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Image: Paul Nash

April 8, 2024

Celebrating National Poetry Month

Ocean Vuong, John Ashbery, Claudia Rankine, and more.

In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve collected the work of twenty-four of our most beloved poets, all published in Boston Review over the last three decades. 

Ocean-Vuong-1
Poetry

Two Poems

Ocean Vuong
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Poetry

Safe House

Solmaz Sharif
ashbery_web
Poetry

A Disservice

John Ashbery
Yusef-Komunyakaa
Poetry

Shelter

Yusef Komunyakaa
Photomechanical print (postcard) Divided back Printed by Curt Teich & Co. (1924)
Poetry

Guantánamo

Jorie Graham
Nash Mineral Objects for Bolaño
Poetry

My Life in the Tubes of Survival

Roberto Bolaño
Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith tours the Santa Fe Indian School as part of her project to bring poetry to rural and underserved communities, January 12, 2018. Photo by Shawn Miller.
Poetry

The Soul

Tracy K. Smith
natalie_diaz_headshot
Poetry

Between the Palm and the Ear, Is the Master’s Language

Natalie Diaz
joudah_tunnel
Poetry

Two Poems

Fady Joudah
Major_Jackson_(53601251188)
Poetry

Life During Wartime

Major Jackson
rankine
Poetry

From That Were Once Beautiful Children

Claudia Rankine
Don-Mee-Choi
Poetry

From “The Apparatus”

Don Mee Choi
hayes1_0
Poetry

American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Terrance Hayes
5434978642_317ef7e752_z
Poetry

Agave

Primo Levi
Poetry

The Engineer of Vertical Frontiers

Cathy Park Hong
M_TATE_photograph_001
Poetry

A Knock on the Door

James Tate
charles-simic-1
Poetry

Talking to Little Birdies

Charles Simic
Rae-Armantrout_0-scaled-1-1366x2048
Poetry

Seconds

Rae Armantrout
Poetry

Five Poems

Juan Felipe Herrera
Evie_Shockley_(53367308050)
Poetry

lotto motto

Evie Shockley
Kirill_Medvedev
Poetry

The End of the Ceasefire (The End of the Objectivist School?)

Kirill Medvedev
I took this portrait of the poet Mary Ruefle in March 2011, while she was a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Poetry

Two Poems

Mary Ruefle
Red and orange glowing molten glass on a black background.
Poetry

Krapp Interviews the Glass Technician

Anne Carson
Wisława_Szymborska_čte_-_Svět_knihy_2010_(002)
Poetry

A Photograph of a Crowd

Wisława Szymborska

Our weekly Reading Lists compile the best of Boston Review’s archive. Sign up for our newsletter to get them straight to your inbox.

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negative-space-mom-child-silhouette
Poetry

Three Poems

You can say my mother didn’t know jack
           about no line breaks, but she’ll tell you
that one thing leads to another; and violence
           and love can happen all at once.

Eugene Gloria
huneke_actup

Queering the State

How should LGBT activism think about state power?

Samual Clowes Huneke, Hugh Ryan
53393722324_254f93ce4d_o
Poetry

In which Refaat Alareer is dying as an old man & Henry Kissinger has died young

In the parallel world in which gesture is followed /
by recompense

Suzanne Gardinier

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