All I ever expected for it/ was that big-mouth bass/ awaiting its arrival./ I didn’t think/ that I was giving up one life/ to get another,/ that even childhood/ was full of sacrifice. "The Bait" Eric Chock poetryoutloud.org/poem/the-bait/

Surrender in the center/ to surroundings. O surrender forever, never/ end her, let her blend around, surrender to the surroundings that/ surround the tender endo-surrender Happy Birthday, Jack Collom!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/ecology/

We are 16 weeks away from the 2025 Poetry Out Loud National Finals! We will post motivational interviews with past national finalists every Friday until national finals week! Today, we highlight the 2022 Tennessee Champion and national finalist, Kendall Grimes!🌟

You sit down to eat with a rumor/ of onions still on your twice-washed/ hands and lift to your mouth a hint/ of a story about loam and usual/ endurance. Happy Birthday, William Matthews!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/onions/

Needy and reticent/ at once, these squirrels in charred November/ recall, in Virgil,/ what it is to feel:/ moods, half-moods,/ swarming, then darting loose; "Squirrels" Nate Klug poetryoutloud.org/poem/squirrels/

tired i count the ways in which it determines my life/ permeates everything. it’s in the air/ lives next door to me in stares of neighbors/ meets me each day in the office. Happy Birthday, Wanda Coleman!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/the-ism/

While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields,/ Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,/ November, dragging on this sunless day,/ Lours, cold and sullen, on the watery fields; "Sonnet 84: While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields" Anna Seward poetryoutloud.org/poem/sonnet-84…

Man, looking into the sea—/ taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—/ it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing/ but you cannot stand in the middle of this: "A Graveyard" Marianne Moore poetryoutloud.org/poem/a-graveya…

We are 15 weeks away from the 2025 Poetry Out Loud National Finals! We will post motivational interviews with past national finalists every Friday until national finals week! Today, we highlight the 2024 Texas Champion and national finalist, Oluwabori Fadairo! 🌟

we should be kind, we should/ take warning, we should forgive each other/ Instead we are opposite, we/ touch as though attacking, Happy Birthday, Margaret Atwood!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/they-are-…

No storm since has been framed/ with such matter-of-fact/ artifice, nor to such comic/ effect. No, the thousand-plus/ storms since then have turned/ increasingly artless, Happy Birthday, Scott Cairns!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/first-sto…

But the slowly wrought words of love/ and the thunderous words of heartbreak–/ Those we hoard. Happy Birthday, Pauli Murray!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/words/

Nuestra Belleza/ Mexicana. A roped mule/ watches a man place a crown/ on her severed head. Tomorrow/ the queen will be picked clean/ by the kindness of the sea. "Kingdom of Debt" Erika L. Sánchez poetryoutloud.org/poem/kingdom-o…

All hurry on & look upon the ground,/ Or glance unmarking at the passers by/ The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages/ All closed, in multiplied identity. Happy Birthday, George Eliot!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/in-a-lond…

We are 14 weeks away from the 2025 Poetry Out Loud National Finals! We will post motivational interviews with past national finalists every Friday until national finals week! Today, we highlight the 2021 Vermont Champion and national finalist, Irén Hangen Vázquez! 🌟

What do you see in our eyes/ At the shrieking iron and flame/ Hurled through still heavens?/ What quaver—what heart aghast?/ Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins Happy Birthday, Isaac Rosenberg!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/break-of-…

Dogs so long with us we forget/ that wolves allowed as how/ they might be tamed and sprang up/ all over the globe, with all humans,/ all at once, like a good idea. Happy Birthday, Heid E. Erdrich!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/dean/

The air is full of countless voices, joined/ In one eternal hymn; the whispering wind,/ The shuddering leaves, the hidden water springs, Happy Birthday, Frances Anne Kemble!🎂 poetryoutloud.org/poem/sonnet/

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