American poetry lost some major voices in 2016. Please join us in remembering these poets through their words.
"the wind scatters to the four
directions, the petals
inscribed with your names."
—Francisco X. Alarcón
"I was committed to a poetry of thinking—not of thought but of thinking."
—David Antin
“You have to struggle to stay alive and be of use as long as you can.”
—Daniel Berrigan
“Wrestling that old beauty
‘Body and Soul’
To the ground”
—Bill Berkson
"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
—Leonard Cohen
“They’ve given themselves over to this journey, this journey as a poet.”
—Monica Hand
“Can’t find what you can’t see
can you?”
—Michael S. Harper
“...We’ll say goodbye
and I’ll return my dreams to earth.”
—Jim Harrison
“and the looking of the stars which moved right through me”
—Brigit Pegeen Kelly
“...How resigned you were
to your oblivion, unlistening to the cumuli
as they swept past."
—Lucia Perillo
"I think all poems are performances."
—Max Ritvo
"It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside us that would be free, and declare them so.”
—C. D. Wright