The HyperTexts

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January 2012: Stop the presses! We hope you will take the time to read You Are No Longer Free, or Equal and consider doing what you can to help reverse the descent of the United States into a police state monitored by Big Brother. If you aren't aware that the National Defense Authorization Act was just signed into law, and that it allows American citizens to be arrested by military police without charges, hearings or fair trials, and to be whisked off to foreign countries outside the jurisdiction of American courts, judges and juries, where they can be held (and perhaps tortured) the rest of their lives ... well, perhaps it's time to read up and consider the eerie parallels to what happened to ordinary German citizens during the rise of the Nazis. Like Humpty Dumpty, the German people later had a great fall ...

This month we are featuring Poems of the Occupation: the Best Protest Poems of All Time.

Strange Liberators: Martin Luther King's Position on War is an eye-opening essay/sermon on the dangers of American-style warmongering.

Gingrich, Israel and the Palestinians by Uri Avnery exposes the racism and hubris of American politicians like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

Best Valentine's Day Poems includes poems you can share with that special someone, entirely free of charge.

The Best Female Chinese Poets: English Translations is a page well worth exploring.

The Best Chinese Poets: English Translations broadens the view, to include both male and female Chinese poets.

George Amabile is a Canadian poet whose work has appeared in over 100 publications, including The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse, The New Yorker Book of Poems, Saturday Night, The New Yorker, Harper's, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Poetry Australia, Sur (Buenos Aires), Poetry Canada Review, Canadian Literature, and Margin (England).

Yakov Azriel was born in New York in 1950, and has lived in Israel since 1971. He has published three full-length books of poetry in the USA: Threads From A Coat Of Many Colors: Poems On Genesis (2005), In The Shadow Of A Burning Bush: Poems On Exodus (2008) and Beads for the Messiah's Bride: Poems on Leviticus (2009), all published by Time Being Books. Over 120 of his poems have been published in journals in the USA, the UK and Israel, and his poems have won twelve awards in international poetry competitions, as well as two fellowships from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Jim Dunlap's poetry has been published extensively in print and online in the United States, England, France, India, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and New Zealand, appearing in over 90 publications such as Potpourri, Candelabrum, Mobius and the Paris/Atlantic.

Albert Einstein, Poet captures the great man in his own words, rearranged as poems by Michael R. Burch.

Sándor Márai is a poet who wrote about human courage and bravery in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with "Spring Fever," yet another THT exclusive.

Renée Vivien was perhaps the last of the major Symbolist poets; she created quite a sensation in her day, living openly as a lesbian in less enlightened times.

James Alexander Brown was a country minister willing to stand up to the "great" Billy Graham, defending innocent children from the horrendous Christian dogma of an "eternal hell" and the "Age of Accountability." Which begs the question: Is there a "Hell" according to the Bible?

December 2011: This month, in the spirit of the holiday season, we are pleased to be able to feature Christmas at Camelot, Part I of a modernization of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" by John M. Ridland.

Christmas 1956: Angel from Heaven by Sándor Márai is an inspirational poem about human courage and bravery in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

The Ballad of the Christmas Donkey, and a Message of Hope is the Christmas wish and encouragement of Beth Burch, the wife of THT editor Mike Burch, for anyone who may be struggling with depression, bullying or a feeling of being "different" in a negative way. Beth's message is that being different is good, so "take back the power" from people who say otherwise.

In a somewhat darker spirit of the season, we are re-featuring our page of Heretical Christmas Poems, with contributions by Ann Drysdale, T. Merrill and other poets.

James Alexander Brown was a country minister willing to stand up to the "great" Billy Graham, defending innocent children from the horrendous Christian dogma of an "eternal hell" and the "Age of Accountability." Which begs the question: Is there a "Hell" according to the Bible?

What Poets Can Learn from Songwriters is an interesting, informative essay by David Alpaugh, and good food for thought.

The Israeli Palestinian Confederation [IPC] is sailing out into uncharted waters. Let's wish them bon voyage and hope they find a safe, profitable harbor.

We are pleased to welcome Dennis Greene back to the Spotlight with several new poems.

Renée Vivien was perhaps the last of the major Symbolist poets; she created quite a sensation in her day, living openly as a lesbian in less enlightened times.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with "Spring Fever," yet another THT exclusive.

Philip Quinlan has been published in journals such as The Flea, The Chimaera, Lucid Rhythms, The Centrifugal Eye, Shit Creek Review and Victorian Violet Press.

Marcus Read, born in Chicago in 1968, now teaches American History in a small community college in New England. He lives in a two-hundred-year-old Shaker barn with his wife, four sons, and a capybara named Bennet. His hobbies are keeping tropical fish, wood-working, and collecting antique firearms. Marcus informs us that he would rather be writing poetry than grading papers, but would never give up teaching for anything.

John M. Ridland has taught writing and literature in the English Department and the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for over forty years. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic, Harper's, The Hudson Review, The Dark Horse, Spectrum, The Nation, New Zealand Books, Quadrant (Australia), River Styx, Solo, Askew, Parnassus, and The Hungarian Quarterly.

Sieglinde Wood remains in the Spotlight with several new poems.

The Best Tweets Ever examines the best (and worst) of a modern form of the epigram.

Warren "buffets" GOP Grinches asks readers to consider just whom Republican leaders are serving and protecting, and why.

Jesus Christ, Child Abuser? raises the question of how Jesus can profess to love human children, if he condemns them to hell for not "believing" in his person.

The Best War Poetry and Anti-War Poetry is a page well worth reading, and considering.

The Best Protest Songs and Poems traces the evolution of a world-transforming category of poetry.

The Best Doggerel of All Time takes a quick peek up the skirt of bawdy, irreverent, tongue-in-cheek poetry.

Tax Quotes and Epigrams of the Rich and Famous questions whether billionaires ever asked GOP Grinches to "protect" them from taxes in the first place.

November 2011: This month we are featuring an interview with the poet R. Nemo Hill, conducted by Tom Merrill.

We are also spotlighting English translations of the Urdu poetry of Ahmad Faraz, a Pakistani poet who is generally considered to be one of the greatest modern Urdu poets.

The Bible’s Satanic Verses addresses the question of Biblical "infallibility" and "inerrancy."

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with "Spring Fever," yet another THT exclusive.

Philip Quinlan has been published in journals such as The Flea, The Chimaera, Lucid Rhythms, The Centrifugal Eye, Shit Creek Review and Victorian Violet Press.

Marcus Read, born in Chicago in 1968, now teaches American History in a small community college in New England. He lives in a two-hundred-year-old Shaker barn with his wife, four sons, and a capybara named Bennet. His hobbies are keeping tropical fish, wood-working, and collecting antique firearms. Marcus informs us that he would rather be writing poetry than grading papers, but would never give up teaching for anything.

John M. Ridland has taught writing and literature in the English Department and the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for over forty years. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic, Harper's, The Hudson Review, The Dark Horse, Spectrum, The Nation, New Zealand Books, Quadrant (Australia), River Styx, Solo, Askew, Parnassus, and The Hungarian Quarterly.

We continue to spotlight an essay, "Pain, Product, and Poetry" by Joe Salemi, along with a relevant poem, "At a Reading of Poems of a Poet's Agonies," by X. J. Kennedy.

Sieglinde Wood returns to the Spotlight with several new poems.

The Best Contemporary Poets and Poetry takes a look at the best poetry of the last hundred years, or so.

The Best Poet of All Time is a countdown to the best poet of all time, in one poetry lover's opinion.

Best (and Worst) Celebrity Poets examines the work of five celebrity contenders and five pretenders to the title "poet."

The Best Short Poems of All Time delves into ancient Greek epigrams, haiku by the Oriental masters, and English lyric poetry, including popular songs.

The Best Sad/Dark/Haunting Songs Ever considers the spectrum from traditional ancient folk songs like "Greensleeves" to modern rock anthems.

The Best Love Songs Ever contemplates the all-time best love songs, from "Greensleeves" to "Sweet Child O' Mine."

October 2011: This month we are spotlighting the work of Sunil Sharma, who is Principal at Bharat College, India. He is a bilingual critic, poet, literary interviewer, editor, translator, essayist and fiction writer. His short stories and poems have appeared in journals such as Hudson View (South Africa), The Plebian Rag and Bicycle Review (USA), Creative Saplings, Brown Critique and Kritya (India), the Seva Bharati Journal of English Studies (West Bengal), Labyrinth (Gwalior) and Poets International (Bangalore).

Ono no Komachi was a female Japanese poet who wrote tanka, the most traditional form of Japanese poetry. She is an excellent representative of the Classical, or Heian, period (794-1185) of Japanese literature, and is one of the best known and most frequently quoted poets of the Kokinshu (905), the first of a series of anthologies of Japanese poetry compiled by Imperial order.

Turkey Earthquake Poetry is dedicated to the victims and survivors of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that recently struck Turkey.

Our Halloween Poetry page contains some the best dark, haunting, scary poems of all time.

Our Fall and Winter Poetry page contains some of the all-time best poems about fall, winter, aging, death and loss.

Ben Franklin, Poet salutes a master rhymer, wit and epigrammatist.

We are also spotlighting a new essay, "Pain, Product, and Poetry" by Joseph S. Salemi, along with a relevant poem, "At a Reading of Poems of a Poet's Agonies," by X. J. Kennedy.

