The HyperTexts

Issues from 2013-2015

December 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Jared Carter’s first collection of poems, Work, for the Night Is Coming, won the Walt Whitman Award for 1980. His second poetry collection, After the Rain, received the Poets’ Prize for 1995. His third collection, Les Barricades Mystérieuses, was published in 1999. His latest book, Darkened Rooms of Summer, was published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press, with an intro by Ted Kooser. We have added four new poems to Carter's poetry page: "December," "Omega," "Transient" and "Veteran."

Angelus Silesius (1624-1677), born Johann Scheffler and also known as Johann Angelus Silesius, was a German Catholic priest and physician, known as a mystic and religious poet. The earliest mention of him is the registration of his baptism on Christmas Day, December 25, 1624. Born and raised a Lutheran, he adopted the name Angelus (Latin for "angel" or "heavenly messenger") and the epithet Silesius ("Silesian") on converting to Catholicism in 1653. While studying in the Netherlands, he began to read the works of medieval mystics and became acquainted with the works of the German mystic Jacob Böhme through Böhme's friend, Abraham von Franckenberg. Silesius's mystical beliefs caused tension with Lutheran authorities and led to his eventual conversion to Catholicism. He took holy orders under the Franciscans and was ordained a priest in 1661. Ten years later, in 1671, he retired to a Jesuit house where he remained for the rest of his life. He is now remembered chiefly for his religious poetry, and in particular for two poetical works both published in 1657: Heilige Seelenlust (literally, "The Soul's Holy Desires"), a collection of more than 200 religious hymn texts that have been used by Catholics and Protestants; and Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann ("The Cherubinic Pilgrim"), a collection of 1,676 short poems, mostly Alexandrine couplets. His poetry explores themes of mysticism, quietism, and pantheism within an orthodox Catholic context.

T. Merrill returns to the Spotlight with two new poems. 

The Best Ted Cruz Jokes

Conservatives Who Support Gay Marriage

November 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Walt Whitman is probably America's greatest poet, at least in terms of global influence, and perhaps its greatest prophet.

Adah Isaacs Menken (1835-1868) was an American ballet dancer, tightrope walker, vaudevillian, painter and poet, and the highest-earning actress of her day. She was the first American poet after Walt Whitman to write and publish free verse poetry, and is therefore the first notable female free verse poet (unless one considers Emily Dickinson's poetry more free than formal). In addition to being original, Menken was also quite notorious: for appearing on stage "nude" (actually in nude-colored stockings), for cropping her hair short and adopting an androgynous appearance, for Kardashian-like marriages and divorces, and for speaking her mind forthrightly at a time when women were expected to be seen but not heard, especially on "controversial" issues such as their rights. How restrictive were those times for women? Well, Menken's first husband left her because she smoked cigarettes in public, according to one of her biographers!

Carl August Sandburg (1878-1967) was an American poet, writer, and editor who won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as a major figure in contemporary literature, especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life", and at his death in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson observed that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America."

The Best Thanksgiving Poems and Poems of Gratitude and Hope

The Best Autumnal Poems

Poems of Consolation

Famous Epigraphs and Literary Borrowings

The Mystique of the Difficult Poem by Steve Kowit

Reflections on vers libre by T. S. Eliot

October 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

T. Merrill returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Deep Sea Fishing."

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

The Mystique of the Difficult Poem by Steve Kowit

Reflections on vers libre by T. S. Eliot

September 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Theo Horesh is the author of Convergence: The Globalization of Mind. He is a former cooperative organizer and host of the Conscious Business podcast. More recently, he co-founded The One-Step Peace Solution, which would mandate fair and equal courts in areas under Israeli control. He is also the author of a forthcoming book of interviews, The Inner Climate: Global Warming From the Inside Out, with leading thinkers like Frances Moore Lappe, George Lakoff, Paul Ehrlich, and Andrew Revkin. He has been meditating for 25 years and currently resides in Boulder, Colorado.

We are pleased to re-shine our spotlight on the poems of Gail White, who has a new collection of poems out, Asperity Street from Able Muse Press.

Reflections on vers libre by T. S. Eliot

August 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Theo Horesh is the author of Convergence: The Globalization of Mind. He is a former cooperative organizer and host of the Conscious Business podcast. More recently, he co-founded The One-Step Peace Solution, which would mandate fair and equal courts in areas under Israeli control. He is also the author of a forthcoming book of interviews, The Inner Climate: Global Warming From the Inside Out, with leading thinkers like Frances Moore Lappe, George Lakoff, Paul Ehrlich, and Andrew Revkin. He has been meditating for 25 years and currently resides in Boulder, Colorado.

Protecting Endangered Species: Cecil the Lion and Palestinian Children

Reflections on vers libre by T. S. Eliot

We are pleased to re-shine our spotlight on the poems of Gail White, who has a new collection of poems out, Asperity Street from Able Muse Press.

Abedalrahman Elderawi lives in Gaza. He is 32 years old and has already lived through three devastating wars. He says, "These experiences have had a dramatic effect on my life's outlook which will be apparent through my poetry. Having graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor's degree in the English Language, a diploma of translation, I have been utilizing my qualifications and skills as a teacher. As an admirer of the depth of poetry, I have recently taken to writing my own, which has been greatly influenced by my own in-depth experiences." As we publish his poetry, Abed is about to open a school for gifted student writers called The Voice of Gaza.

Ahmed Miqdad is a Palestinian poet who lives and writes in Gaza City. He writes of his poetry collection Gaza Narrates Poetry: "I wrote my poems through the latest war on Gaza which started in July, 2014 and lasted for fifty-one days. I wrote them under the shelling and attacks of the Israeli planes and tanks, under the hovering of the drones and the sounds of rockets and heavy bombs, between the homeless civilians and between my little children. I wrote these poems, with the lack of power and food, and with fear and stress."

Child Labor in Gaza by Rana Al-Shami

2016 Republican First Presidential Debate: Winners, Losers and Impressions

The Best Donald Trump Jokes, Tweets and Quotations

Is there a Republican War on Women?

July 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Reflections on vers libre by T. S. Eliot

We are pleased to re-shine our spotlight on the poems of Gail White, who has a new collection of poems out, Asperity Street from Able Muse Press.

Olfa Drid Derouiche (Olfa Philo) is an English teacher, a PhD scholar and a committed poetess from Tunisia. Her passion is meditation of the ailments and aches of the human race and her utmost target of writing is not art for art’s sake but to trigger thoughts, question taken-for-granted facts, shake her readers’ hearts and uplift their souls. Her poems have appeared in print and online reviews such as The Poet Sanctuary (2009), The Voices Project (March 2014), The Sirens Call ezine (April 2014), Taj Mahal Review (June 2014), The Haiku Journal (June 2014), S/tick Review (July 2014), Three Line Review (November 2014) and The Recusant Journal (November 2014). She is an ex-international volleyball player and is also gifted in design and interior decoration. Here is an extract from the acknowledgement page of Olfa Drid's recently published book (Un)jailed, a collection of poetry​: "I would like to express my gratitude to all the real and virtual persons whose hearts have beaten for mine when reading my poems and whose minds fused orgasmically with mine when I tickled theirs. So heartfelt thanks go to: Mike Burch, the volunteer mentor and humane poet and editor of the online HyperTexts journal for presenting me as a featured poet in his spotlight rubric and for publishing all the poems I wrote about the Palestinian cause." You can preview and purchase the book by clicking the hyperlinked book title.

