The HyperTexts
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December 2024
Merry Christmas to all, and what better way to celebrate the holiday season than
with poems and hymns...
The Best Christmas Poems of All
Time, in one person's opinion, range from nursery rhymes to Christmas carols to poems written by major
poets. Other Christmas page include
The Best Christmas Songs of All Time,
the ever-popular Heretical Christmas Poems
and Dark Christmas Poems, and
the darkest page of them all,
Trump Christmas at the White House.
Shannon Winestone
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Luis Cuauhtemoc
Berriozabal
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
F.F. Teague returns to the Spotlight with
a new poem, "Prelude in Swans."
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "A Christmas Card for Mum."
Bob Zisk returns to the Spotlight with
a poem about an execution that helped revive a
town's economy: "Remembering A.J. Bannister."
"Egbert the Adorable
Octopus" and other Cute & Cuddly Animal Poems by Michael R. Burch
On a personal note as the year winds down, the Estonian band Mona da Vinci is
about to release my
Butterfly poem as their latest single on Spotify. The poem
was set to music by band member Helena Loorents. This will be my 62nd poem set
to music by 33 different composers, from swamp blues to classical including
three operas. On Quora where I write primarily about
poetry, politics, religion and sports, I have over 53 million page views, 400K upvotes, 150K comments, 25K shares and
9.3K followers. And my new Substack newsletter is off a good start, with over
500 subscribers. All-in-all, a profitable year and I hope everyone else's ends
smashingly well. — Mike Burch
Less than 48 hours after I wrote the note above, the composer Eduard de Boer
informed me that he is doing orchestral versions of "Where Does the Butterfly
Go?" and "King of the World," so make that 64 poems set to music.
November 2024
The Best Thanksgiving Poems
Gobble! Gobble!
Post-Part-’Em Election Poems
A fool and his democracy
are soon parted.
—Michael R. Burch
Today they’ll celebrate
this capitulation to hate.
Sometime unremarkably later
they’ll regret their new dictator.
—Michael R. Burch
Aaron
Poochigian returns to the Spotlight with our Featured Poem
for the month of November, "The New New Amsterdam."
Jared Carter returns
to the Spotlight with "Grisaille."
Ranald Barnicot
returns to the Spotlight with a translation of "Song of a Foreigner" by Giovanni
Quessep.
Robin Helweg-Larsen returns
to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Robin Helweg-Larsen has published a collection of poems about Palestine titled
The Two-State Dissolution. It has poems by Janet Kenny, Marcus Bales,
Michael R. Burch, Robin himself, and others. Highly recommended.
Michael R. Burch has published his translation of
Slysascot in Palestine (“Accidental Shooting in Palestine”) by
the Icelandic poet Jónas Kristján Einarsson aka Kristján frá Djúpalćk. The
translation page begins with an index, so please scroll down a bit to find the
poem.
Terese Coe remains in the Spotlight with several new poems and translations you won't want to miss.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem "Helplessly Dangling From An Unbaited Hook."
Martin Mc Carthy remains
in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Forever," which was our Featured Poem for the month of October.
Bob Zisk remains in
the Spotlight with three new poems.
Jim McLean
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Welcome Overstayed."
Pindar Translations by Michael R. Burch
Catullus Translations by Michael R. Burch
Ovid Translations by Michael R. Burch
Leonardo da Vinci Translations by Michael R. Burch
Federico Garcia Lorca Translations by Michael R. Burch
Pablo Neruda Translations by Michael R. Burch
Translation Pages by Language:
English Translations of Anglo-Saxon Poems by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Chinese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Female Chinese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of French Poets by Michael R. Burch
Germane Germans: English Translations by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of German Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Japanese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Japanese Zen Death Poems
English Translations of Ancient Mayan Love Poems
English Translations of Native American Poems, Proverbs and Blessings
English Translations of Roman, Latin and Italian Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Urdu Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Uyghur Poets by Michael R. Burch
October 2024
Halloween Poetry features poetic tricks and treats for children and adults of all ages.