Jesse Anger is a poet, musician and audio engineer. His poetry has appeared in Island Mists (an anthology of contemporary Canadian poetry), Shot Glass, Soundzine, The Fib Review and Lucid Rhythms. His interests include graffiti, stringed instruments and juggling. He attends Concordia University in Montreal where he lives with his girlfriend and newborn son Aryeh.

Renée Vivien was perhaps the last of the major Symbolist poets, and created quite a sensation in her day.

R. Nemo Hill returns to the Spotlight with poems like "Sonnet for Bill" and "A Bit of Light."

We have two essays by Norman Ball in the Spotlight and also a page of Poetry Readings and Songs by Norman Ball.

Russell Bittner returns to the Spotlight with his excellent translation of "A Letter to My Mother" by Sergei Yesenin.

Terese Coe returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Café Noir."

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with "Spring Fever," yet another THT exclusive.

Emmanuel Ortiz has written a thought-provoking 9-11 poem, "Moment of Silence."

Helen Palma also returns to the Spotlight with yet another fine translation, this one of "Horreur Sympathique" by Charles Baudelaire.

Philip Quinlan has been published in some of our favorite journals such as The Flea, The Chimaera, Lucid Rhythms, The Centrifugal Eye, Shit Creek Review and Victorian Violet Press.

Flora Alexa Stevens was a teacher and a poet. During World War II she was published in a British poetry anthology which included Robert Frost, Rabindranath Tagore, Vida Sackville West, W. H. Davies, Roy Campbell, A. E. Housman, Alex Comfort, Eileen Duggan and other notables. According to her niece, the Australian poet Janet Kenny, "My parents knew nothing of this ... She received no appreciation in her own philistine family."

The Worst Song Lyrics of All Time is a tongue-in-cheek look at what certain alleged "songwriters" have been up to recently.

A Brief History of the Epigram traces the evolution of the epigram from ancient Greece to modern times.

The Best Puns of All Time delves into puns, wordplay, spoonerisms, etc.

The Best Limericks of All Time traces the often-humorous evolution of a popular art form.

Are CIA Drones Killing Children?

Rick Perry’s Unanswered Prayers is food for thought, as we contemplate the Apocalypse, as is Christian Dominionism: Blessed are the Meek?

Is the Bible infallible? Or is it worse than Mein Kampf in a number of passages?

Should Christians favor Jews over the other Children of Abraham?

September 2011: This month we have four pages related to 9-11:

Child of 9-11, a Poem for Christina-Taylor Green is a poem dedicated to a nine-year-old girl who planned to use politics to improve the world, only to be shot dead by a man full of rage against the system.

9-11 Poetry is a collection of poems dedicated to the victims and survivors of 9-11 and their families.

"Flying the Flag on 9-11" was written by THT editor Mike Burch in response to an invitation to fly the American flag on September 11th in order to remember and honor our fallen dead.

Emmanuel Ortiz has written a thought-provoking 9-11 poem, "Moment of Silence."

Our Janet Kenny Interview touches on the "state of the art" and the good and not-so-good aspects of online poetry workshops.

The Worst Song Lyrics of All Time is a tongue-in-cheek look at what certain alleged "songwriters" have been up to recently.

Rick Perry Slays questions the morals and perhaps the sanity of a leading American presidential candidate and his supporters.

We have two essays by Norman Ball in the Spotlight and also a page of Poetry Readings and Songs by Norman Ball.

Russell Bittner returns to the Spotlight with his excellent, moving translation of "A Letter to My Mother" by Sergei Yesenin.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with "Spring Fever," yet another THT exclusive.

Philip Quinlan has been published in some of our favorite journals such as The Flea, The Chimaera, Lucid Rhythms, The Centrifugal Eye, Shit Creek Review and Victorian Violet Press.

We borrowed the title of one of his own poems while considering the heresy of John Whitworth "Thinking the Unthinkable!"

"Long Live Palestine" by LowKey is performance poetry with a purpose.

God and the Bible addresses some of the zanier assertions of Christianity.

August 2011: Our first new featured poet this month is Kalman Lis, a Polish Jew who died during the Holocaust.

Our second new spotlight poet this month is Antonia Clark. Her work has appeared in The 2River View, Anderbo, Apparatus Magazine, The Cortland Review, Soundzine, Umbrella, and elsewhere.

Our third new spotlight poet this month is Paul Lake. His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, The American Scholar, Yale Review, Southern Review, Paris Review, Partisan Review, and Sewanee Review.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with "Spring Fever," yet another THT exclusive.

We borrowed the title of one of his own poems while considering the heresy of John Whitworth "Thinking the Unthinkable," Free Verse?

Did Gabrielle Giffords just write The Most Beautiful Tweet Ever?

We have also published two letters sent by Kim Nguyen to Mike Burch, editor of The HyperTexts, about the horrendous racial injustices incurred by Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli military and the robber barons they protect (euphemistically called "settlers").

And hot off the press, here's Boehner's Billion Dollar Boner.

If the world wants peace, we need to consider Calling Bibi’s Bluff.

Here are the latest in our "best of" pages: The Best Poem of All Time, The Best Romantic Poetry, The Best Lyric Poetry, The Best Political Quotes and Epigrams, Best Sonnets and The Best Political Poems.

July 2011: This month our first featured poet is Alice Walker, currently at sea on the Audacity of Hope.

In the spirit of July 4th, we have re-published a page (not very originally) called Let Freedom Sing! Poetic songs of freedom are often wild and dark, as our readers will see ...

We also have a related essay by THT editor Michael R. Burch, Independence Day Madness.

Seamus Cassidy returns to the Spotlight with a number of new poems.

Larry Gross's insightful essay "Reflections on Israel: From Idealism to Ethnic Cleansing" is definitely food for thought, for those not averse to rational contemplation of the facts.

T. Merrill also remains in the Spotlight, with a page brimming with THT exclusives.

Ghassan Kadi continues to cast new light on ancient dilemmas.

Will Israel attack The Audacity of Hope as it did the Liberty, the Dignity and the Spirit of Humanity?

Marching Toward Hell and World War III

The Best Love Poems of All Time

June 2011: Our first Spotlight poet this month is Dennis Greene, who was born in England, raised in Zimbabwe and currently lives in Australia.

Our second Spotlight poet, Janet Kenny, also lives down under, by the sea in Queensland.

Marcus Valerius Martial is considered the father of the modern epigram.

T. Merrill also remains in the Spotlight, with a poetry page full of THT exclusives.

Ghassan Kadi: Palestine, the State of Two States casts new light on an ancient dilemma

The Best Poets Ever is THT's attempt to pay homage to the best poets of all time, albeit in one man's personal opinion.

Best Christian Poetry features poems by William Blake, A. E. Housman and other masters of the English language, on religious and spiritual themes.

Ogaden Poetry is a page dedicated to the Ogaden people of Somalia. "Somalis have been known to the world, at least since Richard Burton's time, as a nation of poets." — Cedric Barnes, University of London

American Warmongering is a page of quotations about war by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Tommy Franks, Madeline Albright, et al.

Arab Spring Poetry: Poems of the Arab Awakening is a page dedicated to the proposition that all human beings are created equal, with the self-evident rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Can there be a just peace for Israel? THT editor Michael R. Burch thinks not, for a surprising reason ...

Are the 1967 borders of Israel "indefensible"? or is Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu playing a shell game with world peace?

World War III ... How can we prevent it? Or has it already started?

Israeli Racism and its Cost to the United States and American Taxpayers ... Can we afford to be racists in the modern world?

Robert McNamara: "It's Just Wrong What We're Doing"

Gideon Levy has been called "the most hated man in Israel" because he writes articles that point out how brutally the government and military of Israel treat Palestinians: even completely innocent Palestinian women and children. Do apartheid walls and "Jewish only" highways and settlements inside Occupied Palestine increase Israel's "security," or only its insecurities? According to Levy, the government and military of Israel are its own worst enemies.

May 2011: This month Quincy R. Lehr returns to the Spotlight, with four new poems.

Our Interview with John Whitworth continues the debate about the virtues of formal poetry versus the vices of free verse ... or is there a lot of sound and fury, signifying little or nothing?

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight, with a new THT exclusive.

NAKBA DAY: THE PALESTINIAN DAY OF RAGE AND THE THIRD PALESTINIAN INTIFADA

What caused the Civil War? Was it slavery, states' rights, tariffs?

Terezín Children's Holocaust Poems includes two poems written by child poets of a Nazi concentration camp.

Martin Niemöller wrote perhaps the most famous of all Holocaust poems: "First they came for the Jews ..."

Moishe (Moshe) Kaufman is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who fled to Buenos Aires in 1928.

Peretz Opochinski [Opochinsky] began writing poetry at age twelve, only to die in the Warsaw Ghetto along with his wife and child.

Hershele Danielovitch also died in the Warsaw Ghetto.

A Simple Proof that Christians are Immortal is "proof positive" that only Christians are immortal, for a surprising reason. Prepare to be dumb-founded by the wis-dumb of the Divine Plan!

A Simple Proof that the Bible is Not "Infallible" will remove any remaining doubts about the Bible being inerrant.

Walt Whitman is probably America's greatest poet and perhaps its greatest prophet.

April 2011: Japan Earthquake/Tsunami Disaster Poetry is a collection of poems dedicated to the people of Japan and surrounding regions who were hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami that left devastation in their wake. Our thoughts, prayers and well wishes are with all the survivors and the families and friends of all the victims.