Robert Martin: Tweets of a Pro-Palestinian Peace Activist

Gaza Freedom Flotilla III: Interview with a Boat Guardian

Greta Berlin on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla III

Abedalrahman Elderawi lives in Gaza. He is 32 years old and has already lived through three devastating wars. He says, "These experiences have had a dramatic effect on my life's outlook which will be apparent through my poetry. Having graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor's degree in the English Language, a diploma of translation, I have been utilizing my qualifications and skills as a teacher. As an admirer of the depth of poetry, I have recently taken to writing my own, which has been greatly influenced by my own in-depth experiences." As we publish his poetry, Abed is about to open a school for gifted student writers called The Voice of Gaza.

Ahmed Miqdad is a Palestinian poet who lives and writes in Gaza City. He writes of his poetry collection Gaza Narrates Poetry: "I wrote my poems through the latest war on Gaza which started in July, 2014 and lasted for fifty-one days. I wrote them under the shelling and attacks of the Israeli planes and tanks, under the hovering of the drones and the sounds of rockets and heavy bombs, between the homeless civilians and between my little children. I wrote these poems, with the lack of power and food, and with fear and stress."

Child Labor in Gaza by Rana Al-Shami

June 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Gaza Freedom Flotilla III: Interview with a Boat Guardian

Greta Berlin on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla III

Abedalrahman Elderawi lives in Gaza. He is 32 years old and has already lived through three devastating wars. He says, "These experiences have had a dramatic effect on my life's outlook which will be apparent through my poetry. Having graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor's degree in the English Language, a diploma of translation, I have been utilizing my qualifications and skills as a teacher. As an admirer of the depth of poetry, I have recently taken to writing my own, which has been greatly influenced by my own in-depth experiences." As we publish his poetry, Abed is about to open a school for gifted student writers called The Voice of Gaza.

Ahmed Miqdad is a Palestinian poet who lives and writes in Gaza City. He writes of his poetry collection Gaza Narrates Poetry: "I wrote my poems through the latest war on Gaza which started in July, 2014 and lasted for fifty-one days. I wrote them under the shelling and attacks of the Israeli planes and tanks, under the hovering of the drones and the sounds of rockets and heavy bombs, between the homeless civilians and between my little children. I wrote these poems, with the lack of power and food, and with fear and stress."

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, E. Darcy Trie matriculated in Little Rock, Arkansas at the age of two. She graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a degree in Psychology along with Minors in Drama and Asian Studies. Sensing that achieving her Masters would drive her to drink, she wisely opted to tour Asia in her early twenties (thanks to a grant provided by Bank Of Daddy), and in the year 2000, found herself in the heart of Beijing, China where she began writing due to the voices in her head that refused to shut up. She is a published poet, a writer of mystery and romance novels, and is fluent in English, Mandarin Chinese, some French, and once took a Zero Hour in Greek in high school. She despises mornings, coconuts, and lighters that won't work even though it's SO obvious that there's still tons of fluid inside them. And please don't get her started on wire bras ... it won't be pretty!

May 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

A. E. Stallings was one of the first poets we published; now she's back in the Spotlight with "Nocturne," a poem she wrote in high school and which we believe was her first poem to appear in a literary journal. "Nocturne" was published in the Winter 1986 issue of The Lyric. Leslie Mellichamp was the editor of The Lyric at the time, so perhaps we should give him credit for "discovering" one of the brighter stars of contemporary poetry.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker and elsewhere. "Perchik is the most widely published unknown poet in America" according to Library Journal (November 15, 2000).

Robin Helweg-Larsen is a British-born, Bahamian-raised Canadian businessman who has lived in Chapel Hill, NC, for the past 23 years. His poetry has been published in Visions International, Ambit, Candelabrum, The Lyric, Shit Creek Review, Snakeskin, Unsplendid, and elsewhere. He is also the author of a novel, The Gospel According to the Romans―a non-believer's view, available from Amazon.

April 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

We have re-spotlighted the poetry of Jan Schreiber, after adding four new poems to his page from his first major volume of verse in twenty years, Peccadilloes. He has just begun a two-year tenure as Poet Laureate for Brookline, Massachusetts.

Scáth Beorh began telling stories when he was two, writing stories when he was eight, had his first work published at fourteen, and since that momentous day has written, to date, 2,000 poems, 250 short stories, and five novels, and has edited a dozen or so magazines since 1985, including the well-received Darc Colours ('86-'88). Today he acquires for Beorh Quarterly. He is also the author of the novels Black Fox In Thin Places (Emby Press), Always After Thieves Watch (Wildside Press), Children & Other Wicked Things (JWK Fiction), and a number of other books including the forthcoming Emby novels Ghosts of St. Augustine, October House, and Blood: A Vampire Chronicle. Beorh has lived in Hollywood, Ireland, Portland ME, and St. Augustine FL, and once flew to India on a weird whim. Raised a Christian, but then falling into apostasy for a long while before being called back from the Abyss, today he is married to a beautiful girl called Ember, and is a writer of Horror and Dark Fantasy influenced by the authors of the Bible, Arthur Machen, Charles Dickens, Sylvia Plath, J. R. R. Tolkien, George Mackay Brown, Ernest Hemingway, Francis Marion Crawford, J. S. Le Fanu, and many other writers of the strange, the realistic, the sacred, and the macabre. His vision is to continue telling the good news to anyone who, finally sick of themselves, longs for release from this tragedy we call "the world."

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.

Maryann Corbett also remains in Spotlight with three new poems.

The Best Story Poems of All Time
The Best Narrative Poems of All Time
The Best Epic Poems of All Time

March 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Would it surprise you to know that Leonard Nimoy, who played Star Trek's coldly logical Mr. Spock, was a warmly romantic poet in real life? Nimoy passed away on February 27, 2015 at age 83. He was a man of many, varied and considerable talents, not the least of which was poetry. I was lucky enough to meet him through a family member, and to obtain his permission to publish a number of his poems and photos.―Michael R. Burch, editor, The HyperTexts

We are pleased to welcome Dennis Greene back to the Spotlight.

February 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

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

Sappho was one of the earliest and best love poets.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.

Maryann Corbett also remains in Spotlight with three new poems.

January 2015: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Charlie Hebdo Poetry

T. Merrill returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.

We have also added three new poems to the page of Maryann Corbett, who also returns to the Spotlight.

December 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) was an American poet, playwright and Librarian of Congress (1939-1944). He was also a speechwriter for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a statesman in his administration, serving as Director of the War Department's Office of Facts and Figures (1941), Assistant Director of the Office of War Information (1942-1943) and Assistant Secretary of State (1944-45). During his long writing career he received three Pulitzer Prizes: two for poetry and one for drama. He also won a National Book Award for poetry, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, a Tony Award for Best Play (J.B.), an Academy Award for Documentary Feature (The Eleanor Roosevelt Story), and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. MacLeish also served as an editor of Harvard Law Review, New Republic and Fortune magazine. MacLeish's best-known poem, "Ars Poetica," contains a classic statement of the modernist aesthetic: "A poem should not mean / But be." But later in life he broke with modernism's insistence on "art for the sake of art." MacLeish himself was deeply involved in public life: he was one of the better anti-war poets and he actively opposed fascism, communism, the excesses of capitalism, and McCarthyism. MacLeish came to believe that being a social activist was "not only an appropriate but an inevitable role for a poet."