Vampire Poetry explores the eerie connections between the poet/artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne,
the novelist Bram Stoker, John William Polidori (the writer of the first modern vampire story), the pre-Raphaelite models Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal, and the female vampire Lucy Westenra in Stoker's novel Dracula.
Dark Poetry has become one of our most popular pages.
Horror Poetry can be traced back to the monsters of Beowulf and the eerie Celtic underworld.
Richard Merelman is Professor of Political Science, (Emeritus) University of
Wisconsin, Madison. He has published four volumes of poetry, of which the
most recent, A Door Opens (Fireweed, 2020), received an Outstanding
Achievement Award in 2021 from the Wisconsin Library Association. His poems
have appeared in many journals. Two recent poems are forthcoming from the
Loch Raven Review. A further poem appears in THINK, Winter/Spring,
2024.
Robin Helweg-Larsen has published a collection of poems about Palestine titled
The Two-State Dissolution. It has poems by Janet Kenny, Marcus Bales,
Michael R. Burch, Robin himself, and others. Highly recommended.
Dr. Mahnaz Badihian returns to the Spotlight with two poems, one of which is slated to be flown to the moon!
Speaking of moonshots, in an interesting synchronicity, our latest Martin Elster poem is "An Astronaut’s Thoughts During Lift-Off."
Terese Coe returns to the Spotlight with several new poems and translations you won't want to miss.
Martin Mc Carthy returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Forever," which is our Featured Poem for the month of October.
Bob Zisk returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Jim McLean
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Welcome Overstayed."
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem "How To Extirpate Indoctrinated Fear."
Sulpicia Translations
by Michael R. Burch, aided and abetted by Carolyn Clark, who put him up to them.
Ono no Komachi is one of the first great female poets we know by name, along with Enheduanna, Sappho, Erinna and Tzu Yeh.
September 2024
Labor Day Poems and Songs
We are saddened to report that
Ann Drysdale
died on August 16, 2024. Ann was an accomplished British writer and editor, and
one of the best poets published by The HyperTexts over its three
decades of existence. If you have poems or other remembrances of Ann, please
feel free to share them with our readers by emailing them to Mike Burch at
mikerburch@gmail.com.
Gail White returns to the
Spotlight with a new poem, "Ophelia Knows Why Hamlet Went Mad," and translations
of Catullus and Hadrian. We have also added her amusing villanelle "Partying with the
Intelligentsia" to The Best of the HyperTexts.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem "Where Capitalism's Headlock Blocks Mutual Support"
along with three touching prayer-poems.
William (Bill) T. Boyd
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
Robin Helweg-Larsen remains
in the Spotlight with a slew of new poems, some of them nicely heretical.
Rimbaud!
Visions of Beauty pairs some of the
world's most beautiful women with poems.
BLAKEAN
POEMS by Michael R. Burch
August 2024
We are saddened to report that
Ann Drysdale
died on August 16, 2024. Ann was an accomplished British writer and editor, and
one of the best poets published by The HyperTexts over its three
decades of existence. If you have poems or other remembrances of Ann, please
feel free to share them with our readers by emailing them to Mike Burch at
mikerburch@gmail.com.
Bob Zisk returns to the Spotlight with two new poems, including his exceptional "Love among the Ruins." Bob has given me no choice
but to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that he's one of the best poets writing today. — MRB
"Love among the Ruins" is our Featured Poem for the month of August and has been added to The Best of the HyperTexts.
Robin Helweg-Larsen returns to the Spotlight with a slew of new poems, some of them nicely heretical.
Robert Funderburk is unabashedly a Southerner, as we can tell from his bio. This is his first publication by The HyperTexts,
but probably not his last.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem "Where Capitalism's Headlock Blocks Mutual Support"
and three touching prayer-poems.
Martin Mc Carthy remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Entering the River."
Was the first truly great poem of English antiquity written by a female scop and
proto-feminist? You can dive into this fascinating poem via seven translations
and a word-by-word analysis of the richly ambiguous Anglo-Saxon masterpiece
Wulf and Eadwacer.
