Today’s poem is also a poem for “ABC”–which is to say, it’s a brilliantly executed example of the alphabetic form known as the abecedarian. Happy reading.Jessica Greenbaum is the author of Inventing Difficulty (Silverfish Review Press, 1998), winner of Gerald Cable Prize; The Two Yvonnes (Princeton University Press, 2012), named by Library Journal as a Best Book in Poetry; and Spilled and Gone (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019). She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Society of America. She teaches in New York City. -bio via Poetry Foundation Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Rhina P. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. After Espaillat’s great-uncle opposed the regime, her family was exiled to the United States and settled in New York City. She began writing poetry as a young girl—in Spanish and then English—and has published in both languages.Espaillat’s numerous poetry collections include And After All (2019); Her Place in These Designs (2008); Playing at Stillness (2005); Rehearsing Absence (2001), recipient of the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award; a bilingual chapbook titled Mundo y Palabra/The World and the Word (2001); Where Horizons Go (1998), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize; and Lapsing to Grace (1992).On Rehearsing Absence, Robert B. Shaw wrote in Poetry, “To Rhina Espaillat the quotidian is no malady … it is the source of inspiration. Hers is a voice of experience, but it is neither jaded nor pedantic. She speaks not from some cramped corner but from somewhere close to the center of life.” Awarding Espaillat the 1998 T.S. Eliot Prize for Where Horizons Go, X.J. Kennedy noted that “such developed skill and such mastery of rhyme and meter are certainly rare anymore; so is plainspeaking.”Espaillat’s work has garnered many awards, including the Sparrow Sonnet Prize, three Poetry Society of America prizes, the Der-Hovanessian Translation Prize, and—for her Spanish translations of Robert Frost—the Robert Frost Foundation’s Tree at My Window Award. She is a two-time winner of The Formalist’s Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award and the recipient of a 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award from Salem State College. She is a founding member of the Fresh Meadows Poets and a founding member and former director of the Powow River Poets. For over a decade, she coordinated the Newburyport Art Association’s Annual Poetry Contest.-bio via Poetry Foundation Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s poem, Plath (who died at 30) contrasts the transience of youth and nature with the seeming permanence of art and artifice. (I even make time for a brief shout-out to a not-so-transitory Golden Mouth.) Happy reading. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s poem is a selection from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s American epic, The Song of Hiawatha. The passage is structured beautifully so that two divergent streams of imaginative thought suddenly flow together into a single, tangible reality. Happy reading. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today's poem is an enduring memorial for a hastily interred hero. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Delve into the whimsical world of Mr. Toad, exploring the joy and mischief that make him a beloved character. Discover a family tradition that brings folks together over burgers while celebrating the magic of storytelling. Kenneth Grahame's charm shines through, echoing the nostalgia and laughter found in classic literature. This delightful blend of food, family, and fantasy offers a unique perspective on how stories connect us across generations.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) wrote fiction and nonfiction works including several collections of poetry and her most famous short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892). Her poems address the issues of women’s suffrage and the injustices of women’s lives. She was also the author of Women and Economics (1898), Concerning Children (1900), The Home: Its Work and Influence (1903), Human Work (1904), and The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture (1911). A prolific writer, she founded, wrote for, and edited The Forerunner, a journal published from 1909 to 1917. A utopian novel, Herland, was published in 1915. -bio via Poetry Foundation Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

“The line through the hole in the dark…trembling/with its high connections.”Robert Morgan (born 1944) is an American poet, short story writer, non-fiction author, biographer, and novelist. He studied at North Carolina State University as an engineering and mathematics major, transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an English major, graduating in 1965, and completed an MFA degree at the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 1968. He has taught at Cornell University since 1971, and was appointed Professor of English in 1984.—Bia via Wikipedia Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s poem is about politics (but this, too, shall pass). Happy reading. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s poem is a reluctant reckoning with the present absence created by grief. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe