poets.org | Academy of American Poets

Poem-a-day

Record Player

^{Then into your life}
^{there comes a darkness}
^—Radiohead

It’s never our finest hour in America but right now,
most things at the ledges of my life are like the sad
shuffling at the edge of an LP. This one time, I forgot

to pick up the tonearm & heard polyvinyl lamentations
until Thursday when I finally realized the sounds were from
my speakers & not one of my own haunted creation.

I would have laughed, but it was war time yet again:
more air strikes crumbling schools, more drone opportunities
& misplaced homilies. You got to be kidding me.

Polished tanks cresting possibility’s hill for another,
unrequited salvo. All the mystifying UFOs & split
infinities in the record’s imaginary are in the past as it

kept playing its static goodbyes: little hiccupping pleas
until somebody, finally, flipped off the infernal machine.

read the rest

Adrian Matejka

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 Odyssey, Book I, Lines 1–20

SPEAK, MEMORY—
Of the cunning hero,
The wanderer, blown off course time and again
After he plundered Troy’s sacred heights.

Homer

2000

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

Poets

5 poets

Dorothy Parker

A founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker’s work was known for its scathing wit and intellectual commentary.

Read more about >

Ted Hughes

Edward James (Ted) Hughes was born in Mytholmroyd, in the West Riding district of Yorkshire.

Read more about >

Robert Hayden

Robert Hayden's poetry, which explored his concerns about race and African-American history, gained international recognition in the 1960s, and Hayden eventually became the first Black American to be appointed as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress.

Read more about >

Mihaela Moscaliuc

Mihaela Moscaliuc is the author of Immigrant Model (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) and Father Dirt (Alice James Books, 2010).

Read more about >

Cathy Park Hong

Born to Korean parents on August 7, 1976, Cathy Park Hong was raised in Los Angeles

Read more about >

Features

Poetry’s Comforts and Mysteries

The problem with comfort is that it veils. Comfort risks closing what should be left open. But all language is itself a rent upon the flesh, so to speak.

August 2026 Poem-a-Day Guest Editor Charif Shanahan

Listen to a short Q&A where Charif Shanahan discusses his curatorial process for Poem-a-Day.

Poem-a-Day Guest Editors in 2026

The 2026 cohort of Guest Editors are all award-winning poets who represent wide-ranging expertise and editorial perspectives. Learn more about them below.

Announcements

August 3, 2026

Fellowships fund public poetry programs in cities, counties, states, and Tribal communities across the United States.

July 22, 2026

Academy of American Poets Announces 2026 Grant Recipients of the Poetry Fund. Nineteen poetry organizations and presses receive support through the ongoing partnership.

June 9, 2026

Talebi receives the $1,000 prize for translating "Elegies of the Earth: Selected Poems" by Ahmad Shamlou from Persian into English

Page submenu block

Poem-a-day

Poems

Poets

Dorothy Parker

Ted Hughes

Robert Hayden

Mihaela Moscaliuc

Cathy Park Hong

Features

Announcements

American Poets magazine

Newsletter Sign Up