Basho is one of the best Japanese poets, and a master of haiku.

There Is No Hell in the Bible is the result of THT editor Mike Burch's life-long struggle with fun-damning-mentalism.

A Simple Proof that Christians are Immortal, an Easter Homily is "proof positive" that only Christians are immortal, for a surprising reason. Prepare to be dumbfounded by the wis-dumb of the Divine Plan!

Was the Civil War fought over Slavery or States' Rights? The answer is clear and simple, and comes to us in the form of four documents drafted by slave states (Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas) to explain why they chose to leave the Union and risk Civil War with the North.

Michael Ferris was recently awarded two prizes by The Lyric, in contests judged by THT associate editor and Poet in Residuum Tom Merrill.

We also have a new poem by Iqbal Tamimi, our Editor in Exile, with accompanying artwork that you won't want to miss.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight, having recently graced us with five new THT exclusives.

March 2011: Japan Earthquake/Tsunami Disaster Poetry is a collection of poems dedicated to the people of Japan and surrounding regions who were hit by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami that left devastation in their wake. Our thoughts, prayers and well wishes are with all the survivors and the families and friends of all the victims.

Basho is one of the best Japanese poets, and a master of haiku.

"America’s Poem for Japan" was written by THT editor Michael R. Burch for the victims and survivors of the earthquakes and tsunamis that struck Japan in March 2011, and their families and friends around the globe.

Ber Horvitz is a Holocaust poet who can only be known today by the poems he left us.

Miryam (Miriam) Ulinover (1888-1944) was born in Poland, as Miryam (Mania) Hirshbeyn, in either 1888 or 1890, depending on the source. As a girl she wrote prose in Polish, German and Russian. In 1912 she married Volf Ulinover, a merchant from a Hasidic family. They had two daughters, Dine-Rokhl and Hinde-Makhle. Miryam went on to write poetry in Yiddish and was published in magazines and anthologies. She also published a book of poems, Der bobes oytser (Grandmother’s Treasure, Warsaw 1922). World War II and the Holocaust interrupted her literary career. In August 1944 she and her family were deported to Auschwitz; she perished in the gas chamber a few days later, along with her daughter and granddaughter. None of her later manuscripts were ever found.

Itzhak (Yitzkhak) Viner was a Jewish poet who was imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto. He wrote poems about the Holocaust in Yiddish. In his poem “My Childhood” he recalls the severe hunger he experienced as a young boy: hunger so severe he and his friends pretended to bake and eat loaves made of mud. Later as a prisoner of the Nazis, he looked back to those days, longing for the freedom to go outside and bake loaves of mud again.

dis-Able-d Muse is a humorous poem written about THT editor Michael R. Burch's recent experiences with literary fascism at a sub-forum of Able Muse/Eratosphere incongruously called "The Deep End." The Deep End lived up to its name, ironically, when the people who run the site went off the deep end after Burch posted a rather mild tongue-in-cheek critique, Erato, Speared (the Poem) which was followed by Erato, Speared (the Essay).

Robert Burns [1759–1796) is also known as Bobbie Burns, Rabbie Burns, Scotland's Favorite Son, the Ploughman Poet, Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland simply as The Bard. Burns is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide.

Rainer Maria Rilke [1875-1926] was a Bohemian-Austrian poet who is considered to be a major poet of the German language.

Jim Dunlap's poetry has been published extensively in print and online in the United States, England, France, India, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and New Zealand. His work has appeared in over 90 publications, including Potpourri, Candelabrum, Mobius and the Paris/Atlantic. He is an associate Editor of Sonnetto Poesia and a resident poet on Poetry Life & Times.

Zainab Elberry is an Egyptian-American peace activist who has lived in Nashville, Tennessee for the last forty years.

Michael Ferris was born in Los Angeles. His first true love was JS Bach; since then he’s had reckless affairs with, among others, Blaise Pascal, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Wislawa Szymborska. He studied nothing of commercial value in college. He works on Wall Street—but Mammon is a clumsy and boorish lover, so he cheats continuously with a Rolodex of poets and novelists and philosophers, some of whom still draw breath. He is most grateful to have fallen on receptive ears recently at 14by14, The Shit Creek Review, Rattle, The Lyric, and Light Quarterly.

Karen Kelsay is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the editor of Victorian Violet Press, an online poetry magazine that encourages formal poetry. Her poems have been featured at The New Formalist, and have recently been accepted for publication in The Raintown Review, The Flea, The Lyric, 14 by 14 and Lucid Rhythms. She lives in Orange County, California.

Primo Levi [1919-1987] was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. The book has been described as one of the best books by one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight, having recently graced us with five new THT exclusives.

Wendy Sloan's poems have appeared in Iambs & Trochees, Measure, Blue Unicorn, Umbrella, Mezzo Cammin and The Raintown Review. A translation (of Leopardi) was published in The Chimaera. Sloan was a finalist in the 2006 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award Competition.

Mark Twain: Poetry, Quotes and Epigrams celebrates one of the very best American writers.

Walt Whitman is probably America's greatest poet and its greatest prophet. He almost single-handedly ushered in modernism when he chose to write free verse rather than formal poetry (i.e., metrical verse).

Ronald Wilson Reagan Quotes, Quips, Anecdotes, Eulogies, Epigrams and Poems is a tribute to one of the best writers (and poets) among American Presidents.

The Children of Gaza Speak is an "inside report" on the condition, hopes and aspirations of students at a school in Gaza, and of other young people we are calling "the Child Poets of Gaza."

"Does Jesus Love Me?" is a poem written from the perspective of a Palestinian child suffering at the hands of Christians and Jews who claim all the favor of God for themselves.

"jesus hates me, this i know" is a poem inspired by "Does Jesus Love Me?"

"Deor's Lament" is one better and more intriguing poems of the English language's Anglo Saxon past.

"The Wife's Lament" is a Modern English translation of an ancient Anglo Saxon poem, by THT editor Michael R Burch.

February 2011: The big surprise this month is our new format, which replaces the old serviceable-but-antiquated separate frame index with a new better-integrated collapsible/expandable index.

Erato, Speared (the Essay) questions the rationality of the current bias against abstract words and ideas in poetry.

Erato, Speared (the Poem) is a satirical poem about poets who betray the fairest Muse, Erato, by believing and spreading a false gospel.

Our first Spotlight poet this month is Conrad Aiken. Aiken was one of the sweetest singers among modern poets; his "Bread and Wine" is one of the all-time favorite poems of THT editor Mike Burch.

Russell Bittner is a poet/writer who conducts interviews for the Poet's Corner section of Long Story Short (www.alongstoryshort.net). His poems have been published in The Lyric, Trinacria, The Raintown Review, and elsewhere in print and on the Internet.

Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956] was a German poet, playwright and theater director. He fled Germany in 1933, when Hitler rose to power. A number of Brecht's poems were written from the perspective of a man who sees his country becoming increasingly fascist, xenophobic and militaristic.

Paul Celan is one of the best Holocaust poets. Please be sure to check out THT editor Michael R. Burch's new translation of his most famous poem "Todesfuge" ("Death Fugue").

Zainab Elberry is an Egyptian-American peace activist who has lived in Nashville, Tennessee for the last forty years.

Allama Iqbāl was not only a leading poet of his day, but is also considered by many to be the founder of the modern state of Pakistan.

Karen Kelsay is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the editor of Victorian Violet Press, an online poetry magazine that encourages formal poetry. Her poems have been featured at The New Formalist, and have recently been accepted for publication in The Raintown Review, The Flea, The Lyric, 14 by 14 and Lucid Rhythms. She lives in Orange County, California.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight, having graced us with five new THT exclusives last month.

Wendy Sloan's poems have appeared in Iambs & Trochees, Measure, Blue Unicorn, Umbrella, Mezzo Cammin and The Raintown Review. A translation (of Leopardi) was published in The Chimaera. Sloan was a finalist in the 2006 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award Competition.

Child of 9-11, a Poem for Christina-Taylor Green is a poem dedicated to a nine-year-old girl who planned to use politics to improve the world, only to be shot by a man full of rage against the system.

9-11 Poetry is a collection of poems dedicated to the victims and survivors of 9-11 and their families.

The Children of Gaza Speak is an "inside report" on the condition, hopes and aspirations of students at a school in Gaza.

Frail Envelope of Flesh is a poem based on a phrase THT editor Mike Burch read eons ago in a superhero comic book.

January 2011: Our first Spotlight poet this month is Conrad Aiken. Aiken was one of the sweetest singers among modern poets; his "Bread and Wine" is one of the all-time favorite poems of THT editor Mike Burch.

Ernest Dowson is one of the best unknown, under-known and/or underrated poets of all time.

Allama Iqbāl was not only a leading poet of his day, but is also considered by many to be the founder of the modern state of Pakistan.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight, having graced us with five new THT exclusives.

Sappho was one of the earliest and best lyric poets.

Lyric Poetry examines the ascendency of the most popular form of modern poetry.

Richard Moore's Advice to Poets comes by way of an obit published by the Boston Globe that we stumbled upon recently.

The Most Beautiful Poems in the English Language is self-explanatory.

Haiku: the Best of the Masters, with Translations and Contemporary Work is our attempt to illustrate the similarities between the best contemporary lyric poetry and the work of the Oriental and Greek masters.