On a personal note, the award-winning New Zealand composer David Hamilton is setting my original poems "Distances" and "Frail Envelope of Flesh" to music, along with my translation
of "Unsaid" by the Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko. These will be my 59th, 60th and 61st poems set to music by 32 composers, to date. The poems in question can be read here:
Poems Set to Music. Ironically, "Sing for the Cool Night" was excerpted from my poem "Chit Chat," which was inspired by my online encounters with grammar- and punctuation-challenged scopian bards! — MRB
F.F. Teague returns to the Spotlight with three new poems in her unique style.
Shamik Banerjee remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "To an Editor Who Thinks Formal Verse is Not Serious."
We are still accepting Fliss-Flossian
Limericks and Fliss herself has contributed four.
We have added "Angry Birds" by
Jemshed Khan
to our
"A little dabble dactyl'll do ya!"
page, which is all about having nonsensical fun.
JD Vance Nicknames
July 2024
When I was told by Peter Brokenshire, a professor of stylistic analysis in earlier years at Hang Seng University in Hong Kong, and now at HKU SPACE (Hong Kong University School of Professional and
Adult Continuing Education), that The HyperTexts is the preferred source of contemporary poems ("much preferred") by his students, I decided to create this Hang Seng
& HKU SPACE Poetry Page and dedicate it to the Hang Seng & HKU SPACE students. — Michael R. Burch, editor, The HyperTexts
Independence Day Poems and Songs
Let Freedom Sing!
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
William (Bill) T. Boyd served in USAF, later had career in USG with Navy, USAID,
Peace Corps and State Dept. Authored a children's picture book The Pumpkin
Fairy 20 years ago. It is on Amazon as "used." He currently lives in
Estero, FL.
Eric Beidel has our first featured poem for the month of July, and an appropriate one, "Homecoming."
Amy L. Smith has our second featured poem for July,
the clever and amusing "ODE to The OED."
Jared Carter remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Pavane."
Anaďs Vionet
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Underheld."
Shamik Banerjee returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Birthday Monologue."
Martin Mc Carthy remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Gasp." We have also added "Gasp" to The Best of the HyperTexts.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with two new "micro" poems, numbers 1 & 2, and "How Something Came From Nothing."
On a warm summer afternoon in 1867, Digby Mackworth Dolben drowned at age nineteen. The poems he left behind were said by
future English poet laureate Robert Bridges to equal "anything that was ever written by any English poet at his age."
David B. Gosselin remains in the Spotlight with his translation of "Cassandra" by Friedrich Schiller.
John Masella
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
English Translations of German Poets by Michael R. Burch
June 2024
The Best Father's Day Poems
Memorial Day Poems and Songs
War Poems and Anti-War Poems
Afsar Mohammad
recently published a collection of poems, Evening with a Sufi,
with Red River Press, New Delhi. He also published a book
titled Festival of Pirs: Popular Islam and Shared Devotion in South India
with Oxford University Press (USA). He teaches at the University Pennsylvania
and writes in Teluga and English.
KAJAL AHMAD INTERVIEW takes a look at the trials, tribulations and surprising successes of a female Kurdish poet in a male-dominated society.
Tom Merrill remains in the Spotlight with his latest poem, "Thinking Salvationally."
Martin Mc Carthy remains
in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Gasp."
Jared Carter returns
to the Spotlight with two new poems: "Defiance" and "Ethel."
John Masella
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
R.S. returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "When the Dust Settles."
Shamik Banerjee returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "To My
Father."
Bob Zisk remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
David B. Gosselin remains in the Spotlight with his translation of "Cassandra" by Friedrich Schiller.
Malcolm Ernest
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Mother's Love."
F.F. Teague returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Sonnet for Mike."
The HyperTexts is actively soliciting submissions of a nonce nonsense form, the "dabble dactyl," and the guidelines are surprisingly lax. Anything remotely close is likely to be
published, as long as the poem is double-dactyl-ish, clever, funny, and the writing is good.
Dabble dactyls can be submitted in the body of the email to Mike Burch at
mikerburch@gmail.com.
"A little dabble dactyl'll do ya!" introduces a looser form of the double dactyl that is all about having nonsensical fun.
