Read Emi Bergquist’s book review on The Beautiful Immunity by Karen An-Hwei Lee and explore what it means to be immune—not just in the biological sense, but in the spiritual, emotional, and linguistic realms.
This post features poems from each of the Headliners of the 13th Annual New York City Poetry Festival: Ilya Kaminsky, Safia Elhillo, Kazim Ali & Katie Farris.
Carve out some you-time and head down to this month’s PTW spot & give this Prompt a free write.
Although Black History Month is coming to a close, we must remember that the influence of Black art and culture in the poetry world and the world beyond deserves acknowledgment and utmost appreciation 24/7/365.
twenty-one ways to prosper as a child of a dying world | Clickbait is a blog designed to shamelessly attract attention to poetry. Using devices typically reserved for online “clickbait” like listicles, how-to’s, trending topics, SEO, hashtags, hyperlinks, hyperbole, sensationalism, puff, and fluff, the poets at The Poetry Society of New York are having a little fun.
Trust me when I say: I get it, the difficulty of writing. We pour ourselves into the words, bleeding onto the page, only for publishing houses to come back and say the work doesn’t capture the reader’s attention, or is lacking urgency, or isn’t the right fit at this time. There’re authors who, if they bear witness too many rejects, stop believing in their magic gift.
In addition to it being National Poetry Month, April is also Autism Acceptance Month, a time to recognize and honor the beauty of diverse experience. Yet in the middle of April, an ignorant political figure took the time to make false and hurtful claims about the autistic community. Thus, autism and rfk autism both show up on the trends list.
We all know how easy it is to lose writing momentum or have seasons of withering inspiration. One of my favorite things to do when I’m facing a writer’s block is to turn to another genre; film. Yes, you read right. I jump into another writer’s visual world, swim around for a bit, and hopefully find inventiveness from their creations to channel into my own.
March on the internet finally wore me down: I deleted the Facebook app. After learning how many poets in my community had ditched the platform years ago, I was a little embarrassed that I still had it. Even without social media (or certain forms of social media), the internet itself persists and with it, our curiosity. Here’s a look at what’s on our collective minds this month, per Google Trends.
It’s my birth month and it’s been a weird one; then again, aren’t they all? I’m woefully caught up in my own life right now, but Google Trends is here to remind me what the rest of the world is thinking about. Here are a few standouts.
Welcome to 2025, where AI runs the literary world, poets fight back with phoenix metaphors, and even your horoscope can’t escape algorithmic judgment. Let the stars—and GPT-9—guide you through a year of verse, revisions, and cosmic absurdity. Who knows? Maybe Saturn’s retrograde will finally explain why Submittable hates you.
Ahh, the fresh scent of a new year— it smells like warm mud in a region that should be blanketed with snow. There’s much to wonder about as we step into 2025, and a curious public continues to ask Google all the biggest questions. Here are five of the major topics on our collective minds, per Google Trends.
On the night of November 5th and into the early morning hours of the 6th, I obsessively googled presidential election results. When all was said and done, 76,394,853 U.S. voters collectively elected Donald Trump, while 76,203,140 voted for other candidates— a difference of 191,713, or roughly the population of Mobile, Alabama. According to Exploding Topics, more people in the U.S. googled Fox News in November than any other news source, and I suspect a correlation.
As the days wore on, search trends shifted while many of us remained stuck in our feelings. Here are a few of the month’s highlights, each accompanied by a poem.
1. Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, and Evander Holyfield
Growing up, I often watched boxing matches with my dad, whose own father had been a Golden Gloves champion (stripped of his title for lying about his age to compete). My grandpa taught me a thing or two about the “sweet science” and left me with his old leather gloves and speed bag. Even if you don’t follow boxing, you’ll likely recognize some of the famous names that appear in November’s trending search list: apparently Mike Tyson is making a comeback.
In deference to the hardknock lives of many fighters, James McKean penned “Elegy for an Old Boxer.”
2. Bluesky Social
I’ve seen a few Teslas with bumper stickers that read, “I bought it before we knew Elon was crazy.” Talk about buyer’s remorse. Elon Musk generates strong feelings. Combining unpopular policies with less popular friendships, Musk recently prompted a mass exodus from X (formerly Twitter).