Conrad Aiken, Magus by Lewis Turco

Lewis Turco is widely published American poet, critic, teacher and scholar.

Harold McCurdy spent virtually his entire life and career in North Carolina. Born in Salisbury in 1909, he earned his AB degree in 1930 and his PhD degree in psychology in 1938 at Duke University. After a brief period on the faculty of Milligan College in eastern Tennessee, he accepted an appointment as professor of psychology and philosophy at Meredith College in Raleigh. In 1949 McCurdy joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Psychology. He was awarded a Kenan professorship in July, 1963. McCurdy was an inspiring teacher and a published poet. He authored basic textbooks in the area of personality. Early in his career at UNC-CH he carried out a series of detailed, statistical analyses on the texts of William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser in an effort to resolve several puzzling issues of authorship involving these two poets. His data led him to conclude that these works were in fact the product of two different writers. Following up on these analyses, McCurdy carried out a more extensive investigation of the personality of Shakespeare that was published by Yale University Press in 1953. This work was followed by similar studies of D. H. Lawrence through his fiction and by extensive statistical analyses of the various characters appearing in the writings of two of the Bronte sisters, Emily and Charlotte. His involvement with these outstandingly creative individuals led McCurdy to try to understand better the sources of creativity by studying the childhoods of individuals who later displayed unquestioned genius. He summarized his findings in terms of two features common to the backgrounds of these persons: social isolation from their age-peers through physical separation or physical handicap, and immersion in the activities and interests of the adults in their environments. These findings were published in the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society in 1957. He tested these hypotheses further in a detailed study of a young girl who had already demonstrated her genius in her teenage years. He published the results of this psychobiography in collaboration with the young girl’s mother in 1966. Professor McCurdy retired from the faculty of UNC-CH in 1971 but continued writing poetry and an occasional article for the New Yorker. He published at least two books of poems, The Chastening of Narcissus and Oblation. He died at his home in Chapel Hill in November, 1999, and is greatly missed by his many admirers.

Famous Americans

The Most Beautiful Lines in the English Language

Dick Cheney's Tortured Denial

November 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Lewis Turco is widely published American poet, critic, teacher and scholar. While he is one of the best-known poets of the school of Formalism, also known as New Formalism, he also writes free verse. Turco is the Founding Director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center (1962) and the Program in Writing Arts at the State University of New York at Oswego (1968). He was chosen to write the major essay on "Poetry"―as well as a dozen other entries―for the Encyclopedia of American Literature, and was included himself as a biographee. His poems, essays, stories and plays have appeared in many major literary periodicals over the past half-century, and in over one hundred books and anthologies. Turco's classic The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics has been called "the poet's Bible" since its original publication in 1968. A companion volume, The Book of Literary Terms, The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism and Scholarship, received a Choice award as an "Outstanding Academic Book" for the year 2000. A third book in the series, The Book of Dialogue, appeared in 2004. Turco's first book of criticism, Visions and Revisions of American Poetry, won the Melville Cane Award of the Poetry Society of America (1986), and his A Book of Fears: Poems, with Italian translations by Joseph Alessia, won the first annual Bordighera Bilingual Poetry Prize (1998). His poetry book The Green Maces of Autumn: Voices in an Old Maine House won both the Silverfish Review Chapbook Award (1989) and the Cooper House Chapbook Competition (1990). In 1999, Turco received the John Ciardi Award for lifetime achievement in poetry sponsored by the periodical Italian Americana and the National Italian American Foundation.

Conrad Aiken, Magus by Lewis Turco

Olfa Drid Derouiche (Olfa Philo) is an English teacher, a PhD scholar and a committed poetess from Tunisia. Her passion is meditation of the ailments and aches of the human race and her utmost target of writing is not art for art’s sake but to trigger thoughts, question taken-for-granted facts, shake her readers’ hearts and uplift their souls. Her poems have appeared in print and online reviews such as The Poet Sanctuary (2009), The Voices Project (March 2014), The Sirens Call ezine (April 2014), Taj Mahal Review (June 2014), The Haiku Journal (June 2014), S/tick Review (July 2014), Three Line Review (November 2014) and The Recusant Journal (November 2014). She is an ex-international volleyball player and is also gifted in design and interior decoration. Here is an extract from the acknowledgement page of Olfa Drid's recently published book (Un)jailed, a collection of poetry​: "I would like to express my gratitude to all the real and virtual persons whose hearts have beaten for mine when reading my poems and whose minds fused orgasmically with mine when I tickled theirs. So heartfelt thanks go to: Mike Burch, the volunteer mentor and humane poet and editor of the online HyperTexts journal for presenting me as a featured poet in his spotlight rubric and for publishing all the poems I wrote about the Palestinian cause." You can preview and purchase the book by clicking the hyperlinked book title.

Poems for Gaza offers ample proof that Palestinians are human beings, with very human aspirations for equality and justice.

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."

The Palestinian Position by Omar Barghouti may be a voice of sanity crying in the wilderness.

Robert L. Schwarz was an American writer, poet and teacher who was born March 1, 1937 and passed away on October 14, 2014 at his home in Willoughby, Ohio. He was born with cerebral palsy and was largely autodidactic, never having attended grade school nor high school.

October 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Robert L. Schwarz was an American writer, poet and teacher who was born March 1, 1937 and passed away on October 14, 2014 at his home in Willoughby, Ohio. He was born with cerebral palsy and was largely autodidactic, never having attended grade school nor high school. After graduating from Syracuse University summa cum laude with a B.A. in French Language and Literature, he did free-lance writing, eventually teaching at the college level and for 15 years in a program for gifted students in the Cleveland Heights School System, where he taught English, Humanities, Philosophy, Creative Thinking, Logic, T. S. Eliot, Mathematics, and Abnormal Psychology. During his tenure at Heights High, he received a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation to develop a humanities program for teaching mathematics in relation to the arts. Schwarz was also an avid bibliophile with a personal library of over 30,000 volumes. His BROKEN IMAGES: A STUDY OF THE WASTE LAND (Bucknell University Press, 1988) is a critical study which "discloses for the first time the source of nearly every line of T. S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land,' illuminating not only the poem's obscurities but also the poet's emotional, philosophical, and literary proclivities and the creative process by which this great work evolved." In his criticism, Schwarz draws on both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions to show that subjectivism and objectivism are two sides of the same coin, reducing free will and determinism to non-issues: "We frame the world or it frames us―it's all the same." His other books include METAPHORS AND ACTION SCHEMES, which investigates the role of metaphors and embodied imagery in intellectual history, two books on epistemology, JOURNEYS THROUGH ALCHERA: MAKING REALITY AS WE GO ALONG and ORIGINS OF EVERYDAY REALITY, and MINDSCAPES, a book of poetry. At the time of his death, his most current project was MATHEMATICS FOR EVERYONE, "a forthcoming book from which the average person can instruct himself/herself in the basic concepts of mathematics from the elementary idea of number through algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus on to relativity theory and quantum physics."

The Best Native American Poems, Proverbs and Sayings

Joni Ernst an “onion of crazy”

Famous Frauds

Famous Supermodels

There are encouraging signs that the global BDS movement against Israeli racism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing is gathering steam.

