Poetry

Browse our essays and reviews on poetry.

Back-to-School Poetry Reading

New poetry from Kristen Case, Tyehimba Jess, Khadijah Queen, and Timothy Yu.

  • Boston Review

Announcing the 2016 Winner of Boston Review’s Annual Poetry Contest

Congratulations to Cori A. Winrock, winner of this year's contest!

  • Boston Review

One Long Poem

A stunning trove of letters from Elizabeth Bishop to her therapist sheds light on the personal secrets that shaped her poetry.

  • Heather Treseler

The Sound of Her Voice

Sarah Howe interviewed by Lily Blacksell

  • Sarah Howe
  • Lily Blacksell

Summer Poetry Reading

New books to savor in the summer sun.

  • Boston Review

What Have We Done?

David Baker's virtuosic poems express ideas through the senses.

  • Sherod Santos

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A Different Mountain

Review of Rebecca Wolff's One Morning—

  • Alan Gilbert

Questioning Creativity

Poetry reading Q&As can be revelatory or awkward, dreadful or wise.

  • Sean Singer

Wear Your Wig

Terrance Hayes riffs on pop culture to explore black identity. 

  • Christopher Spaide

Elusive Particles

Rae Armantrout draws on the language of physics to explore modern life.

  • Lisa K. Perdigao

Spring Poetry Reading

Poems to savor beneath flowering trees.

  • Boston Review

National Poetry Month 2016

A poem a day, every day in April, in honor of National Poetry Month.

  • Boston Review

The Long Distance Between Poems

On joy, pain, and a trick for overcoming writer's block

  • Jericho Brown

What Poetry Are We Going to Write

Poems know what we will feel before we do. That’s why we need them.

  • Louis Bury

A Mutant Gene in Language

D. A. Powell interviewed by Tadeusz Dąbrowski

  • D. A. Powell
  • Tadeusz Dąbrowski

Listening Through Time

Reviving the Spoken ‘Aeneid’

  • Dale Smith

What You Put In Your Mouth

A new anthology creates a new canon of innovative Latin@ writing

  • Rachel Galvin

I, Your Perfect Muse

Karen Lepri interviews Dawn Lundy Martin

  • Karen Lepri

They Want that New New World

M. NourbeSe Philip combs history for the black American experience.

  • Carina del Valle Schorske

Identity and the Avant-Garde

In art, formal innovation versus identity politics.

  • David Micah Greenberg

The Spectacle of Transformation

The literal and metaphorical shapeshifting of the female body.

  • Marcela Sulak

The Volatile I

Alejandra Pizarnik’s poetry finally gets the English translation it deserves.

  • Johannes Göransson

Lola Ridge: The Radical Modernist We Won’t Forget Twice

The past-due revival of Lola Ridge: poet, editor, feminist, and political activist.

  • Terese Svoboda

“Lilies” for C. D. Wright (1949-2016)

A lyric tribute to the celebrated American poet, who passed in early January.

  • Laynie Browne
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