Michael R. Burch has published "Jessamyn's Song" after starting his first longer poem around age 14 and finally
finishing it at age 66. Well, no one ever said writing poetry is easy!
Bemused by Muses considers one poet's possible encounters with the Muse, or Muses.
THE GODS: AN UPDATE
Rejection Slips Redux
Drats, Rejected Again! (the continuing bias against formal poetry)
May 2024
Martin Mc Carthy returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Gasp."
Bob Zisk returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
In honor of the SCP's just-announced POE-itry jernel, we have a tribute poem, "The scops have written some po-ems."
However, it seems our suspicion that POE (not Edgar, but AI) would be enlisted
to help the fifth-grade dropouts was unwarranted,
since their verse remains as atrocious as ever. Amusingly, in the
introduction to the SCP's latest debacle the scops posit they may have
"turned around" the poetry industry with their ungrammatical and slipshoddily
edited verse. Not authentic poets with actual achievements like Seamus Heaney
and Richard Wilbur, but the scops! Well, they may have careers as professional
comedians. We haven't had a laugh this ribsplitting since the scops started
nominating each other for Poet Lariat.
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "The Entity."
F.F. Teague returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
The You and I of Poetry is an essay by David Alpaugh.
Jared Carter remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
Robert Lavett Smith remains in the Spotlight with seven new poems.
Tom Merrill remains in the Spotlight with his latest poem, "Thinking Salvationally."
David B. Gosselin remains in the Spotlight with his translation of "Hector's Farewell" by Friedrich Schiller.
Victoria Lau is new to THT and remains in the Spotlight.
Anaďs Vionet remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "fossils."
Michael R. Burch has published "Jessamyn's Song" after starting his first longer poem around age 14 and finally finishing it at age 66.
April 2024
SKIP-SCOP ETHICS
THE SNARES OF THE SIMPLISTIC SALEMI
"Night Labor" is a tribute poem written by Michael R. Burch for the young
American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who died under the treads of a weaponized
Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003 while acting as a human shield in
defense of the home of the Palestinian pharmacist Samir Nasrallah. "Night
Labor" is also dedicated to the seven World Kitchen volunteers killed on April
1, 2024 by Israeli airstrikes. The victims included three Britons, an
Australian, a Palestinian, a Pole, and a dual citizen of the United States and
Canada. A shocking and unconscionable 196 humanitarian workers have been killed
in Palestinian territories since October 2023, according to the UN humanitarian
coordinator in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu called the
World Kitchen deaths a "tragic" accident and said "this happens in war." But
what other nation has killed 196 humanitarian workers?
POEMS
FOR THE CHILDREN OF GAZA
Anaďs Vionet
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "fossils."
Robert Lavett Smith
returns to the Spotlight with seven new poems, after a long hiatus.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with his latest poem, "Thinking Salvationally."
David B. Gosselin
returns to the Spotlight with his translation of "Hector's Farewell" by
Friedrich Schiller.
Jared Carter returns
to the Spotlight with two new poems.
The You and I
of Poetry is an essay by David Alpaugh.
Victoria Lau is currently working on her MFA degree at Lindenwood University.
She was the 3rd place poetry winner for the Random House Creative Writing
Competition in 2013. Her poems have been published in Rogue Agent, The Orchards
Poetry Journal and The Olivetree Review. She was also the 1st place winner for
the Nancy Dean Medieval Prize in 2020. She is a poetry reader for GASHER Journal
and one of the marketing coordinators for The Adroit Journal. She has taught
poetry at Sadie Nash Summer Institute and is writing assistant at the Borough of
Manhattan Community College Writing Center and an English adjunct lecturer at
Queens College.
R.S. returns to the
Spotlight with a new poem, "Come Let Us Kiss And Part."
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Emissary of the Angels," which he
wrote for Kevin N. Roberts, the founder and first editor of Romantics
Quarterly, and widely considered to have been the best of the New
Romantics.
Robin Helweg-Larsen
remains in the Spotlight with four new poems.