Personally, I never understood Twitter so it’s all the same to me. Others are flocking to a network called Bluesky. Thus, it felt appropriate that Kema Alabi simultaneously evokes the sky and harkens back to Donald Trump’s first electoral victory in their poem, “Undelivered Message to the Sky: November 9, 2016.”
Read “Undelivered Message to the Sky: November 9, 2016” by Kema Alabi
3. Coastal Flood Warning
Much of the east coast faced potential flooding mid-month due to abnormally high tides. Climate catastrophe is wreaking havoc. Where I live, we are experiencing severe drought and wildfires, which are atypical for the area. The undercurrent of natural disaster brings to mind “Gills” by Rain Prud’homme-Cranford.
Give us salinity to float in the betweens.
Surrender to flood waters.
4. Aliens in the Ocean
What in the world? When I saw this phrase on the list, I had to explore. Somehow, recent pentagon reports on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) have certain lawmakers and politicians (and probably members of the general public) convinced that there are aliens in the ocean. Admittedly, most deep sea creatures appear awfully alien to us land dwellers.
Leave it to Aimee Nezhukumatathil to have a poem about sea animals at the ready.
5. The Onion
The Onion is buying InfoWars. That sentence almost-sort-of means something to me. The Onion has been a staple in my life; InfoWars is decidedly less familiar (but it doesn’t sound great).
There are a surprising number of poems about onions. Although I guess it didn’t surprise me too much— I chose The Onion from the trending search list on suspicion of poetry. It’s the layers. There’s Naomi Shihab Nye’s “The Traveling Onion,” and Juan Felippe Herrera’s “Jackrabbits, Green Onions & Witch’s Stew,” but I wanted to share “Monologue for an Onion” by Suji Kwock Kim because of that whole layer thing.
In December, I will search for snow— to ease the wildfires in my home state, and because I simply love it.
Writer Bio: Allisonn Church was born in a small rural community to a mother who pinned butterflies in glass cases and hid scarab beetles in her jewelry box. Her first favorite poem was “The Willow Fairy”’ by Cicely Mary Barker. Find a list of Allisonn's published work at churchpoems.wordpress.com.
Feeling a bit out of sorts? Craving an extra hour of sleep or an extra square foot of pillow space to get those poetic beats afoot? You’re in luck! The end of Daylight-Saving Time can kick-start a whole lot more than shut eye. Open those dusty notebooks, the same ones that have been collecting hours of unrealized, punctuated plot lines and prepare to recharge your creative battery.
Set aside a few minutes in between hours coming and going and follow these recommendations
to fall back—fall back into poeting!
Pause and reflect. Where do you draw your energy? Toss the freshly plumped pillow aside. Get
outside and write amidst leaves and the isolated, lingering summer breeze. Inhale. Exhale.
Breath. Collect stanzas, like a season to relish as the Earth spins, like weeds. Prepare for a coming season of inspiring poetic pauses. Gather pencils. Rake through drafts in progress. Count syllables and growth in poetic production alongside rings on a favorite tree’s waistline.
Freshen up your writing rooms—from tree stumps to kitchen nooks, to cherished corners with
drawers to boot. Boost your posture. Dust off bunnies and clear out rabbit holes. To ensure all
draft progress consistently, flip sheets of paper regularly. Debris from dusty ideas, inadvertent rhymes, and stale verbs accumulate in drafts over time. Apply a deep cleaning when revisiting. Spot-clean syllable pairs and poetic devices like alliteration, assonance, and repetition.
Lace up soles to reconnect with inner souls. Consider hands-free voice to text meandering. Metaphors proliferate in natural settings. Apply fresh scents—whether pumpkin spice, apple cider, or an autumnal flower to infuse even fresher sense in a poetic response to nature (and natural longings to create).
Check expiration dates carefully before discarding. Cans of half-baked ideas, themes, and
recollections can sometimes still surprise. Air-tight, vacuum-sealed notions of descriptive
phrasing and the human condition have a surprisingly long shelf-life.
Remember that proper nutrition depends on a balanced diet. Stock up on strong verbs, concrete
nouns, and sharp adjectives. Adverbs? Use with discretion. Check all filters for seasonal imagery.
Call in reinforcements if you need assistance navigating an unexpectedly heavy theme.
