poets.org | Academy of American Poets

Poem-a-day

Mhùkwinùnt Pe Asuwit

Between burnt
         tuwchalakwm stumps,
         he jumps,
bristles in predator stride.

He pounces out of ash,
         heat-cracked wood,
         upon gravel.
         Stalking shadows,
         invisible prey,
         like the predators
we dream ourselves to be.

His song,
         coaxed forth
         by blood
         coloured feathers,
deep chested
cuts through
heavy air,
         ripples
         with polyphonic
         edges of melody,
         flows widely
         in search of
         an unanswered
duet

read the rest

D. A. Lockhart

Poems

4 poems

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Dylan Thomas

1937

If—

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Rudyard Kipling

1910

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

Mary Oliver

1990

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1850

Poets

5 poets

T. S. Eliot

Born in Missouri on September 26, 1888, T. S. Eliot is the author of The Waste Land, which is now considered by many to be the most influential poetic work of the twentieth century.

Read more about >

William Carlos Williams

Poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright William Carlos Williams is often said to have been one of the principal poets of the Imagist movement.

Read more about >

Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez received the 2018 Wallace Stevens Award, given annually to recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.

Read more about >

Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral, also known as Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga, was the first Latin-American writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Read more about >

Pádraig Ó Tuama

Pádraig Ó Tuama is the author of the poetry collections Love Between Men (Copper Canyon Press, 2026); Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon Press, 2025); Feed the Beast (Broken Sleep Books, 2022); Sorry for Your Troubles (Canterbury Press, 2013); and Readings from the Book of Exile (Canterbury Press, 2012). A poet, theologian, and conflict mediator, Ó Tuama is a professor at Yale Divinity School. He lives in Connecticut, on the ancestral lands of the Quinnipiac people.

Read more about >

Features

November 10, 2026

Academy of American Poets Announces Shane McCrae as Winner of the 2026 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize

November 3, 2026

Academy of American Poets Announces 2027 Poem-a-Day Guest Editors

October 20, 2026

Academy of American Poets Announces Dior J. Stephens as Winner of the 2026 James Laughlin Award

Poem-a-day

Mhùkwinùnt Pe Asuwit

D. A. Lockhart

Poems

Do not go gentle into that good night

If—

The Summer Day

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)