Tweedie-die-die and Tweedie-Dumb:
A scop and retired pastor, James A. Tweedie, waxes poetic on the need for human
beings to gracefully accept climate change, just as the dinosaurs did, so long
ago. But why, then, did Noah build an ark? Did his God not get the message, or
is Tweedie trying to trick us on April Fool's Day?
O, Terrible Angel is a collection of love poems written for his wife Beth by
THT editor-in-chief Michael R. Burch.
March 2024
St. Patrick's
Day Poems is a new page suggested by the Irish poet Martin Mc Carthy, who
recently became a THT contributing editor.
A Keystone Scop suffers the
Ire of the Irish on St. Patrick's Day.
Conor Kelly's rather gentle criticism of a St. Patrick's Day poem by Susan
Jarvis Bryant resulted in her cries of unfairness in over-alliterative unintentional
doggerel. We did attempt to link to the alleged "poem" so readers can judge for
themselves, but the link was blocked. What are the Keystone Scops afraid of?
Free advertising? Or people reading their racist rants for migrant children and their mothers to be
annihilated with .50 caliber armor-piercing machine gun shells, proving the
hollowness of their "Christianity" and lack of humanity, perhaps? One shudders
to think of the Holy Family appearing at the border if Joe Salemi is there with
his Gatling Gun and beret.
Ms. Bryant has written a peeve.
Ignore it, she’s out of her league.
—Michael R. Burch
Tweedie-die-die and Tweedie-Dumb:
A scop and retired pastor, James A. Tweedie, waxes poetic on the need for human
beings to gracefully accept climate change, just as the dinosaurs did, so long
ago. But why, then, did Noah build an ark?
On a personal note, the award-winning New Zealand composer David Hamilton has
informed me that he will be setting my compositions "Sing for the Cool Night"
and "Distances" to music. These will be my 56th and 57th poems set to music by
31 different composers. The poems in question can be read here:
Poems Set to Music. Ironically, "Sing for the Cool Night" was excerpted from
my poem "Chit Chat," which was inspired by my online encounters with grammar-
and punctuation-challenged scopian bards! — MRB
Ethna Carbery
is one of the best Irish poets you probably haven't heard of, but definitely should take
time to get familiar with.
Seamus Cassidy was the pen name of the
Irish-American poet Jim McManmon. Most poets are not saints, but Jim was. He
dedicated much of his life to helping children by running the Broman Group Home
for boys in Las Vegas for over 30 years and later as a substitute teacher. Jim
was described as having a "radiant smile" and "looking like a happy Robert
Frost." And he was a fine poet as well.
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with four new poems: "Angel of Mariupol," "Erato,"
"Revelation" and "Life Task."
Jared Carter returns
to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Memory," that seems appropriate to our
day.
Robin Helweg-Larsen
returns to the Spotlight with four new poems.
"The Folly
of Wisdom" by Michael R. Burch questions a lemming-like activity of certain
journals and their editors.
David B. Gosselin
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with his latest poem, "Joint Adventures."
R.S. remains in the
Spotlight with a new poem you won't want to miss, "If Death Had Passed Us By."
Shamik Banerjee
remains in the Spotlight with four new poems, including a sonnet he wrote for
THT's editor-in-chief, "To Michael R. Burch."
SICK PUPPY SCOPS are now calling for children and their mothers to
be shot to shreds at the southern border with .50 caliber machine guns. It seems
the Society of Classical Poets has abandoned not only Christianity, but humanity
as well. "Outdoing the Devil" is a poem written by Kim Cherub in response.
Less
Heroic Couplets and
Dabble Dactyls are
nonsensical inventions of Mike Burch.
February 2024
Valentine's Day Poems
contains poems you can share with that "special someone," free of charge
for noncommercial purposes.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with his latest poem, "Joint Adventures."
R.S. returns to the
Spotlight with a new poem you won't want to miss, "If Death Had Passed Us By."
Shamik Banerjee
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems, including a Valentine's poem, "As Spring Recedes."
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Martin Mc Carthy
returns to the Spotlight with four new poems: "Angel of Mariupol," "Erato," "Revelation"
and "Life Task." We have also added Martin's poem "Little Thrush" to
The Best of the HyperTexts.