Jewish Intellectuals Who Have Opposed Zionism and/or Israeli Racism, Injustices, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing

September 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

We have updated Michael Bennett's poetry page with three new poems: "Firenze: Spring," "The Carpenter's Son Mourns His Death" and "The Gift."

Mary E. Moore returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Our Dogpark."

We are also spotlighting a new poem, "What Is Love," by Jim Dunlap.

Seamus Cassidy returns to the Spotlight with two new poems which appear at the top of his page.

The Best Native American Poems and Proverbs

Sarah Palin Brawl: WasilMania I aka the "Thrilla in Wasilla"

Jared Carter Interview with Michael R. Burch

Jared Carter’s first collection of poems, Work, for the Night Is Coming, won the Walt Whitman Award for 1980. His second poetry collection, After the Rain, received the Poets’ Prize for 1995. His third collection, Les Barricades Mystérieuses, was published in 1999. His latest book is Darkened Rooms of Summer, published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press, with an intro by Ted Kooser.

August 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Poems for Gaza offers ample proof that Palestinians are human beings, with very human aspirations for equality and justice.

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."

Noam Chomsky: Who is doing the killing in Gaza?

"The Hardest Words" by Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu.

Miko Peled Quotes, Articles and Essays

Gaza Fuels Anti-Semitism by Gideon Levy

Nurit Peled-Elhanan is an Israeli peace activist and the daughter of Matti Peled, an Israeli Aluf (Major General) who was called Abu Salam (“Father of Peace”) by the Palestinians who came under his jurisdiction when he was the military governor of the Gaza Strip. She is the sister of Miko Peled, a peace activist who has written book called The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, in which he has supported his father’s and his sister’s views.

Gaza Genocide Quotes

Israel Murders Judaism with Brutal Assaults on Gaza by Rabbi Michael Lerner

Jared Carter Interview with Michael R. Burch

Jared Carter’s first collection of poems, Work, for the Night Is Coming, won the Walt Whitman Award for 1980. His second poetry collection, After the Rain, received the Poets’ Prize for 1995. His third collection, Les Barricades Mystérieuses, was published in 1999. His latest book is Darkened Rooms of Summer, published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press, with an intro by Ted Kooser.

Do Right-Wing Lunatics Provide Us with a Glimmer of Hope?

Weird Baseball Facts and Trivia

1976 Cincinnati Reds: the Greatest Baseball Team of All Time?

July 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Jared Carter Interview with Michael R. Burch

Jared Carter’s first collection of poems, Work, for the Night Is Coming, won the Walt Whitman Award for 1980. His second poetry collection, After the Rain, received the Poets’ Prize for 1995. His third collection, Les Barricades Mystérieuses, was published in 1999. His latest book is Darkened Rooms of Summer, published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press, with an intro by Ted Kooser.

The Rose as a Symbol in Poetry, Literature, Music and Art

Famous Falsettos

Do Right-Wing Lunatics Provide Us with a Glimmer of Hope?

June 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Yala Helen Korwin was born on February 7, 1933 in Lvov, Poland and died May 30, 2014 in New York City. She was a poet, artist, author and teacher. She created over 400 paintings and sculptures, some of which can be viewed in museums including the Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C. A survivor of the Holocaust, after WWII she settled in Paris and married Paul Korwin, with whom she had two children, Danielle and Robert. The Korwins moved to Queens in 1956, where Yala earned a Master's degree Summa Cum Laude at Queens College. She went on to author six books. Her Holocaust poetry has been published in Haggadah for Passover, textbooks, and set to classical music. Yala will be buried on Sunday, with services at Beth Moses Cemetery in Farmingdale at 11:30am. Donations in her name can be made to the Holocaust Museum, Washington D.C.

Jared Carter’s first collection of poems, Work, for the Night Is Coming, won the Walt Whitman Award for 1980. His second, After the Rain, received the Poets’ Prize for 1995. His third collection, Les Barricades Mystérieuses, was published in 1999. His latest book is Darkened Rooms of Summer, published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press, with an intro by Ted Kooser.

Quincy R. Lehr returns to the Spotlight, with an excerpt from his book-length poem Heimat, which is available for pre-order from Barefoot Muse Press at the discounted price of $9.95 by clicking on the hyperlinked title.

John Marcus Powell is a poet/performer. As an actor he has appeared in London’s West End, in many Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway plays—as well as in films and television. As a writer, his poetry and fiction have been published widely. He is Welsh, but feels most at home in New York City. His latest book Glorious Babe is available from Exot Books and, like a lot of his poetry, is concerned with the sensation of being Queer in a queer world.

Queen's Best Songs

May 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

We will lead off with The Best Mother's Day Poems and The Best Memorial Day Poems.

John Marcus Powell is a poet/performer. As an actor he has appeared in London’s West End, in many Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway plays—as well as in films and television. As a writer, his poetry and fiction have been published widely. He is Welsh, but feels most at home in New York City. His latest book Glorious Babe is available from Exot Books and, like a lot of his poetry, is concerned with the sensation of being Queer in a queer world.

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.

Annie Diamond is a student at Barnard College, a private women's liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University. She has also studied abroad at Mansfield College, one of the constituent colleges of Oxford University in England. She recently completed her sophomore year at Barnard College, where she studies English and creative writing. Her work has been published in Apt, Avatar Review, The Columbia Review and The Lyric. She won first prize in The Lyric College Poetry Contest for her villanelle "The Difference Between Lack and Absence." The same poem later won the Lyric Memorial Prize and was named the best poem to appear in The Lyric for the year 2013 by THT editor Michael R. Burch.

Anne Reeve Aldrich was an American poet and novelist who has been called an "American Sappho."

And of course one can't go wrong with the original Sappho.

Famous Hypocrites

April 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

The Best Easter Poems

Annie Diamond is a student at Barnard College, a private women's liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University. She has also studied abroad at Mansfield College, one of the constituent colleges of Oxford University in England. She recently completed her sophomore year at Barnard College, where she studies English and creative writing. Her work has been published in Apt, Avatar Review, The Columbia Review and The Lyric. She won first prize in The Lyric College Poetry Contest for her villanelle "The Difference Between Lack and Absence." The same poem later won the Lyric Memorial Prize and was named the best poem to appear in The Lyric for the year 2013 by THT editor Michael R. Burch.

Anne Reeve Aldrich was an American poet and novelist who has been called an "American Sappho."

And of course one can't go wrong with the original Sappho.

The Poems, Songs, Quotes and Epigrams of Robert Burns

WILLIAM BLAKE'S ANGELS

The Best Sestinas of All Time

March 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Alfred Dorn, who passed away on New Year's Day at the age of 84, was a highly-regarded poet and literary critic. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife Anita Dorn. She was a survivor of World War II refugee camps and also a poet. Now once again they share the THT spotlight together. They will both be sorely missed, but never forgotten, thanks to their poetry and the exemplary lives they lived.

Our Most Popular Poets and Pages for 2013

WILLIAM BLAKE: Poems and Art

The Poems, Songs, Quotes and Epigrams of Robert Burns

February 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Hashem Shaabani was a poet, peace activist and educator. He was executed by the brutal, repressive Iranian government for the terrible "crimes" of thinking independently and courageously speaking his heart and mind.

Alfred Dorn, who passed away on New Year's Day at the age of 84, was a highly-regarded poet and literary critic. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife Anita Dorn. She was a survivor of World War II refugee camps and also a poet. Now once again they share the THT spotlight together. They will both be sorely missed, but never forgotten, thanks to their poetry and the exemplary lives they lived.