Bloodshed in the Sahara: The Sins of Colonialism and the Moroccan Massacre of the Sahrawi People is the latest addition to our Genocide Poetry index: the one we really, really wish we didn't have to keep updating.

Sarah Palin's Resignation Speech (Edited for Clarity) investigates the attempt of Vanity Fair's editors to make Sarah Palin make some sort of coherent sense.

Is God a Homophobe? questions the "faith" of Christians who use the Bible to justify bigotry and intolerance. What does the Bible say, really, and why does it say what it says?

Drats, Rejected Again! (the Bias Against Formal Metrical Rhyming Poems) discusses the problem that occurs when editors reject poems they consider "fine, even beautiful" because they consider meter and rhyme to be passé.

The Best Free Verse Poems of All Time is a compilation of the best free verse poems, according to one man's personal taste and opinion.

Child of 9-11, a Poem for Christina-Taylor Green is a poem dedicated to a nine-year-old girl who planned to use politics to improve the world, only to be shot by a man full of rage against the system.

9-11 Poetry is a collection of poems dedicated to the victims and survivors of 9-11 and their families.

We have also added a new poem, "In Answer," to the poetry page of Usha Chandrasekharan.

Songs and Poems that Changed the World is self-explanatory.

The Best Songs Ever: the Greatest Songs of All Time is one poet's guide to the best rock songs of all time, giving strong preference to the songs with the best lyrics. Of course any such list is largely a matter of personal taste and opinion, which can always be taken with a pinch or grain of salt. A related page is The Best Female Singer/Songwriters of All Time.

December 2010: Chaya Feldman, wrote one of the most touching and poignant poems of the Holocaust: "Ninety-Three Daughters of Israel." Let us all vow to say "Never again!" to all such atrocities.

BLAKE is our editor's choice as the most important poet of all time, for a number of reasons.

Terese Coe returns to the Spotlight with her translation of a Borges poem, "Rain."

T. Merrill has graced us with yet another THT exclusive, "Orbiting a Potentially Dead Star."

A. E. Stallings was one of the first poets we published; new she's back in the Spotlight with a number of new poems you won't want to miss, including one we're adding immediately to our "Best of The HyperTexts" page: her marvelous "Ghost Ship."

Going Viral: Viral Poetry discusses a possible "sea change" in poetry ... will it become a tsunami?

The Dumbest Things Ever Said, the Worst Predictions of All Time, and the Best of the Bushisms is a compendium of malaprops and dim-witticisms.

At Death's Door: a Story of Gaza relates what happened when THT editor Mike Burch tried to do a good deed and the killing gates of Gaza intervened ...

Frail Envelope of Flesh is a poem based on a phrase found in a superhero comic book ...

Mother Israel, Father Palestine contains two interesting stories about beyond-the-grave messages received from Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel who has been called "Mother Israel." The article also contains fascinating glimpses of Yassar Arafat, who might be called "Father Palestine," at a time when he was trying to avoid being assassinated by the government of Israel and people within his own organization.

Genocide Poetry speaks for itself ...

The Ballad of the Christmas Donkey, and a Message of Hope is the Christmas wish and encouragement of Beth Burch, the wife of THT editor Mike Burch, for everyone who may be struggling with depression, bullying or a feeling of being "different" in a negative way. Beth's message is that being different is good, so "take back the power" from people who say otherwise.

Who the hell was Furkan Dogan, and why should we care? Should we care about an 18-year-old peace activist who was summarily executed by the government of Israel in international waters for the "crime" of being aboard a ship that was trying to deliver humanitarian aid to the suffering people of Gaza?

Why I Left the Religious Right is a humorous look, through poetry, at some of the zanier ideas of Bible-believing conservative Christians.

BENEDICT XVI: LIGHT OF THE WORLD! is a cheeky review of the Pope's latest self-aggrandizing book.

What I learned from Elie Wiesel and other Jewish Holocaust Survivors, about achieving World Peace is the personal account of how THT editor Michael R. Burch learned more from the Jewish Holocaust survivors he worked with, than some of them seemingly wanted him to know.

The Lunatic State and a Voice of Reason explores the thought process of Professor Norman Finkelstein, the son of two Holocaust survivors who grew up to become one of Israel's fiercest critics.

Oscar Wilde Epigrams is a page chock-full of some of the choicest epigrams of all time: those of the Divine Oscar Wilde.

November 2010: Our first new Spotlight poet this month, Chaya Feldman, wrote one of the most touching and poignant poems of the Holocaust: "Ninety-Three Daughters of Israel." Let us all vow to say "Never again!" to all such atrocities.

Our second new Spotlight poet, Jovica Tasevski-Eternijan, is an acclaimed Macedonian poet, essayist and literary critic.

Our second new Spotlight poet, John Beaton, was raised in the Highlands of Scotland and now lives in the town of Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, Canada. He is a former moderator of an online metrical poetry workshop: The Deep End at Eratosphere. His poetry has been widely published in literary and non-literary newspapers, magazines, and journals, and has won poetry competitions. He is also a regular spoken word performer at Celtic events, Burns Suppers, and literary gatherings.

Terese Coe returns to the Spotlight with a new translation of a Borges poem, "Rain."

"A Page from the Deportation Diary" is a poem written by Wladyslaw Szlengel, a victim of the Holocaust and one of its foremost Poets. This is a new translation by THT editor Mike Burch.

Conrad Aiken is an under-known contemporary poet whose work deserves vastly more attention than it receives today.

T. Merrill has graced us with yet another THT exclusive, "Orbiting a Potentially Dead Star."

We have also added a wonderfully touching new poem, "The Peace of Santa Barbara" to the page of Seamus Cassidy, our favorite retired Irish redhead.

Mother Israel, Father Palestine contains two interesting stories about beyond-the-grave messages received from Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel who has been called "Mother Israel." The article also contains fascinating glimpses of Yassar Arafat, who might be called "Father Palestine," at a time when he was trying to avoid being assassinated by the government of Israel and people within his own organization.

"The Whirlwinds of Revolt will continue to Shake the Foundations of our Nation ..." reminds our readers of a prophecy made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Herzl, Hitler and the Final Solution for the Children of Gaza discusses the fascinating and disturbing similarities between Adolf Hitler, the prophet-evangelist of Nazism, and Theodor Herzl, the prophet-evangelist of Zionism. Will the fate of the children of Gaza be the fate of the children of Auschwitz, if the world fails to act to save them?

Our Halloween Poetry page contains some the best dark, haunting, scary poems of all time.

Our Fall and Winter Poetry page contains some of the all-time best poems about fall, winter, aging, death and loss.

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN delves into the work of one of America's best writers of poetry and prose: Abraham Lincoln.

Arthurian Poems is a collection of poems based on the ancient Celtic myths that were later "Christianized" into the Arthurian legends.

Famous Insults, Comebacks, Rejoinders and Repartee provides our readers with ammunition to be used against people they despise, or want to put in their proper place.

How to Become a Fascist Nation, in Seven Easy Steps is an ironic comparison of the unfortunate parallels between the United States, Israel and Weimar Germany.

Conspicuous Presumption: the Surprising Wit and Wisdom of Bush Jr., Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al ... is a collection of Bush administration quotes one might prefer to forget, or live to regret.

Avraham Burg: the Prophet-Poet of Judaism tells the tale of a former (interim) President of Israel who has provocative ideas about the future shape of Israel, Judaism and Zionism.

Einstein on Palestine answers such questions as "Why did Albert Einstein turn down the presidency of the state of Israel, and what did the great Jewish intellectual and humanitarian make of Israel, Zionism and the conflict between Jews and Palestinians?"

Israeli Apartheid is the result of a comprehensive fifteen-month legal study of the policies and actions of the government of Israel, by people who know an awful lot about apartheid: South Africans.

How the Hell Did I, of All People, End Up Translating Other People's Poetry? is Mike Burch's confession that he only started translating other people's poetry because he couldn't fall in love with existing translations of poems like "Wulf and Eadwacer" and "Caedmon's Hymn."

American Homophobia suggests that conservative Christians are homophobic because they fear and distrust the God they profess love and trust implicitly.

October 2010: Dr. John Z. Guzlowski is Professor Emeritus at Eastern Illinois University. He says, "Most of my poems are about my Polish-Catholic parents' experiences in the slave labor camps in Germany." Garrison Keillor used one of his poems poem for the show Writers Almanac, and Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz—in a review published in Poland—said that Guzlowski's poems about the war "astonished" him.

Christina Pacosz returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.

Sally Cook returns to the Spotlight with a number of new poems.

T. Merrill has graced us with yet another THT exclusive, "Orbiting a Potentially Dead Star."

We have also added two new poems to the page of Seamus Cassidy, our favorite retired Irish redhead.

The Children of Gaza Speak is an "inside report" on the condition, hopes and aspirations of students at a school in Gaza.

Poems for Gaza is yet another attempt to save the children of Gaza by forcing the to world ask, "How can innocent children be punished collectively for the 'crime' of having been born 'wrong' ... are we that blind, that stupid, that indifferent to human suffering? If not, why not act today?"

Our Halloween Poetry page contains some the best dark, haunting, scary poems of all time.

Our Fall and Winter Poetry page contains some of the all-time best poems about fall, winter, aging, death and loss.

Reuven Moskovitz is a Jewish Holocaust survivor and the recipient of the 2001 Mount Zion Award and the 2003 Aachen Peace Prize.