Shannon Winestone
remains in the Spotlight.
On a personal note, I recently had a new and rather amusing "first" when my poem
"Pale Though Her Eyes" was analyzed by Chegg AI. Apparently the analysis is
being marketed to high school and college students. Alas, I was unable to
benefit from the presumed brilliance of AI literary criticism, as I declined to
pay the signup fee. I did some research, however, and discovered that "Pale
Though Her Eyes" has become popular on the Internet,
appearing on 561 web pages according to Google. I suspect the poem may have
gone viral after Pick Me Up Poetry included it, along with my poem
"Vampires," on a page of the eight "best vampire poems," where it appears
alongside poems by Baudelaire, Dowson and Yeats. Having two of the eight best
vampire poems, in someone's opinion, is a nice compliment. Have I finally
arrived, having also been endorsed by AI? I also discovered that my poem "Dark
Gothic" has been analyzed by Chegg AI. Am I entitled to a Sally Field moment?
— MRB
Kevin Nicholas Roberts
(1969-2008) was a poet, fiction writer
and professor of English Literature. Kevin
spent three
years in the English countryside of Suffolk writing Romantic poetry and
studying the Romantic Masters beside the North Sea. His poetry has been
compared to that of Algernon Charles Swinburne, one of his major influences. Kevin was
born on the 4th of April in the United States, which, accounting for the hour of
his birth and the time zone difference, just happened to be Swinburne's birthdate, April the 5th, in England. And Kevin claimed to be the reincarnation of
Swinburne ...
ROMANTICS QUARTERLY: A Retrospective, Chronology and History
Zyskandar Jaimot was
one of my all-time favorite poets of my acquaintance, both as a poet and as a
person. Alas, he is no longer with us, but on the brighter side, his poetry is.
— MRB
SKIP, SCOP, SKIP TO MY LOO (PART DEUX)
January 2024
New Year Poetry: the Poetry of Endings and New Beginnings
Famous Poems
about Drinking
Shannon Winestone is an aspiring poet based in New England. She strives to
write poems that are uniformly beautiful, blending ancient with modern and
speaking to the human condition. Shannon’s other interests include baking,
classical literature, drawing, graphic design, mythology, psychology, and
geopolitics.
Zyskandar Jaimot was
one of my all-time favorite poets of my acquaintance, both as a poet and as a
person. Alas, he is no longer with us, but on the brighter side, his poetry is.
— MRB
Adam Sedia
remains in the Spotlight with a poem, "Chrysanthemums," that strikes us as
one of the best examples of contemporary Romanticism we've seen in years. In
fact, we liked the poem so much that we added it to
The Best of the HyperTexts
without the usual delay.
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with a new poem, "Song in the Falling Snow of Late January."
Shamik Banerjee
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "To My Body."
GUN POEMS features poems written by various THT poets
over the years.
On a personal note, and in a very good start to my New Year, I have just been
informed that I will soon have my 55th poem set to music by a composer. In this
case Eduard de Boer will be using my lyrics for the fifth movement of
Oratorium Toward a Golden Future, which he's writing on commission from the Dutch Fund for Podium Arts. It
sounds like a pretty big deal, as Ed tells me he'll have to rush to meet the
October 24, 2024 deadline. After I posted this note, Martin Mc Carthy suggested
that I put together a page with my
Poems Set to Music, so I did. —
Michael R. Burch, editor-in-chief, The HyperTexts
THE BEST WORST LINES OF THE KEYSTONE SCOPS
SKIP, SCOP, SKIP TO MY LOO
We wish all our poets and readers a very happy New Year!
December 2023
Adam Sedia
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Chrysanthemums," that strikes us as
one of the best examples of contemporary Romanticism we've seen in years. In
fact, we liked the poem so much that we added it to
The Best of the HyperTexts
without the usual delay.