Jeff Holt has been published in some of the better formalist journals.

We have re-spotlighted the poetry of Jan Schreiber, after adding three new poems to his page from his first major volume of verse in twenty years, Peccadilloes.

Marilyn Monroe's Poetry and Epigrams

Peyton's Place: Peyton Manning's legacy and the soap opera surrounding it.

Is the Phoenix Rising from the Ashes, or Crashing in Flames?

The Best Religious Jokes

The Best Light Verse of All Time

January 2014: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Our Most Popular Poets and Pages for 2013

Is the Phoenix Rising from the Ashes, or Crashing in Flames?

Iqbal Tamimi returns to the Spotlight with a poem she wrote after meeting Mariane Pearl, the author of A Mighty Heart who lost her husband Daniel Pearl when he was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan.

VOLTAIRE by Clarence Darrow is an "unabashed tribute" to a champion of free speech, equality and social justice by a literary critic better known for his work as a defense attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial and for defending teenage "thrill killers" Leopold and Leob in their sensational "trial of the century." Darrow was also a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, a founding attorney for the NAACP, an advocate of free love who practiced what he preached, a staunch opponent of the death penalty, and, like Voltaire, a champion of underdogs and their right to a fair shake. During his heyday as a defense attorney in Chicago, Darrow represented more than 100 defendants and only lost one murder case. He was renowned for moving juries (and sometimes judges) to tears with his eloquence.

Clarence Darrow Poetry takes a quick look at poems written by his law partner: Edgar Lee Masters.

JFK and Poetry considers America's most charismatic president and his love affair with poetry and the arts.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker and elsewhere. "Perchik is the most widely published unknown poet in America" according to Library Journal (November 15, 2000).

Laurie Hilton is the co-author of Braided Voices, a poetry collection selected by the New Mexico Women Author's Book Festival in 2010. Her work has been published in Adobe Walls, an anthology of New Mexico Poetry, the Albuquerque Rag, and 200 New Mexico Poems.

Catherine Lee Clarke is a New Zealander who currently resides in Thailand. A member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, Australian Bush Poets Association, FreeXpresSion, Henry Lawson Memorial & Literary Society and Metverse Muse (India), her poetry has received awards from several prestigious Australian competitions. She has also had articles, poetry and short stories published in magazines in Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Singapore.

The Best Vocal Performances of All Time

December 2013: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Annie Finch returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Brigid."

Quincy Lehr discusses the state of the art in The New Formalism, a Postmortem.

T. Merrill returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Branding Branders."

Václav Z J Pinkava is Czech poet who was born in Prague in 1958. He is the eldest son of the eponymous Czech polymath, alias Jan Křesadlo. He lived in England from 1969 to1991, and attended the Queen's College, Oxford from 1977 to 1982. A British/Czech dual national, dual native-speaker, he returned to the Czech Republic in 1992, initially as an expat. He is also a resident and former independent local councilor of the village of Bohdalec in Moravia. His interests include IT, business management, painting, music, chess, poetry translations, and his own bilingual poetry.

Karen Shenfeld lives in Toronto and has published three books of poetry with Guernica Editions: The Law of Return, 1999 (which won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for poetry in 2001), The Fertile Crescent, 2005, and, most recently, My Father’s Hands Spoke in Yiddish, 2010. Her work has also appeared in well-known journals published in Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Bangladesh, and she has given readings in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, England (at the home of Lord Tennyson), and South Africa (at the original Manenberg’s Jazz Café). Her poetry has been featured on CBC Radio, CUIT, and on 39 Dover Street, a short-wave literary radio program produced on the Isle of Wight, U.K.

Philippines Poetry and Art is a page dedicated to the victims and survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan.

VOLTAIRE by Clarence Darrow is an "unabashed tribute" to a champion of free speech, equality and social justice by a literary critic better known for his work as a defense attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial and for defending teenage "thrill killers" Leopold and Leob in their sensational "trial of the century." Darrow was also a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, a founding attorney for the NAACP, an advocate of free love who practiced what he preached, a staunch opponent of the death penalty, and, like Voltaire, a champion of underdogs and their right to a fair shake. During his heyday as a defense attorney in Chicago, Darrow represented more than 100 defendants and only lost one murder case. He was renowned for moving juries (and sometimes judges) to tears with his eloquence.

Clarence Darrow Poetry

JFK and Poetry takes a look back at America's most charismatic president and his love affair with poetry and the arts.

We have made Henry George Fischer [1923-2006] one of our permanently featured poets. In addition to being an accomplished poet, he was the Metropolitan Museum of Art curator emeritus of Egyptology who helped the Temple of Dendur find a new life in New York.

Jack Granath is a librarian in Kansas City, Kansas. He has a B.A. in Film Studies and English from the University of Michigan and an M.A. in Library Science from the University of Missouri. He was a regular contributor to the Rain Taxi Review of Books for the first two years of its run. His poetry has also appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Anterior Poetry Monthly, Coal City Review, Iambs & Trochees, The Mid-America Poetry Review and Pivot.

Dr. Joseph S. Salemi Interview and Responses by other Poets

The Rotary Dial Interview asks and tries to answer what exactly is meant by the term "formal poetry."

The Best Christmas Poems of All Time range from nursery rhymes to Christmas carols to poems written by major poets.

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.

Famous Flops

November 2013: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Philippines Poetry and Art is a page dedicated to the victims and survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan.

VOLTAIRE by Clarence Darrow is an "unabashed tribute" to a champion of free speech, equality and social justice by a literary critic better known for his work as a defense attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial and for defending teenage "thrill killers" Leopold and Leob in their sensational "trial of the century." Darrow was also a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, a founding attorney for the NAACP, an advocate of free love who practiced what he preached, a staunch opponent of the death penalty, and, like Voltaire, a champion of underdogs and their right to a fair shake. During his heyday as a defense attorney in Chicago, Darrow represented more than 100 defendants and only lost one murder case. He was renowned for moving juries (and sometimes judges) to tears with his eloquence.

JFK and Poetry takes a look back at America's most charismatic president and his love affair with poetry and the arts.

We have made Henry George Fischer [1923-2006] one of our permanently featured poets. In addition to being an accomplished poet, he was the Metropolitan Museum of Art curator emeritus of Egyptology who helped the Temple of Dendur find a new life in New York.

Jack Granath is a librarian in Kansas City, Kansas. He has a B.A. in Film Studies and English from the University of Michigan and an M.A. in Library Science from the University of Missouri. He was a regular contributor to the Rain Taxi Review of Books for the first two years of its run. His poetry has also appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Anterior Poetry Monthly, Coal City Review, Iambs & Trochees, The Mid-America Poetry Review and Pivot.

Dr. Joseph S. Salemi Interview with THT editor Michael R. Burch. Topics discussed include the current "Formalism Schism," whether the worst ideas of modernism are infecting New Formalism like the Plague, and why formalists alternate between burning poets like T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens at the stake and trying to adopt them.

Salemi's Dilemma by Michael R. Burch questions whether Dr. Salemi is writing literary criticism or often just preaching to the choir.

Sam Gwynn criticizes Dr. Joseph S. Salemi, comparing him to Lyndon Larouche in influence and saying that his arguments don't hold up to even two minutes' scrutiny.

Janet Kenny answers Dr. Joseph S. Salemi: "steam is whistling out every orifice."