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) was the pen name the Chilean poet Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 and was called "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language" by Gabriel García Márquez. Neruda always wrote in green ink, the color of esperanza (hope).

Fardin Mohammadi explains what it's like to be a young Muslim in the United States on the anniversary of 9-11.

Michael R. Burch, in Arabic? Yes, thanks to the skills of translator Iqbal Tamimi, THT's Editor in Exile.

The Palestinian Oud musicians Le Trio Joubran resurrected Nazareth at St. George’s Concert Hall. Please read the riveting report from Bristol, provided by Iqbal Tamimi. Why is this the only group of Palestinian musicians who are allowed to perform internationally?

Gideon Levy has been called the "most hated man in Israel." Could it be because he has the temerity to speak the truth?

The Curious Blindness of Abba Eban is a meandering essay about the dangers of nationalism and religious zealotry in the modern world.

Vanessa Redgrave: A Passion for Justice is a testimonial to a courageous actress who sold two houses in order to raise the funds to film a documentary about the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of the Palestinians.

We have added a page of Elie Wiesel's quotations, poems and epigrams.

What I learned from Elie Wiesel and other Jewish Holocaust Survivors, about achieving World Peace is the personal account of how THT editor Michael R. Burch learned more from some of the Jewish Holocaust survivors he worked with, than they seemingly wanted him to know.

The Palestinian Perspective on Peace is an informative question-and-answer session which considers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian perspective.

The Popemobile and Other Equivocations is yet another expose of the follies of organized religion, by THT editor Michael R. Burch.

Einstein on Palestine answers such questions as "Why did Albert Einstein turn down the presidency of the state of Israel, and what did the great Jewish intellectual and humanitarian make of Israel, Zionism and the conflict between Jews and Palestinians?"

The Night the Stars Aligned: Nashville Welcomes His Excellency, Aziz Mekouar, Ambassador of Morocco to the United States is the story of the remarkable relationship between the fledgling United States of America and the Muslim nation, Morocco, that first recognized and befriended it, in 1777.

How the Hell Did I, of All People, End Up Translating Other People's Poetry? is Mike Burch's confession that he only started translating other people's poetry because he couldn't fall in love with existing translations of poems like "Wulf and Eadwacer" and "Caedmon's Hymn."

September 2010: This month our first Spotlight poet, Leo Yankevich, speaks to us all the way from Gliwice, Poland.

Dr. Joseph S. Salemi returns to the Spotlight, with new riffs on televangelists and other objects of his considerable ire.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with yet another THT exclusive, "Praise the Lord!"

Peter Austin returns to the Spotlight with a number of new poems related to the Holocaust.

We have also published Russell Bittner's book review of Peter Austin’s A Many-Splendored Thing.

In the Shadow of Rachel's Tomb is the story of a family's struggle for survival in the shadow of Bethlehem's "security wall."

Tawfik Zayyad is one of the leading poets of the Palestinian resistance movement.

The Popemobile and Other Equivocations is yet another expose of the follies of organized religion, by THT editor Michael R. Burch.

The Archpoet "Confesses"! now contains a stanza-by-stanza analysis of "His Confession" by THT editor Mike Burch. What did the Archpoet "confess," really? If anyone had listened to him, could the Inquisition have been averted?

August 2010: This month we're spotlighting the account of a near death experience, The Night the Veil Thinned, written by Beth Harris Burch, the wife of THT editor Mike Burch. This is Beth's first contribution to THT in the form of her own words, but she has certainly inspired many of his, as attested by the collection of poems he wrote in her honor over the last twenty years: O, Terrible Angel.

Sarah Plain, "refudiate" this! is our poetic salute to the greatest American poet since George W. Bush. The influence of Yoda on the work of both poets is clearly evident, but we believe Palin may have exceeded Bush by also channeling otherworldly gurus like Yogi Bear and Yogi Berra. She is capable of greater cognitive difficulty than T. S. Eliot and Hart Crane, and also of more flirtatious winking than Mae West.

Donald Rumsfeld is an accomplished man. His main claim to fame is being the world's pre-eminent warmonger. But Rumsfeld is also a poet. No, make that a Poet with a capital "P." Until now, Rumsfeld's poetry has been properly appreciated only by other warmongers and fervid fundamentalists. But now we are pleased to introduce laymen to what Hart Seely calls Rumsfeld's "jazzy, impromptu riffs."

Addicted to Bush by is a humorous piece that asks the pertinent question: "Why do Americans love things that endanger our lives: sex, drugs, french fries and machismo-dripping warmongers?"

Dreaming of Obama is one of the more hopeful pieces we've published in recent memory.

Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian poets. She is widely considered a symbol of the Palestinian cause and "one of the most distinguished figures of modern Arabic literature. Tuqan died on December 12, 2003 during the height of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, while her hometown of Nablus was under siege. In his obituary for The Guardian, Lawrence Joffe wrote, "The Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan, who has died aged 86, forcefully expressed a nation's sense of loss and defiance. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general, likened reading one of Tuqan's poems to facing 20 enemy commandos."

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi has been a central player in the struggle for a Palestinian homeland. A tireless campaigner for human rights, she has distinguished herself in both the academic and political arenas. Her academic expertise has played a vital role in the development and recognition of Palestinian culture, while her longstanding political activism on behalf of the Palestinian people has contributed greatly to the establishment of an independent and self-governing Palestine.

Julie Kane has been one of our most popular poets in terms of page views recently, so it seemed only fitting to re-spotlight her poems.

Our first new Spotlight poet, David Burnham, went to the same high school as Richard Moore, another poet published by The HyperTexts, which only goes to show what a small, interconnected globe this Earth is becoming.

Since David Burnham and Richard Moore were schoolmates, this seems like a good time to re-Spotlight the work of one of our very best contemporary American poets.

Sieglinde Wood, our second new Spotlight poet, was born in The Bronx in 1960, now lives and writes in Newbury, Vermont.

Michel de Montaigne is one of the all-time great writers, even in translation.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, also remains in the Spotlight with yet another THT exclusive, "God's Universe."

The Embarrassing Intolerance of God begs the question: why are Christians more tolerant than the Father, Son and Holy Ghost?

The Path to Peace in the Middle East suggests that there is a better path to peace than war: in a word, Justice.

Wrestling Angels and Chimeras challenges the "Domino Theory": has the government of the United States been fighting war after war on false pretenses?

Roll Call of Shame begs the question: why has the United State unilaterally vetoed 42 United Nations resolutions that might have brought relief to multitudes of completely innocent Palestinian women and children?

July 2010: This month in the spirit of July 4th, we have re-published a page (not very originally) called Let Freedom Sing! Poetic songs of freedom are often wild and dark, as our readers will see ...

Ann Drysdale returns to the Spotlight with four new poems.

George Held also returns to the Spotlight with a number of new poems.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, also remains in the Spotlight.

Ayla Mahler is a Spanish poet and artist who has been voted the top artist out of more than 1780 artists at Agregarte.

The Aftermath of the Flotilla is a compelling account of what Anna Baltzer, a Jewish-American peace activist, saw and heard in Palestine after Israel attacked the Gaza Flotilla in international waters, killing nine Turkish peace activists.

We have a new page on the poetry of Robert Frost, featuring a number of lesser-known poems of his suggested to us by Tom Merrill.

CONVICTION asks if Christians who believe in "hell" have the courage of their convictions. How can they bring children into the world, if they believe in an "eternal hell"? Are they monsters?

Just in time for doomsday we have an informative if somewhat speculative new article, John of Patmos: 2012 or Bust?

We also have a new essay, "The Spiritual Sasquatch" by THT editor Michael R. Burch, along with a reprint from last year, Independence Day Madness.

June 2010: This month we are pleased and honored to spotlight four poems (three of them new to THT) by Anita Dorn. Anita Dorn was a survivor of World War II refugee camps, and the beloved wife of the American poet Alfred Dorn, who shares the THT spotlight with her. Anita Dorn died in 2005 and will be sorely missed.

We are also pleased to spotlight several translations by Helen Palma, who holds advanced degrees in the Classics and in Comparative Literature from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Over twenty-five of her translations from the poetry of Baudelaire have been published in various journals. She lives in New York City.

We have also published several translations and original poems by Marion Shore, whose published translations include works of Dante, Villon, Ronsard, Baudelaire, Rilke and many others. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and two sons.

We are tickled pink and pleased as punch to be able to re-spotlight the poetry of Jan Schreiber, and we've added four new poems to his page to commemorate the event. We have also published four of his reviews of the work of Richard Moore, for good measure.

We have also added a new poem, "Slow Down, Sunset" to the page of Seamus Cassidy, a retired Irish redhead.

And we have added three new poems to the page of Maryann Corbett.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with three new THT exclusives.

We have added several poems to the page of Zyskandar Jaimot, who passed away recently, but whose words continue to resonate with us.

Leland Jamieson returns to our Spotlight with three new poems.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is an important letter by Bleu Copas, a former Army Sergeant and Arabic linguist.

Dorothy Parker is best known for her epigrams and spoonerisms, but thanks to Tom Merrill we have been able to update her page with several "more serious" poems we think our readers will appreciate.

We also continue to feature a short, humorous poem by our Editor in Arrears, "gimME that ol’ time religion."

Pus we have a new poem on the same subject, "The Trinity (an Update)."

In keeping with the current trend, we have a new page on religion called Infalli-BULL.