We have published the full version of
The Perfect Voice, an epic-length tribute poem for Bob Dylan written by
Martin Mc Carthy. And I've just been informed
that a copy of The Perfect Voice in chapbook form has been placed on
permanent display as part of the Bob Dylan Archive at the Bob Dylan Center in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, thanks to its director, Steve Jenkins. —
Michael R. Burch, editor-in-chief, The HyperTexts
THE DANCE OF THE SUGARPLUMMED SCOPS
Merry Christmas to all, and what better way to celebrate the holiday season than
with poems and hymns...
The Best Christmas Poems of All
Time, in one person's opinion, range from nursery rhymes to Christmas carols to poems written by major
poets.
The Best Christmas Songs of All Time
Heretical Christmas Poems
Dark Christmas Poems
Trump Christmas at the White House
Donald Trump's Insults of Women
Patricia Falanga
lives in Newcastle, Australia, where she is an aspiring poet, writer, composer
and published author of syllabuses for the teaching of Italian to children in
primary schools.
David B. Gosselin
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with his latest poem, "A Product of Dismal Endurance."
Conor Kelly
returns to the Spotlight with several poems about gun control, or the lack of it.
GUN POEMS features poems written by various THT poets
over the years.
THE KEYSTONE SCOPS ATTACK ENVIRONMENTALISTS, AWKWARDLY
Martial Translations by Michael R.
Burch has been updated with, not one, but four translations of the amusing
Coq au vin. Why was Phoebe invited to all those dinner parties?
More
Comical Errors by the Scops and
The
Scops are Whining Again by Michael R. Burch
Laconic
Reply to a Scop poses the rhetorical question: "Why do the Keystone Scops
react so badly to free advertising?"
November 2023
Ranald Barnicot
returns to the Spotlight with three new translations of
Julio Flórez Roa (1867-1923), a late Romantic Colombian poet who was perhaps the
most popular Colombian poet of his time.
R.S. resides in India and writes poetry to find harmony
in life. She graduated with honours in English and loves to read and write
poetry. She is fond of music and likes to play the piano. She is greatly
influenced and inspired by the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Edgar
Allan Poe, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, W.H. Auden and William Butler Yeats, to
name a few. She loves going out for nature walks and rises early to feel
inspired with the morning star and create new rhymes.
Shamik Banerjee is a poet from India.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with his latest poem, "A Product of Dismal Endurance."
More
Comical Errors by the Scops
The
Scops are Whining Again by Michael R. Burch
Laconic
Reply to a Scop poses the rhetorical question: "Why do the Keystone Scops
react so badly to free advertising?"
THICK AS THIEVES: THE CONTINUING PLOT TO MAKE TRUMP THE FIRST
AMERICAN DICTATOR
After a long hiatus, we have revived the
Glob Blog with a new article, MUST WE LIVE WITH THE UNTHINKABLE, YET AGAIN?
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with an excerpt from his tribute to Bob Dylan, "The
Perfect Voice." Martin's performance of the poem on YouTube passed 1,000
views very quickly and seems to be gathering steam.
Viral
Poems by Michael R. Burch
Why I Am Not A Christian by Michael R. Burch
October 2023
Halloween Poetry was meant to be a seasonal page, but it has remained popular with readers year-round and continues to receive tens of thousands of page views per
year. Our Halloween Poetry page features tricks and treats for children and adults of all ages.
Vampire Poetry explores the eerie connections between the poet/artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, Bram Stoker, John William
Polidori (the writer of the first modern vampire story), the pre-Raphaelite models Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal, and the female vampire Lucy Westenra in Stoker's novel Dracula.
Dark Poetry has become one of our most popular pages.
Horror Poetry can be traced back to the monsters of Beowulf and the eerie Celtic underworld.
POEMS
FOR THE CHILDREN OF GAZA
While the current situation in Israel/Palestine seems hopeless, THT editor
Michael R. Burch is the author of a peace plan, the
Burch-Elberry Peace Initiative, also known as the Fair Courts Resolution
(FCR), which creates a way out of the impasse. It will only take five minutes to
read the peace plan, so please consider doing so. Several years ago a group of
peace activists considered this plan the best solution to the ongoing conflict,
but the idea never gained traction. We need to get the peace plan to people with the
ability to advance it. The lives of countless children on both sides are at
stake.