Jeff Holt's response to Joe Salemi questions Salemi's "pugnacious" attitude and his logic.

Jack Granath comments on the Salemi Interview, likes his view that "free verse and formal are fundamentally different things" but not his "monarchical politics."

Philip Quinlan's response to the Salemi interview touches on poetry and politics.

Our Ersatz Critics—A critique of Dr. Joseph Salemi by Quincy Lehr is an essay that questions what Lehr calls Dr. Salemi's "negative programme" for contemporary formalism.

The Tedious Mr. Lehr by Joseph Salemi is a response to Quincy Lehr's essay above.

Quincy Lehr Answers Joseph Salemi, saying the real problem is not jealousy or class warfare but bigotry and bullying.

The Ever More Tedious and Freaked-Out Mr. Lehr by Joseph Salemi is a response to Quincy Lehr's response immediately above.

The Rotary Dial Interview asks and tries to answer what is meant by the term "formal poetry."

Famous Free Verse Poems

October 2013: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

VOLTAIRE by Clarence Darrow is an "unabashed tribute" to a champion of free speech, equality and social justice by a literary critic better known for his work as a defense attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial and for defending teenage "thrill killers" Leopold and Leob in their sensational "trial of the century." Darrow was also a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, a founding attorney for the NAACP, an advocate of free love who practiced what he preached, a staunch opponent of the death penalty, and, like Voltaire, a champion of underdogs and their right to a fair shake. During his heyday as a defense attorney in Chicago, Darrow represented more than 100 defendants and only lost one murder case. He was renowned for moving juries (and sometimes judges) to tears with his eloquence.

Dr. Joseph S. Salemi Interview with THT editor Michael R. Burch. Topics discussed include the current "Formalism Schism," whether the worst ideas of modernism are infecting New Formalism like the Plague, and why formalists alternate between burning poets like T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens at the stake and trying to adopt them.

Salemi's Dilemma by Michael R. Burch questions whether Dr. Salemi is writing literary criticism or just preaching to the choir.

Sam Gwynn criticizes Dr. Joseph S. Salemi, comparing him to Lyndon Larouche in influence and saying that his arguments don't hold up to even two minutes' scrutiny.

Janet Kenny answers Dr. Joseph S. Salemi: "steam is whistling out every orifice."

Jeff Holt's response to Joe Salemi questions Salemi's "pugnacious" attitude and his logic.

Our Ersatz Critics—A critique of Dr. Joseph Salemi by Quincy Lehr is an essay that questions what Lehr calls Dr. Salemi's "negative programme" for contemporary formalism.

The Tedious Mr. Lehr by Joseph Salemi is a response to Quincy Lehr's essay above.

Quincy Lehr Answers Joseph Salemi, saying the real problem is not jealousy or class warfare but bigotry and bullying.

The Ever More Tedious and Freaked-Out Mr. Lehr by Joseph Salemi is a response to Quincy Lehr's response immediately above.

"Humiliation" is a powerful, moving poem by Iqbal Tamimi, our Editor in Exile.

Jennifer Reeser's latest book, The Lalaurie Horror, an epic poem written in terza rima, recently debuted on Amazon's poetry bestseller charts.

THT editor Michael R. Burch conducted a Jennifer Reeser Interview shortly after her new book made its initial big splash.

Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings

The Best Bible Poetry

The Best Carpe Diem Poems: Poems about Time, Death and Loss

Scary Halloween Poems

September 2013: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Seamus Heaney passed away on Friday, August 30, 2013. The poet of peat bogs and the things they preserve will be greatly missed, but never forgotten, thanks to his earthy, sometimes otherworldly lyricism.

The Seventh Romantic: Robert Burns

The Shministim are idealistic, principled young Israeli Jews who refuse to serve in a brutal army of occupation when they graduate from high school.

We have recently updated our Formal Poetry page, which links to the essay Regarding the Great Poetic Divide by T. Merrill.

"Whither Formalism?" an essay by Michael R. Burch (albeit composed almost entirely of poems).

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Analysis, Speculations, Intuition and Deduction addresses such questions as: Who was the Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, the Rival Poet?

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."

The Best Unknown/Undervalued Poets

Famous Heretics

Famous Forgers, Forgeries and Frauds

Artistic Influences

The Best Animal Poems

The Best Nature Poems

August 2013: This month we are featuring the following poets and pages:

Rejection Slips: "Fine, even beautiful, BUT" discusses editors who reject poems they admire because they consider meter and rhyme to be passé.

Terese Coe returns to the Spotlight with "The Enigmas," translated from the Spanish of Jorge Luis Borges.

Judith Werner returns to the Spotlight with several new poems.

Michelle Cohen Corasanti is the author of The Almond Tree, and a passionate letter to President Obama.

Neria Biala is a Jewish Israeli peace activist.

Mattityahu "Matti" Peled aka Abu Salaam, the "Father of Peace" was an Israeli war hero and Aluf (Major General) who became a strong advocate for a Palestinian state and a stern critic of Israel's brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories, which he called "corrupting" and a violation of the Geneva Conventions. He also called American aid to Israel a "plague" that was "damaging" to Israel and far in excess of Israel's actual defense needs, which he said it could cover itself, as it had prior to 1974.

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

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 son Aryeh.

Famous Hustlers

The World War on Democracy

How to raise your credit score quickly by curing your CUR ...

July 2013: This month we are spotlighting the following poets and pages:

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 son Aryeh.

Yerachmiel Kahanovich: Israel's Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians in 1948

Margaret Atwood opposes Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, discusses "The Shadow Over Israel."

In the spirit of July 4th, we have re-published a page called Let Freedom Sing! Poetic songs of freedom are often wild and dark, as our readers will see ...

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

Winston Churchill's dark side: was he an imperialist, a racist and a fascist?

Faith of the Founding Fathers: Freedom from Religion, Disbelief in the Bible, Disdain for the Superstitions of Christianity

Sins of the Saints

June 2013: This month we are spotlighting the following poets and pages:

The Best Father's Day Poems

Cherokee Poems, Proverbs and Blessings

Lana Hanson boasts no college degree(s), no awards, no “touring poet” accolades. She’s blessed to run a brush through multiplying grey head-hairs, to feel crows’ feet deepening grooves around her eyes. She’s finally started to admire herself. She aims to help women rise up and repair their spirits. Born in Flint, Michigan, Lana Hanson now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with her two sardonic (10- and 14-year-old) sons and three perpetually vomiting cats.

Famous Pool Sharks

May 2013: This month we are spotlighting the following poets and pages:

We lead off with The Best Mother's Day Poems and The Best Memorial Day Poems.

Lana Hanson boasts no college degree(s), no awards, no “touring poet” accolades. She’s blessed to run a brush through multiplying grey head-hairs, to feel crows’ feet deepening grooves around her eyes. She’s finally started to admire herself. She aims to help women rise up and repair their spirits. Born in Flint, Michigan, Lana Hanson now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with her two sardonic (10- and 14-year-old) sons and three perpetually vomiting cats.

Anne Reeve Aldrich was an American poet and novelist who has been called an "American Sappho."

And of course one can't go wrong with the original Sappho.