May 2010: This month we are pleased and honored to be able to spotlight "Bitter Snow" by Anita Dorn. Her poems were published in Pivot, Poetry Digest and other literary journals. She also wrote a novel based on circus life and a number of short stories, some of which were published in Nassau Review. She was the beloved wife of the American poet Alfred Dorn, and quite a fancier of cats. She died in 2005 and will be sorely missed.

We also have a new short, humorous poem by our Editor in Arrears, "gimME that ol’ time religion."

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with three new THT exclusives you won't want to miss. Tom is consistently one of our most-read poets, and for good reasons, so if you haven't read his work, please give it a gander.

Our second new Spotlight poet this month is Alan Wickes, an English poet. In recent years, Alan has spent as much time as possible travelling with his family around the Mediterranean. These journeys have often provided the backdrop to his writing. Over the past ten years he has become increasingly interested in writing metrical verse, adopting a modern idiom within formal verse settings.

Our third new Spotlight poet is Mike Alexander. Alexander has been published most recently in River Styx, Bateau, the 2010 Texas Poetry Calendar, and in Modern Metric’s chapbook, We Internet in Different Voices.

We also have three new poems by Iqbal Tamimi, our Editor in Exile, with accompany photos and art you won't want to miss.

We also have a new article in our Nakba series: How Palestine Became Divided.

And we have added a new page of Christian Poetry.

And for good measure we have a new feature: English Poetic Roots: A Brief History of Rhyme.

April 2010: This month we have a special "April Fools" page.

Also, in the spirit of April Fools Day fun, we have an odd bit of humor, Weaponizing Chili, by Mike Burch.

On a more serious note, we are honored to re-spotlight the poetry of Sandy VanDoren, who passed away recently. Sandy had been published in journals such as Measure, Iambs and Trochees, Pivot, Edge City Review, The Lyric, The Mid-American Poetry Review and Medicinal Purposes, and was the winner of The Lyric's Fluvanna Prize in 2007 and its Leslie Mellichamp Prize in 2008.

Another poet we published on several occasions, Zyskandar Jaimot, also passed away recently, and we're honored to spotlight his work yet again. We've also added two new poems to his page. One of them, the last poem he submitted to us and one that he seemed to have been working on up to the end of his life, is about a vision he had of nuclear weapons in what might be called a "hatchery" or "nursery." The title he chose for the poem relates his vision to the current impasse between Iran and Israel.

Dahlia Ravikovitch, who died in 2005 at the age of 69, was one of Israel’s most beloved writers. She was also acclaimed for her courage as a peace activist who was "deeply involved in the cause of Palestinian human rights." Her death was front-page news in Israel and was met with an "outpouring of grief from every corner of society."

As THT editor Mike Burch worked on the poetry page of Dahlia Ravikovitch, he experienced what he calls An Especially Eerie Convergence.

Rat Zingers Children probes the question "What did Ratzinger/Benedict know and do about pedophilia in the Catholic Church?"

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with two new THT exclusives.

March 2010: This month our first new Spotlight poet is Timothy Murphy, who hunts in the Dakotas when he's not writing about hunting.

Night Labor, a Poem for Rachel Corrie is a short poem dedicated to a young peace activist who died trying to protect a home about to be demolished by the IDF.

Don Thackrey spent his formative years on farms and ranches of the Nebraska Sandhills before modern conveniences, and much of his verse reflects that experience. He now lives in Dexter, Michigan, where he is retired from the University of Michigan. His verse has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies.

Peter Austin lives with his wife and three daughters in Toronto, Canada, where he teaches English at Seneca College. Over a hundred and fifty of his poems have been published, in magazines and anthologies in the USA (including The New Formalist, Contemporary Sonnet, The Lyric, Iambs & Trochees, The Pennsylvania Review, The Raintown Review, and Trinacria), Canada and elsewhere.

Lakshmi Seethapathi Iyer lives in Mumbai with her husband and teenage daughter. She started writing in her late thirties, a few months after her mother passed away. This is her first poetry publication, but not (we predict) her last.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with a new THT exclusive.

We have published a new essay by Mike Burch, Christian Mothers and the Cult of Hell: What the Hell Are They Doing to Their Own Children?

The Puritan National Conscience by Joe Salemi was written in response to Burch's essay.

Joe Salemi, Mike's Salami and the Christian Mother-Monster by Mike Burch was written in response to Salemi's essay.

Logic 101 is an essay by Mike Burch which suggests simple, logical ways Israel and the United States can avoid destroying the world in the process of making it "safe" for "democracy."

February 2010: This month we're pleased to have a new addition to our Formal Poetry page, which we're also publishing as an essay in its own right: Regarding the Great Poetic Divide, by T. Merrill. We also have two related essays: This Is Not a Manifesto by Quincy R. Lehr and Aints, Saints and Formalist Plaints by Michael R. Burch. If you're interested in formal poetry and the "state of the art" of contemporary poetry, we think you'll find food for thought on these pages. And we've just added a fourth related essay, The Effete Fascist, also by Michael R. Burch.

Sarah Palin, Poet! is an important page about our latest, greatest American poet, who is reinvigorating the English language at tea parties across the nation. She is a Major Poet following in the footsteps of Yoda, Yogi Bear, Yogi Berra and George W. Bush. And don't you dare miss the epic clash of limericks between her dastardly archenemy, Mike Burch, and her knight-in-shining-armor, the eminent Dr. Joseph S. Salemi!

Dan Almagor has been described as a "giant of Israeli popular culture." He was commissioned by the Israeli government to write military songs, and his early work often celebrated "Israeli macho culture and military heroism." But he has become a stern critic of the deeply rooted racism he sees in Israeli society, not only against Palestinians, but against Yemenite and Ethiopian Jews.

Yakov Azriel was born in New York in 1950, and has lived in Israel since 1971. He has published three full-length books of poetry in the USA: Threads From A Coat Of Many Colors: Poems On Genesis (2005), In The Shadow Of A Burning Bush: Poems On Exodus (2008) and Beads for the Messiah's Bride: Poems on Leviticus (2009), all published by Time Being Books.

Liz Barger's Letter from Gaza (Almost) is the account of what happened when an American peace activist (who happens to be a personal friend of ours) tried to enter Gaza bearing Christmas gifts for the suffering children of Gaza. Unfortunately, the governments of Israel, Egypt and the United States played Scrooge.

Louise Bogan has long been one of my favorite poets. I just added "After the Persian" to her page, and it's a poem you really should read, if you haven't before. If you have, it's well worth revisiting.—MRB

Jim Hayes was a featured poet in Light Quarterly in 2005 and won the Espy Prize for Light Verse in 2004. His work has appeared in First Things, Iambs & Trochees, Able Muse, Per Contra, The Chimera, The Susquehanna Quarterly, and many other print and online journals.

Iqbal Tamimi, THT's Editor in Exile, has contributed a new poem, "The striver's departure."

The work of James Wilk, a Denver physician, has appeared in Measure, Pearl, The Barefoot Muse, The Raintown Review and elsewhere.

I had a hard time finding credible lists of the all-time best poems online, so I decided to create my own: The Best Poems Ever.—MRB

We have three interesting features by and about a writer, Immanuel A. Michael, who claims to be the human incarnation of Michael the Archangel. He has made a number of predictions of things to come (death and destruction not among them), which readers may find of interest (or at least want to bookmark, just in case). He claims to be the bearer of the true gospel, in three simple verses, and he says it is the purpose of Michael, Wonderful and Glorious to declare The Gospel of Michael and to defeat the Devil by putting an end to what he calls the "Cult of Hell" with a small tract of his entitled The Poisonous Tomato.

In our continuing effort not to be just another run-of-the-mill literary journal, we have decided to amuse you at our own expense by publishing the early poems (okay, juvenilia) of THT editor Mike Burch. Click here, if you dare, to read his Early Poem Project, which contains poems from his first high school poetry project notebook.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.

We have added a second poem by Leslie Mellichamp, "Towers," to our Poems for Haiti page.

The Heretical Poets is a rundown of the great heretics and the great apologists of Christian orthodoxy. Is it possible that atheists like Housman and Shelley were in agreement with Dante and Milton, after all?

January 2010: This month we have added a new page of Hiroshima Poetry, Prose and Art.

Haiti Poetry contains poems and prayers for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.

We also have a late-breaking new report: Shocking News: Hatred of God in Haiti! We are appalled to hear that the honor of God has been questioned: what can people possibly be thinking?

The Gods: an Update is our sincere attempt to help our readers pick the best possible gods to fawn over, bow down to, and worship.

We have a new page of poetry, prose and art about The Trail of Tears and a related feature, Osama bin Laden and the Twin Terrors, which discusses the similarities between the situation of Sitting Bull and the Sioux, and that of the Palestinians today.

Our first Spotlight poet this month is Alfred Dorn. Dr. Dorn has been absolutely essential to the preservation of an endangered species: English poetry in its more traditional forms. A former vice president of the Poetry Society of America, he is the Director of the World Order of Narrative and Formalist Poets, which has sponsored international contests since 1980. His efforts on behalf of narrative and formal (metrical) poetry are well known and greatly appreciated among his peers.

O, Terrible Angel is a series of poems written over a period of nearly twenty years by Mike Burch for his wife Beth.

We continue to update our new page on Palestinian Poetry, Art and Photography. We will be updating this page on a regular basis, so please bookmark it and visit it often.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight.

