This week, the magazine published Stephen Dunn’s staunchly amusing poem “Testimony.” I spoke with Dunn about the poem and his writing process in keener detail. The speaker’s turn of phrase in ...

As part of the Poetry Month celebration hosted by the Forward, we asked a number of poets about their practice. Today we’re featuring the highlights of the responses received. These are the highlights ...

Before winning the 1973 Pulitzer Prize, before bolstering the representation of women in contemporary poetry during her tenure as U.S. Poet Laureate, from 1981-82, Maxine Kumin began a fruitful ...

When I told my parents that I was going to study poetry in college, they didn't flinch. It wasn't a curve ball. They weren't keeping their fingers crossed that I'd go to medical school. Their dreams ...

On a recent Friday afternoon, I joined Joe Hoover, S.J., our poetry editor, and James Davis May, the winner of last year’s contest, in a spirited debate to choose the winning poem for the 2025 Foley ...

1. Sometimes I see a poem in Slate or another magazine, and it doesn’t do a thing for me. Half of the time I can’t figure out what it means—what is that all about? Generalizing won’t do. We’d have to ...

In the early 20th century, the composer Charles Ives produced a piece of program music titled “The Unanswered Question,” in which a plaintive, solo trumpet repeatedly poses “the perennial question of ...

When I realized I couldn't answer the questions posed about two of my own poems on the Texas state assessment tests (STAAR Test), I had a flash of panic — oh, no! Not smart enough. Such a dunce. My ...