April 2013: This month we are pleased to spotlight the following poets and pages:

Cherokee Poems, Proverbs and Blessings

Paul Stevens passed away on March 22, 2013. He will be greatly missed. In addition to being a much-published poet, Paul also founded and edited three online literary magazines: Shit Creek Review, The Flea and The Chimaera. You can click on his hyperlinked name to visit our memorial page, which features Paul's poems and tributes by other poets.

We are also dedicating our Heresy Hearsay page to the memory of Paul Christian Stevens, who frequently published poetic heresies as the editor of The Flea, The Chimaera and Shit Creek Review.

John Whitworth's "God Squad" Interview

Edgar Allan Poe: "The Heresy of the Didactic" and "The Courtship of Poe"

Nurit Peled-Elhanan is an Israeli peace activist and the daughter of Matti Peled, an Israeli Aluf (Major General) who was called Abu Salam (“Father of Peace”) by the Palestinians who came under his jurisdiction when he was the military governor of the Gaza Strip. She is the sister of Miko Peled, a peace activist who has written book called The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, in which he has supported his father’s and his sister’s views.

Lana Hanson boasts no college degree(s), no awards, no “touring poet” accolades. She’s blessed to run a brush through multiplying grey head-hairs, to feel crows’ feet deepening grooves around her eyes. She’s finally started to admire herself. She aims to help women rise up and repair their spirits. Born in Flint, Michigan, Lana Hanson now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with her two sardonic (10- and 14-year-old) sons and three perpetually vomiting cats.

Corey Harvard is joining THT as our newest and youngest editor. We are glad to have him aboard and look forward to his contributions.

Anne Reeve Aldrich was an American poet and novelist who has been called an "American Sappho."

The Best Erotic Poems

Pope Francis Poems

NRA Cartoon: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

The Best Lines from Songs and Poems

Paul Ray Burch Jr. Memorial

March 2013: This month we are pleased to be able to spotlight the following poets and pages:

Anne Reeve Aldrich was an American poet and novelist. She was born April 25, 1866, in New York, NY; she died June 22, 1892, also in New York. Her books included The Rose of Flame (1889), The Feet of Love (1890), Nadine and Other Poems (1893), A Village Ophelia and Other Stories (1899) and Songs about Life, Love, and Death (1892). She wrote a number of poems in which she seemed to prophesy an early death, then died at the tender age of 26. According to the preface of the last book above, which was published posthumously, at the time of her death she was so weak that she couldn’t lift her pen, and thus had to dictate her last poem, “Death at Daybreak.” Reeve Aldrich's grand-uncle was the poet James Aldrich. She published her first volume of poetry, The Rose of Flame in 1889; it was not well received (critics cited its "unrestrained expression"). She was also said to have written “erotic” poems. But she persevered, publishing a novel, The Feet of Love, in 1890, and was working on her final volume of poetry, Songs about Love, Life, and Death, on her deathbed.

Peter Austin returns to the Spotlight with several new poems.

Basil Chadwick was a high school classmate of THT poets Richard Moore and David Burnham. He died at age 19 and to our knowledge only two of his poems survive, but fortunately for poetry lovers they are commendable.

Corey Harvard is a poet and songwriter from Mobile, Alabama. His work can be found in publications such as Pirene's Fountain, Sense Magazine and Literary Mobile. He has served as associate editor for Sonnetto Poesia and editor-in-chief for Oracle Fine Arts Review. In 2009, he was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He graduated from the University of South Alabama with a B.A. in English and philosophy. In his free time, he enjoys cooking and learning.

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.

American Sapphos

Carl Sandburg's Revolver

American Fascism

Whoso List to Hunt: a Modern English Translation

Notorious Artists: the Bad Boys and Girls of Poetry and Literature

Famous, Notorious and Luminous Beauties

Rondels and Roundels

Best Images in Poetry

The Best Realist, Ultra-Realistic and Photo-Realistic Art

The Best Poems for Kids

Pope Francis Poems

February 2013: This month we continue to feature the following pages:

Basil Chadwick was a high school classmate of THT poets Richard Moore and David Burnham. He died at age 19 and to our knowledge only two of his poems survive, but fortunately they are good ones.

Carl Sandburg's Revolver

American Fascism

Whoso List to Hunt: a Modern English Translation

Notorious Artists: the Bad Boys and Girls of Poetry and Literature

Famous and Notorious Beauties

Rondels and Roundels

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

Sappho was one of the earliest and best love poets.

The Best American Poetry

The Best Poems of Modernism

Poetry Quotes

The Best Conservative Jokes, Quotes and Epigrams

The Best Song Covers, Remakes and Re-releases

Was Hell in the Original Bible?

Israel: "Good fences make good neighbors" ... or do they?

January 2013: This month we continue to feature the following pages:

New Year Poetry: the Poetry of Endings and New Beginnings

Sandy Hook Poems is a page dedicated to the memory of the students and teachers who died so needlessly and unjustly.

Columbine Poems is a similar page of poetic tributes and memorials.

Aurora Poetry is another similar page.

Courtni Webb's Sandy Hook Poem and Possible Expulsion

Carl Sandburg's "A Revolver"

Notorious Artists: the Bad Boys and Girls of Poetry and Literature

Richard Blanco's Inaugural Poem: “One Today”

Basil Chadwick was a high school classmate of THT poets Richard Moore and David Burnham. He died at age 19 and to our knowledge only two of his poems survive, but fortunately they are damn good ones.

Nicole Caruso Garcia was born in New Jersey in 1972 and currently resides in Connecticut. She was educated at Fairfield University in English and Religious Studies, and after seven years in corporate industry, she left to earn her M.S. in Education from The University of Bridgeport. Her poetry has appeared in both in print and online in journals such as Mezzo Cammin, Willow Review, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Soundings East, The Ledge, Poetry Midwest, and Small Pond Magazine of Literature. She received the Spring 2010 Willow Review Award. She teaches Poetry and Creative Writing at Trumbull High School. Despite her penchant for formalism, her rapping alter ego, Capital G, often visits to bust a rhyme for her students. Her first video, "Plagiarism Rap," debuted on YouTube in 2012.

Duncan Gillies MacLaurin was born in Glasgow in 1962. He studied Classics at Oxford, left without a degree, and spent two years busking in the streets of Europe. He met a Danish writer, Ann Bilde, in Italy in 1986 and went to live in Denmark, where he teaches English and Latin.

T. Merrill remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.

Rick Mullin’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Arts Quarterly, The Raintown Review, Unsplendid, Méasŭre, The Flea, and Ep;phany. His chapbook, Aquinas Flinched, was published by the Modern Metrics imprint of Exot Books, New York City, in 2008, and his book-length poem, Huncke, was published by Seven Towers, Dublin, Ireland, in 2010.

Kamal Nasser was a much-admired Palestinian Christian poet, who due to his renowned integrity was known as "The Conscience." He was a member of Jordan's parliament in 1956. He was murdered in 1973 by an Israeli death squad whose most notorious member was future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who dressed as a woman and pretended to neck with another male assassin before opening fire. Two women were also murdered during the attack.

Rachel Joy Scott Poetry, Quotations and Art

What is Poetry?

Poetry Definitions by major poets, critics and even an American president or two!

