the chance to as well. The ceremony, interestingly, called for Heaney to select two...

Dubai's construction projects may be stalling out, but the region's push to become a place of international cultural significance is still going strong. Last week, Dubai hosted its first annual International Poetry Festival, which brought in more than a hundred writers from 45 countries. Everything about the festival, right down...

A poem written by the "King of Pop" and carved into some sort of tombstone-looking thing will be auctioned off next month along with a slew of other property from Jackson's Neverland Ranch. The five-day auction, which is expected to bring in more than three million dollars, will also...

Electronic Arts is currently in production of a video game called Dante's Inferno based on Dante's great 14th century epic poem The Divine Comedy. Production costs on the ambitious attempt to fuse classic literature and "hack and slash" gaming are expected to number in the tens of millions of dollars....

When you consider that poetry was originally primarily an oral art form, it's remarkable how rarely contemporary poetry lovers listen to poets reading their work. I'd be surprised if most admirers of Robert Lowell have heard a recording of him reading "Skunk Hour," or if many admirers of Elizabeth Bishop...

Seeing as how it's sonnet season, I thought it would be a good time to look at what might be the most popular and enduring form in English poetry. Now, I figure that some of you are suffering from a little Valentine's Day overload, and the last thing you want...