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Sandwich

I wanted to go to the qabarstan with a sandwich and have a picnic.

How people do.

Instead of just going and saying prayers.

But it rained hard and I had to run for the car.

Why do people run for the car? What do we think is going to happen?

It is not as if we are going to die.

We are all going to die.

When I go to the qabarstan I always lose my place and can’t find the grave.

For the briefest of uncanny moments it feels like you are not dead.

You are not dead.

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Kazim Ali

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

The Hollow Men

^{A penny for the Old Guy}

T. S. Eliot

1925

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.

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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.

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Ted Hughes

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

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Cathy Park Hong

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

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Mihaela Moscaliuc

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

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Features

Translating from Mother Tongue and Between Different Cultures

I thought my mother tongue of Cantonese had faded because I don’t regularly practice it, but in a moment of panic, it reared its dominant head as my first outburst.

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

Twenty-Two Poets Laureate Awarded $1.1 Million for Community Poetry Projects. Fellowships fund public poetry programs in cities, counties, states, and Tribal communities across the United States.

July 22, 2026

New York, NY (July 22, 2026)—The Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce the nineteen recipients of the 2026 Poetry Fund, made possible by Amazon Literary 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

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