The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.
The field soldiers remember the triumph, a lithe boy’s naal on the head of giant, before the king rode through the ranks to inquire about his parentage or the prince had him bathed, his hair scented with sweet herbs.
as if opening a crepe sail on a raft of linden downriver with no glacial cut swerve down soft like bourbon if I could ask the waters then to chop to shake an apology when you cry I feel a wet bank in me ring dry here I’ll wrap you in the piano shawl from the upright
Soon she will be no more than a passing thought, a pang, a timpani of wind in the chimes, bent spoons hung from the eaves on a first night in a new house on a street where no dog sings, no cat visits a neighbor cat in the middle of the street, winding and rubbing fur against fur, throwing
When they were my sons I would pull the covers up around their ears and tuck them in, smooth their hair, kiss their salty eyelids. Now gingko leaves make golden blankets around the tombstone of a boy from Iowa and another I can’t read, and
This is what our dying looks like.
You believe in the sun. I believe
I can’t love you. Always be closing,
Said our favorite professor before
He let the gun go off in his mouth.
I turned 29 the way any man turns
In his sleep, unaware of the earth
Moving beneath him, its plates in
Their places, a dated
Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning Names in heat, in elements classical Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer. Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will Of the sun, which news reports claimed