Clear your workspace of stale piles (whether “to-be-read” or on reserve) that have accumulated
since the last check on batteries, fuel, and remaining word counts. Before discarding, check for
fruitful reserves. It’s possible to secure 100% pure juice if directions are reversed. Wave (and weave) vacuum wands like a fairy would. Suck out layers of lint and hyperbole heavy of distracting dust to reveal a poem’s true worth.
Take a moment to replenish supplies. From ballpoint pens with fresh ink to rudimentary No. 2. pencils with freshly sharpened points. Check the batteries in your musical (and poetic) devices. Fill bowls with nourishing personification, proper names, and nuggets of inspiration—vary word choice and include vitamins from A to Z. Many nuts (like poetry!) are known to promote creativity and supercharge brain activity. Whether your vice is coffee, cheese, or candy—consume in moderation to best promote idea longevity.
Remember: Flames can spark spontaneously. Keep journals, diaries, and napkins handy. If
you’ve depleted your emergency stock of lined paper (enjambment highly encouraged), colored
pencils (Troll-tips recommended), and Pinterest-inspiration (vision boards are rarely boring),
prioritize thirty-minutes to restock (support obscure pocket parks and avoid the Amazon, if
possible).
Writer Bio: Jen Schneider (she/her/hers) is a community college educator who lives, works, and writes in small spaces in and around Philadelphia. She served as the 2022 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate.
In October, one can drive around most neighborhoods in the U.S. on the prowl for spooky decorations without disappointment. Houses are bedecked in giant spiders and skeletons, makeshift front-lawn graveyards, witches, hooded figures, and ghosts dancing in rings (not to mention the rows of carved pumpkins). In some parts of the country, folks also head out to look for the perfect foliage, either for a pretty photo op, or for pure enjoyment.
Meanwhile, on the world wide web, people search October for very different things. Here are just a few of those according to Google Trends, each accompanied by a poem.
1. Northern Lights
Walking to the end of my driveway after dark, cell phone camera in hand, I finally saw it — the aurora borealis, the northern lights. Underwhelming is too strong a word, but I’ll admit that I was whelmed. Through my phone, the sky turned fuschia; with my naked eye, the faintest purple highlights fought their way through an otherwise normal night. So it was pretty and bright on a phone screen, and isn’t that what I was already seeing on Facebook? Digital glamor.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil expresses a similar disenchantment with the northern lights, but for entirely different reasons. What’s a luminescent natural phenomenon compared with love?
Read “Letter to the Northern Lights” by Aimme Nezhukumatathil.
2. Tesla Robot
When I saw that “Tesla robot” was a trending search term last week, I asked myself, “What even is that?” It’s typical of me not to be aware of trends. However, I asked only myself and looked no further, and so I remain blissfully ignorant of all things Tesla.
Instead, I spent some extra time with poems from Sasha Stiles’ TechnELEGY, featured in an October, 2019 issue of The Common. Stiles was writing about creepy tech, AI, and robots five years ahead of the current robot trend (whatever it is). Poetry is prescient.
3. Freeze Warning
We’ve already had a few frosts here in Massachusetts this October. Frost-edged leaves reflecting early morning sunlight are some of my favorite things— when the whole ground looks like a sea of jewels, green to orange to silver. Those googling the term were probably doing their best to prepare their plants for the harsh cold, and I hope all were successful in that endeavor.
My fellow Massachusetts poet (in fact, the poet laureate of Worcester, MA) Oliver de la Paz contemplates migration as he notes the quietness of bird call preceding a New England freeze:
“...I haven’t slept for two nights
because their silence skewers everything.”
Read “Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze” by Oliver de la Paz
4. Hurricane
From Helene to Milton, it’s been a terrible season for hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. Residents impacted by the devastating storms can still apply for assistance through FEMA. For my part, I followed live updates from a cousin in Tavares as the storm rolled through. He couldn’t evacuate, as his wife was on storm duty as a nurse.
So what does one do while waiting out a hurricane at home? Poet Kevin Young would like to take the opportunity for some intimate connection. The final couplet of his poem, “Hurricane Song” is absolute perfection.
