‘The Journey’ is a poem by the American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), a poet who has perhaps not received as much attention from critics as she deserves. It’s been estimated that she was the bestselling poet in the United States at the time of her death, so a few words […]
‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ is a 1951 poem by the American poet Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), published in her first poetry collection, A Change of World, which was published while the precocious Rich was still in her early twenties. Rich was known for her feminist writings as well as her poetry, and […]
‘From Blossoms’ is a 1986 poem by the American poet Li-Young Lee. In the poem, a speaker celebrates the joyful experience of buying and eating some peaches which began life as flower blossoms. Li-Young Lee was born in Indonesia in 1957, although his parents were Chinese. His parents settled in […]
‘If We Must Die’ is a poem by Claude McKay (1889-1948), a Jamaican-American poet who is often regarded as the first major poet of the Harlem Renaissance. The poem was originally published in The Liberator magazine in 1919, and was reprinted in McKay’s 1922 collection, Harlem Shadows, which arose from […]
‘Gretel in Darkness’ is a 1975 poem by Louise Glück. The poem is a dramatic monologue spoken by Gretel, the little girl from the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. In the poem, Gretel reflects on how she is haunted psychologically by the memory of the witch she killed, in […]