Sports Shorts

Best Celebrity Poems

English Poetry Timeline

The Best Poetry Magazines and Literary Journals for Submissions (if you want "Recognition")

Prior Issues of The HyperTexts

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

For issues from January 2009 to December 2012, please click here

Prior to November 2001: Our first featured poet was Richard Moore, in the November 2001 issue, which you can find by clicking the preceding hyperlink. Prior to November 2001, THT didn't have issues, per se, and was not updated on a monthly basis, but merely upon the caprice of its founder and editor (i.e. me, Mike Burch). When did THT start? I don't rightly remember! But I was able to use the Wayback Machine to find the earliest extant version of THT, circa March 2001. At that time we had separate pages for the Masters; they included Matthew Arnold, William Blake, Ernest Dowson, Robert Frost, A. E. Housman, Ben Jonson, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilfred Owen, E. A. Robinson, Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman, and W. B. Yeats. Our first cadre of contemporary poets included Harvey Stanbrough, Annie Finch, A. E. Stallings (the first "big fish" we landed), Dr. Joseph S. Salemi, William F. Carlson, Jennifer Reeser, Kevin N. Roberts, Michael Pendragon, and Michael R. Burch. From April to October 2001 we added the following contemporary poets: Roger Hecht, Louise Jaffe, Esther Cameron, Jack Granath, Carmen Willcox, Dr. Alfred Dorn, Wade Newman, Patrick Kanouse, Joyce Wilson, Mary Rae (the winner of our first and only poetry contest), Ric Masten and Ursula T. Gibson. In the early days, Bill Carlson was a godsend, as he put us in touch, either directly or indirectly through his website and its links to Expansive Poetry & Music Online, with roughly half the poets we published in our formative days: himself, Dorn, Salemi, Cameron, Newman, Hecht (via Newman, his literary executor), Jaffe, Granath, Reeser and Richard Moore. The second largest "pool" of poets came from to us from the ranks of the New Romantics: Kevin N. Roberts, Michael Pendragon, Carmen Willcox and Mary Rae. We found Harvey Stanbrough through The Raintown Review, which he founded and was still editing at the time. Some poets we found through the "grapevine" and the Internet: Stallings, Finch, Wilson, Masten, Gibson. We found Kanouse either through Carlson or Stanbrough.

Just when was The HyperTexts originally created? I'm not sure. Probably between 1998 and 2000, since the site already had considerable content in early 2001, with a total of 21 poets in its Masters and Contemporary Poets indexes, not to mention fairly extensive Esoterica and Rock Jukebox pages. In July 2004 we recorded our hit counter for the first time: 16,787. But I don't remember when I added it, so any number of early hits were probably not recorded. In four months of 2008 alone, THT had around 30,000 hits on its main page. So our readership has obviously grown dramatically. We seem to get as many hits in four months as we once did in four years.

Why did I start The HyperTexts? Again, I really don't remember. I know I bought a copy of Microsoft Frontpage, the program I used to create THT, probably just before the turn of century, in order to edit the website of the software company I own, Alpha Omega Consulting Group, Inc. At the time Alpha Omega had a programmer, Steve Harris, who had experience designing websites, so I imagine I bought the program on his recommendation. Steve left Alpha Omega toward the end of 2000, so I suppose around that time I had to take over editing the company website. So perhaps I created THT in order to learn the basics of HTML. It would have been natural for me to create a literary website, as a way of learning my way around HTML, because whenever I needed to learn a new programming language, I always started with something functional that I had the expertise to design and critique. I doubt that I had any real intention of being an editor and publisher of poetry at the time. I do remember getting in contact with A. E. (Alicia) Stallings and asking if I could publish a few of her poems. Her graciousness no doubt encouraged me to "go after" other poets. Annie Finch and Harvey Stanbrough were other poets I admired who gave me permission to publish their poems. Through my connection with Michael Pendragon, who published my poems in the literary journals Penny Dreadful and Songs of Innocence and the poetry anthology The Bible of Hell, I met Kevin N. Roberts, the founder and editor of Romantics Quarterly. As I helped Kevin get Romantics Quarterly off the ground, with financial assistance and suggestions, I began to see something of a larger role for myself, in the grand scheme of things, and THT soon became a launching pad of sorts for literary journals on tight budgets that didn't have their own websites. Those were the days before every man and his dog had a blog.

In 2002 I published Rhina Espaillat, and over the years she has helped THT publish the work of a number of her fellow Powow River Poets, including Michael Cantor, Deborah Warren, Len Krisak, Mike Juster and Midge Goldberg.

In 2002 I published Jack Butler, the first poet in an "Arkansas connection" that now includes Jack, Greg Alan Brownderville, Jim Barnes, and R. S. (Sam) Gwynn.

In early 2003 I ran free advertisements for Joe Ruggier's literary journal, The Eclectic Muse, and for his collection of books on CD, which my software company helped Joe create. My relationship with Joe soon led THT to join forces with Joe's Multicultural Books (MBooks) imprint, and before long we had published books by Emery Campbell, Zyskandar Jaimot, T. Merrill and V. Ulea, with hopefully more to come.

Also in 2003 I published Yala Korwin, a Holocaust survivor, and soon with the help of Yala and Esther Cameron, THT was able to bring a number of poems by Jewish ghetto poets and other Holocaust poets that had never appeared in English before. Our early Holocaust pages included those of Janusz Korczak and Elie Wiesel, which were published in 2004.

In 2005, I published the work of T. (Tom) Merrill, and this was the beginning of yet another fruitful relationship. Tom has devoted much time to THT, and he is now our Poet in Residuum. In addition to gracing our pages with his poems, essays and poet intros, Tom is a proofreader par excellence. And he has directed us to a number of poets we wouldn't have known about otherwise, including Agnes Wathall, Eunice de Chazeau and Mary Malone.

In 2006, I published the poetry of Jeffery Woodward, and he has gone on to contribute a number of pages to our "Blasts from the Past" series, earning a honorable mention on our masthead. And so THT's editors and associates now consist of me, Tom, Joe and Jeffrey.

As I pen this retrospective (written on December 12, 2008), THT ranks in the top ten with Google for a number of our primary search terms: the hypertexts (#1), hypertexts (#2), formal poetry (#2), contemporary formal poetry (#3), "the Masters" poetry (#2), Darfur poetry (#1), Holocaust poetry (#10), ghetto poets (#2), Nelson Mandela poetry (#1), Elie Wiesel poetry (#1), Leonard Nimoy poetry (#1), Ronald Reagan poetry (#1), Pope John Paul II poetry (#1), Karol Wojtyla poetry (#1), Nadia Anjuman poetry (#1 and #2), Miklós Radnóti poetry (#1), Formalist poetry (#5). And we're ranked extremely high by Google for searches for many of the poets we've published: X. J. Kennedy poetry (#1), Richard Moore poetry (#1 and #2), Esther Cameron poetry (#1 and #2), George Held poetry (#1), Jack Butler poetry (#3 and #4), Ethna Carbery poetry (#3), etc.

In a few cases, such as Richard Moore's and Esther Cameron's, we even rank above the poets' personal and/or literary websites. And in many cases, we rank number one with Google in searches for our poets' names, sans modifiers, as with Eunice de Chazeau, Alfred Dorn, Rhina P. Espaillat, Roger Hecht, George Held, T. S. Kerrigan, Yala Korwin, Leslie Mellichamp, Robert Mezey, Joseph S. Salemi, and Agnes Wathall, just to drop a few names. These are men and women with serious accomplishments, so it's interesting to see THT ranking number one, even above Wikipedia, as we sometimes do.

Where will THT go from here? Perhaps as high and far as Google can help us fly . . .

Mike Burch
December 12, 2008

The HyperTexts