We finished the year on a real bang, logging the 202,000th hit on our main page since we began tracking main page hits a few years back. But according to Google Dynamics, this is only the tip of the iceberg, as the pages we've managed to index so far (by no means all of them) are getting from 28,000 to 33,000 hits per month (and those figures seem to be rapidly climbing). Many of our pages rank number one with Google, or close to the top, including our pages for such popular search terms as "Holocaust poetry," "formal poetry," "epigrams," and most of our poets' names. The bottom line? If you're a poet and you want your best poems to be read by large numbers of readers, THT is a good place to showcase them. And if you have a few spare minutes to spend reading poetry and "things literary," Google seems to find THT highly relevant, and readers seem to agree. So we believe the prognosis for the future is good, and getting better all the time.

December 2009: A. E. Stallings was one of the first "name" poets we published, and Google Dynamics has just confirmed that she remains one of our most popular poets, so we are pleased to re-spotlight her fine poetry.

X. J. (Joe) Kennedy is another highly popular THT, as revealed by Google Dynamics, so we're pleased as punch and tickled pink to spotlight his poetry for the second time.

Iqbal Tamimi is joining THT as our Editor in Exile. She will be helping us acquire the rights to publish poetry by Palestinian poets and other poets who work in Arabic.

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was perhaps the preeminent Arab poet of his day.

We are also pleased to feature, side-by-side, the work of brothers Anthony Hecht and Roger Hecht. Anthony Hecht won numerous awards for his writing, including the Prix de Rome, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (for The Hard Hours), the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Wallace Stevens Award, the Frost Medal and the Tanning Prize. Roger Hecht was a leading light in the Expansive Poetry movement, and his work was published in leading journals such as Poetry, The Paris Review and The Kenyon Review.

Nahida Izzat is a Jerusalem-born Palestinian refugee who has lived in exile for over forty years, after being forced to leave her homeland at the age of seven during the six-day war. She is a mathematician by profession but art is one of her favorite pastimes. She loves hand-made things and so makes dolls, cards, and most of her own clothes. She started writing around three years ago when her friends insisted she should write about her memories, experiences and feelings as a Palestinian.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with three new THT exclusives.

Ann Drysdale also remains in our Spotlight, with two new poems with a Christmas bent.

Nakba is the pseudonym of a Palestinian American poet who speaks very bluntly, and often vehemently, about the plight of his people, and what he considers the complicity of Jews and Americans in their increasing destitution.

We also have a new page of Heretical Christmas Poems, with contributions by Drysdale, Merrill and other poets.

We have also added e. e. cummings to our list of Featured Poets.

November 2009: Mark Allinson completed a PhD in 1989 in English literature, then taught for six years at Monash university in Melbourne, Australia. He also taught adult-education courses in literature, philosophy and religion. Since retiring from teaching Mark has been writing and publishing poetry and essays in magazines and journals both in print and on-line. Mark has recently published a chapbook of poems and recently has had six poems in three poetry anthologies published by William Roetzheim.

Frank Osen’s work has appeared in publications like The Dark Horse, Pivot, Blue Unicorn, The Spectator and The Wallace Stevens Journal. He was a runner-up for the 2008 Morton Marr Poetry award, won the 2008 Best American Poetry Series poem challenge, received the Lord Byron Award from The World Order Of Narrative & Formalist Poets, and was a finalist in the 2006 Nemerov sonnet competition.

David Rosenthal is our third new Spotlight poet this month. His poems have appeared in journals like Measure, The Formalist, Blue Unicorn, The Lyric, and Pivot. He has also published haiku and senryu in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Lilliput Review, Wisteria, and other journals. He has been a finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award and a Pushcart Prize Nominee.

We've made a number of updates to the page of Greg Alan Brownderville, so he's back in the Spotlight for the month of November.

We have also updated Rose Kelleher's page, so she remains in the Spotlight.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with a new THT exclusive.

Ann Drysdale also remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.

October 2009: This month we've updated the poetry page of Zyskandar Jaimot with a new poem about the perplexities of submitting sex-saturated poems to The New Yorker. We have also published the poem, "Must Have SASE," in our Spotlight, where it now appears next to the essay "How I Blew It At The New Yorker" by Richard Moore. If you want to know how to be rejected or blacklisted by The New Yorker, why not take advice from the experts? Or, if you prefer to avoid the rat race, you can sit back, relax, and enjoy "More Distant Recollections of the NYer," a poem by T. Merrill about sitting back, relaxing, and reading the NYer.

Rose Kelleher is one helluva poet,
and we want you to know it.
(Don't you dare miss her charming villanelle
on the perilous charms of the Devil!)

Ann Drysdale remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, also remains in the Spotlight with four new THT exclusives.

We have also published the sixth installment of AFTER by Sharron Rose.

September 2009: Adrie Kusserow is a cultural anthropologist who works with Sudanese refugees in war-torn South Sudan. At St. Michael's College in Vermont she teaches courses on modern-day slavery, refugees and internally displaced people. She and her husband Robert Lair started the New Sudan Education Initiative. Their first girls' health sciences school will be built in Yei, South Sudan. The poems published by The HyperTexts are based on her visit to a Sudanese refugee camp in Uganda.

Greg Alan Brownderville tells us: "I was born and reared in a musical family of Pumpkin Bend, Arkansas, where I absorbed the blues, Southern gospel, country preaching saturated with the King James Bible, and the rural rhythms of life in the Mississippi River Delta. Rhythm ruled."

C. S. Fox earned her B. A. in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts and went on to obtain her M. S. in Education from Simmons College. She is a teacher and single mother to two young children, and maintains her sanity by reading and writing poetry, swimming and hiking.

Dr. Joseph S. Salemi returns to the Spotlight, with a new poem, "Genesis."

We are pleased to be able to publish a new essay, How I Blew It At The New Yorker, by Richard Moore. If you want to know how to be blacklisted by The New Yorker for thirty years, be sure to take notes.

We have also published the fifth installment of AFTER by Sharron Rose.

Ann Drysdale also remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, also remains in the Spotlight with yet another THT exclusive.

August 2009: This month we're pleased to shine the Spotlight on Wendy Videlock, with two new poems and an updated photo.

Catherine Chandler is also in the Spotlight, with a number of new poems and an updated bio.

We've also completely revamped the page of Quincy R. Lehr.

We have a new Holocaust poem by an American poet, Edward Nudelman, whose grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.

The Glob Blog is a blog intended to keep you up to date with the latest escapades of the poets and editors of The HyperTexts, via letters, essays, rants, etc., on topics like the right of adults to euthanasia, the right of non-heterosexuals to copulate and marry as they please, and the right of Palestinian kindergartners not to be spat on and cursed by Israeli soldiers with raised machine guns.

Ann Drysdale remains in the Spotlight, with several new poems, including a fine translation of a French poem by Théophile Gautier.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with two new THT exclusives.

We have published our second installment on the subject of the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of the Palestinians: Parables of Zion.

We have also published the fourth installment of AFTER by Sharron Rose.

July 2009: This month, I'm breaking a long-established rule of my own making, by spotlighting my own poetry. I have a program I use to keep track of the pieces I've had published, and just before I began working on this issue, the program popped up 777, as if I'd hit the jackpot. With 777 publications under my belt, it seems safe to assume that someone somewhere might like my work, so for the very first time my poetry appears in the Spotlight, after which I will once again be relegated to my normal position in the ranks as THT's "Editor in Arrears." You can read my poetry page by clicking here: Michael R. Burch.

I have also written a hopefully provocative piece of prose called Independence Day Madness. Even if you hate my poetry and doubt the sanity of the editors who published me 777 times, this essay may cause your absurdity radar to start pinging, as you ponder whether Americans really believe in the American Creed of equal rights for all human beings outside our shores.

Maryann Corbett is the author of two chapbooks, Dissonance and Gardening in a Time of War. She is a co-winner of the 2009 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize, and her poems, essays, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in River Styx, Atlanta Review, The Evansville Review, Measure, The Lyric, Candelabrum, First Things, Blue Unicorn, The Raintown Review, The Barefoot Muse, and other print and online journals. She has also served as the administrator of Eratosphere, a popular online forum for poets, especially those specializing in metrical verse.

Ann Drysdale remains in the Spotlight, with a new poem in her inimitable (and pleasingly naughty) style.

R. Nemo Hill asked us to keelhaul all his poems and, after they'd been deep-sixed, haul up new ones. You can view the results by clicking on his name.

Erin Hopson has never been published (until now) and has taken only a couple of poetry classes on her way to earning her Masters in Social Work. She currently works as an HIV case manager while living with her girlfriend, three cats, and two dogs.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with yet another THT exclusive: the most entertaining, enlightening poem I've ever read about "taking out the trash," which in this case is a double entendre.

We also continue to spotlight Richard Moore's latest and perhaps greatest essay, A Life.

We have also published the third installment of AFTER by Sharron Rose.

Colin Ward was born in 1954 in Brampton, Ontario and, after much wandering, has resided in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada for the last thirty years. His work has appeared online in venues ranging from Beside the White Chickens to Autumn Sky Poetry and has been anthologized in David W. Mitchell's Talus and Scree. Colin says, "If you've heard of me you're reading too much poetry." We caution, "No comments from the Peanut Gallery!"