5. Chicken Recall
Yesterday, my 13-year-old informed me of a frozen waffle recall: he’s always shrewdly aware of food recalls as they come up (thanks, TikTok). He didn’t mention a chicken recall that apparently happened earlier this month, but I guess we don’t buy very much chicken in our house— we’re a nuggets only family.
If I were to eat any non-nugget chicken, I’d love to follow the recipe included in Sarah Gambito’s poem, “On How to Use this Book.” Gambito instructs the reader to invite at least 15 people to share in this meal, so I’ll have to wait for my Covid to pass. For now, I’ll live vicariously through poetry, as usual.
You might think that a chicken recall cannot be poetic: think again.
In November, I hope to find wellness. We’ll see what else happens.
Writer Bio: Allisonn Church was born in a small rural community to a mother who pinned butterflies in glass cases and hid scarab beetles in her jewelry box. Her first favorite poem was “The Willow Fairy”’ by Cicely Mary Barker. Find a list of Allisonn's published work at churchpoems.wordpress.com.
Gregory Gonzalez writes: “Weighing a word is the most important and most difficult function for a writer. Even more so for a poet. Meter dictates rhyme, and reason, while free verse holds a certain flow; an essence from the soul of the author, put in the narration like living magic into a world once believed to have none.”
Folk poetry has always belonged to the people—a collective voice rising from the fields, the taverns, the streets. It was never intended for the page, nor for academia. It grew from a need to speak when no one was listening, to tell stories about yearning, about suffering, about those small moments of joy that flutter briefly amidst the enduring ache of survival.
There’s a hunger in all of us, something primal, an ache that lodges deep within the marrow—a gnawing we rarely name, but one we feel. It’s an unquenchable thirst for more—more life, more love, more understanding—and it drives the songs we place on infinite replay. This hunger is where we find folk poetry. Not a relic of the past, but a pulse, alive and beating, threading through the music of contemporaries like Ezra Hozier, Miley Cyrus, Stevie Nicks, and others. Folk poetry is the language of the unspeakable, something we all consume unconsciously, and in that consumption, we awaken to our own poetic sensibilities.
Hozier, Eat Your Young
Hozier’s “Eat Your Young” doesn’t merely drift through your headphones; it haunts you. There’s a gravitational pull that lures you into its orbit. First, it’s the melody—those sharp, soaring soprano notes, the quiet beat pulling you in—but as the lyrics settle in your bones, the true ache begins to reveal itself. Hozier is not simply singing a catchy chorus. He’s interrogating us, forcing us to reckon with our complicity in a world that devours its young for the sake of unchecked greed.
And here, we hear echoes of Jonathan Swift’s satirical masterpiece A Modest Proposal, a work in which folk poetry sheds its illusions and reveals the ugly mechanisms of exploitation. Hozier jolts us out of our complacency, shattering the lies we tell ourselves about the systems of power that prey on the vulnerable.
For context, in 1729, Ireland was strangled by famine and profound destitution. Swift’s essay—blistering in its savage irony—suggested that to bridge the chasm of inequality, the poor might offer their infants as sustenance for the rich. This was satire sharpened to a blade, protest dressed as horror, meant not to amuse but to jolt society into awareness.
Fast forward nearly three centuries, and Hozier channels this same fury. “Seven new ways that you can eat your young,” he sings. Behind the melody is a modern disgust for a machine that still preys on the powerless, a world where the wealthy feast on the labor, dreams, and bodies of the poor. This is the essence of folk poetry—rooted in protest yet cloaked in song. Hozier, consciously drawing from both Dante’s Inferno and Swift’s biting irony, bridges the past and the present, forcing us to confront ourselves. And like the best folk poets, he shoulders the weight of history to craft something urgent, something undeniably new.
Written by Rachel Harty
Tune in next week, on How to Poet to read Read Part Two: Modern Ballads and Laments: Echoes of Folk Poetry.
Writer Bio: Rachel Harty is a New York-based poet and essayist, whose work has appeared in Poetry Nation, The Madrid Review, The LA Wave, and other notable literary platforms. Her debut poetry collection, Coffee, a Sip of You and Me, delves into intimate coming-of-age moments, exploring themes of connection and solitude. It’s available on Amazon and in select independent bookstores and coffee shops across the U.S. and abroad.
To discuss poetry or for inquiries, visit her at www.RachelHarty.com.