June 2009: This month we are pleased and honored to spotlight the poetry of Sandy VanDoren, a retired professional archivist who has been published in Measure, Iambs and Trochees, Pivot, Edge City Review, The Lyric, The Mid-American Poetry Review, Medicinal Purposes, and several other journals. She was the winner of The Lyric's Fluvanna Prize in 2007 and its Leslie Mellichamp Prize in 2008, was published in a book of poetry, Dialogues, in 2003, and has been the chairman of the trustees of the Pennsylvania Poetry Society. She is presently on the board of the West Chester University Poetry Center in Pennsylvania.

Mary E. Moore, our second Spotlight poet, earned a Ph.D. in Psychology at Rutgers University, then an M.D. at Temple University’s School of Medicine. She went on to teach at Temple and the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, where she headed the Division of Rheumatology. Dr. Moore only started to write poetry seriously after her retirement. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Light Quarterly, Möbius, The Raintown Review, Verbatim, The Eclectic Muse, The Mid-America Poetry Review, and in several other journals and anthologies.

We have published the second installment of AFTER by Sharron Rose.

Ann Drysdale remains in the Spotlight, with two intriguing poems about her experiences with Robert Graves: one in real life as a flirtatious schoolgirl, the other in a dream from which she was "awakened to reality" in an unexpected way.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, remains in the Spotlight with yet another THT exclusive.

We have added "Cargoes" by John Masefield to our Masters page.

May 2009: We continue to spotlight the poetry of Richard Moore. We have also added a footnote (one might call it a grace note) to Richard's latest essay, A Life.

We have added two poems about dreams by Langston Hughes and a visionary one by William Blake to our Masters page.

Michael Stowers remains in the spotlight, with a new poem.

We also continue to spotlight the poetry of Ann Drysdale, with two new poems of hers.

AFTER by Sharron Rose is a highly unusual book we'll be publishing in installments, so please be sure to check it out each month if you find it of interest.

We have also added a new poem to the poetry page of Usha Chandrasekharan.

T. Merrill also remains in the Spotlight with yet another THT exclusive.

And last but certainly not least, we have added a number of poems to the page of Seamus Cassidy, a retired Irish redhead.

April 2009: To celebrate April Fool's Day, we are spotlighting The Archpoet. Not much is known about him, except that he has the coolest name ever, wrote in medieval Latin circa 1165, and seems to have given the modern world one of its first glimpses of the "learned fool," the vagabond poet/rogue scholar.

Also, we've added three new poems to the poetry page of Richard Moore. Richard is a helluva poet: a poet who will be known to future generations if we have anything to say in the matter. Or even if we don't and good taste in poetry has anything to do with who gets read. A poem of Moore's that I particularly like is "In the Dark Season." The three lines below are an almost perfect description of the mysterious art of writing poetry:

One studied a new language in the darkness,
looked far down into the well,
into the hints of sunlight in its depths.

I'd encourage our readers to do what I have done myself: buy all of Richard's books, read his poems, study his essays. Get him to sign the books you buy, because according to Richard he's pissed off his share of publishers, which means his signature may be a rare and valuable commodity in the future.—MRB

We are pleased to be able to publish Richard's latest essay, A Life.

It has also been our distinct honor and privilege to publish Richard Moore's book-length poem The Mouse Whole in whole, not in part:

Here is where you enter, if you dare,
Richard Moore's MOUSE EPIC.
Beware
its 6,000 hilarious rhyming lines
about a mouse's struggle to escape
the sewer into which he was born,
forlorn,
and yet able to make
your jaw drop, agape:
The Mouse Whole
an epic poem
by Richard Moore

Michael Stowers remains in the spotlight, with two new poems.

We also continue to spotlight the poetry of Ann Drysdale, with two new poems.

T. Merrill also remains in the Spotlight with yet two more THT exclusives.

We have added the letter-poems of Emily Dickinson to our "Blasts from the Past" series.

March 2009: This month we are pleased to spotlight the work of Michael Stowers for the first time, but hopefully not the last. As T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, says in his introduction, "Except for an early play, which was performed at the University of London (St. Mary's campus) and a few poems published by Jocundity, a paper vehicle based in NY, Michael has kept his literary inventory strictly under wraps." And so our readers may be among a select few to have read his work. We hope to not only publish more of his poems, but also some of his paintings, if he will allow us to do so, in the near future.

Usha Chandrasekharan graduated with a degree in Economics, having also taken a short-term course in Journalism and another shorter one in concept selling. She worked with a Kolkata, India information marketing company and later joined Scholastic India as an educational coordinator. Her education for the greater part has been consolidated "on the street." Communicating at all levels is her forte. Poetry and short stories are her pastime, although she says, "I am not prolific like most writers."

Amitabh Mitra is a medical doctor in a busy hospital in East London, South Africa. A widely published poet, artist and photographer both on the web and in print, he has been hailed as one of the most popular South African poets writing in English today. As one reviewer aptly put it, "his love poems with a backdrop of feudal Gwalior and Delhi take you on a sentimental journey to the old family homes, forts, palaces and places where he grew up." Come with us, as we ride a slow train to Gwalior with the good doctor.

Archana Rajagopalan is also new to our pages this month. Archana was born and resides in Chennai, India, where she works as a consultant.

Fred Hose lives in Pretoria, South Africa, where he is self-employed and does contract engineering work. He loves impressionistic paintings and writes novels, short stories, essays and poems. The story of how he came to be a writer is a remarkable one, so please visit his page, where we've allowed him to tell his story in his own words.

Max Babi was born in Cambay, or Khambhat, a city in central Gujarat, into an ex-royal family of Junagarh and Radhanpur. His mother tongue is Urdu, but by age twelve he had mastered English, being completely self-taught. His particular writing focus is on the transcreation of Urdu and Gujarati poems. A book is half ready, and several of his stories have been accepted by the Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul series. He also writes regularly for Pune Mirror, a part of the Times of India.

We have added new poems and artwork, courtesy of Mary Rae, to the tribute page of Kevin N. Roberts, the founder and first editor of Romantics Quarterly, who passed away recently.

T. Merrill also remains in the Spotlight with two more THT exclusives.

February 2009: This month we continue to spotlight the poetry of Ann Drysdale, with three new poems you would be amiss to miss.

T. Merrill, our Poet in Residuum, also remains in the Spotlight with yet another THT exclusive.

Was Hart Crane the last major poet? Click on his name to hear what Tennessee Williams, Robert Lowell and Harold Bloom have to say. Since Crane was born on the cusp of the 20th century, in 1899, we'll hedge our bets by making him a "Blast from the Past" and a featured contemporary poet.

January 2009: This month we're publishing a tribute page for THT poet Kevin N. Roberts, the founder and first editor of Romantics Quarterly. Kevin died recently after struggling with a variety of physical maladies which either began or intensified when he swam to the aid of others through the contaminated waters of Hurricane Katrina. Kevin was a compassionate and courageous young man who accomplished much in his brief life, and we will do our best to publish more of his work as it becomes available to us. In addition to being a writer and artist, Kevin was a professor of English Literature. He spent three years in the English countryside of Suffolk, writing Romantic poetry and studying the Romantic Masters beside the North Sea. His work appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, including Dreams of Decadence, Penny Dreadful, Songs of Innocence, The Oracle, The Storyteller, Tucumcari Literary Review, The Sentimentalist, Poet's Fantasy, and several others. He had two books published in the United Kingdom: Fatal Women, a collection of poetry and Quest for the Beloved, a book of literary criticism and philosophy. One of our favorite poems of his seems to presage the brevity of his life and his struggles with the "surf and sea foam on a foaming sea" . . .

Our time has passed on swift and careless feet,
With sighs and smiles and songs both sad and sweet.
Our perfect hours have grown and gone so fast,
And these are things we never can repeat.
Though we might plead and pray that it would last,
Our time has passed.

Like shreds of mist entangled in a tree,
Like surf and sea foam on a foaming sea,
Like all good things we know can never last,
Too soon we'll see the end of you and me.
Despite the days and realms that we amassed,
Our time has passed.

(No sooner had I finished this article and popped into Outlook to check my e-mail, than the message "Thanks Mate!" flashed up on my monitor. But when I tried to discover who had sent the e-mail, there was no email with those words. Very strange, in a nice, comforting way.—MRB)

We're pleased and proud to shine the Spotlight on Anna Evans. Anna is the new Editor-in-Chief of one of our favorite formal journals, The Raintown Review, so we asked her to give our readers a "vision statement" for the journal under her editorship. She agreed and you can read her vision statement on her poetry page, beneath her poems, or at the top of our Links page.

Sophie Hannah Jones is a bestselling crime fiction writer and poet. Her psychological thrillers have sold 200,000 copies in the UK, and are also being published or slated to be published in fourteen other countries, with several more foreign rights deals under negotiation. Sophie’s fifth collection of poetry, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T.S. Eliot Award, and in 2004 she won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story The Octopus Nest. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK.

We continue to spotlight the poetry of Ann Drysdale and we have added a new poem to the top of her page.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight. Tom is our Poet in Residuum, a mysterious office for which he has created his own job title and duties. But since we admire his poetry, greatly appreciate (and need) his eagle eye, and don't pay him, we're more than happy to give him free rein. Much of what our readers enjoy freely here is the result of Tom's inspiration, talent, craftsmanship and his dedication to the fairest Muse.

For issues from November 2001 to December 2008, please click here.

The HyperTexts