If you aren't sure "who did what," it may interest you to know that great
humanitarians like Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Noam Chomsky,
Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter were in basic agreement about the
root cause. Understanding the root cause helps us identify the path to peace.
You can read what these outstanding humanitarians, and others, have said on the
subject in our Nakba
Index.
The
Scops are Whining Again by Michael R. Burch
Laconic
Reply to a Scop poses the rhetorical question: "Why do the Keystone Scops
react so badly to free advertising?"
THICK AS THIEVES: THE CONTINUING PLOT TO MAKE TRUMP THE FIRST
AMERICAN DICTATOR
After a long hiatus, we have revived the
Glob Blog with a new article, MUST WE LIVE WITH THE UNTHINKABLE, YET AGAIN?
Ranald Barnicot
returns to the Spotlight with three new translations of
Julio Flórez Roa (1867-1923), a late Romantic Colombian poet who was perhaps the
most popular Colombian poet of his time.
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
R.S. resides in India and writes poetry to find harmony
in life. She graduated with honours in English and loves to read and write
poetry. She is fond of music and likes to play the piano. She is greatly
influenced and inspired by the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Edgar
Allan Poe, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, W.H. Auden and William Butler Yeats, to
name a few. She loves going out for nature walks and rises early to feel
inspired with the morning star and create new rhymes.
Shamik Banerjee is a poet from India.
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with an excerpt from his tribute to Bob Dylan, "The
Perfect Voice."
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with his latest poem, "It was Always Derided in Others."
Michael R. Burch has added a number of new poems to his
Chinese Poetry
Translation page.
Gordon Ramel returns to our Spotlight with a
number of new poems on the subject of various poetic forms. The new poems
are in a special section at the bottom of his page,
per Gordon's request.
Anaďs Vionet
remains in the Spotlight with a poem of longing, "foolish things," and a
warning for an ex-president, "don't mess with georgia."
The Best Occasional Poems of All Time
Donald Trump 'Diaper Don' Nicknames
Cowboy Poems by
Michael R. Burch
September 2023
Labor Day Poems and Songs
Anaďs Vionet
returns to the Spotlight with a poem of longing, "foolish things," and a
warning for an ex-president, "don't mess with georgia."
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "It was Always Derided in Others."
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with a cute and cuddly new poem, "A Toy Story."
SORRY MOM! — HOW I ACCIDENTALLY BECAME A PORN POET by
Michael R. Burch
John Masella
remains in the Spotlight with poems you won't want to miss.
Jared Carter remains
in the Spotlight with two new poems: "Dying" and "Cats."
Gail Kaye-Naegele
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems: "Sappho's Prayer" and "Sappho's
Desire."
Malcolm Ernest
enters the Spotlight with two poems.
Michael R. Burch is working on a timeline of his early poems:
Michael R. Burch Early Poems Timeline. Several poems Burch wrote in his
teens have been translated into other languages and/or set to music by
composers, and 38 have been published by literary journals.
August 2023
John Masella is
our first featured poet this month and his name inspired my penchant for
doggerel:
John Masella
’s an engaging fella;
if he writes a book,
it’ll be a bestsella;
and he’s got lotsa things
he’ll be happy to tell ya.
—Michael R. Burch
Jared Carter returns
to the Spotlight with two new poems: "Dying" and "Cats."
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Footnote to a Thinker's Theory of Aesthetics."
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems: "Sappho's Prayer" and "Sappho's
Desire."
Gail Kaye-Naegele
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
The Society of Classical Poets: A Misologist’s Report on a Cult by Conor Kelly
"Gnashional Anthem of the Keystone Scops"
by Michael R. Burch
MANTYK'S ANTIC LOVE POETRY!
Yes, the Keystone Scops are still writing agrammatical
anti-LGBTQ "poems," metronomic odes in praise of white supremacists, and
badly-worded attacks on more rational poets. But every now and then one
of the scops tunes his/her lyre to the more delicate notes of love. Alas, modern
science has yet to find a cure for tone deafness! The results are like
fingernails scritching a blackboard.
On a personal note, my translation of Minamoto no Shitago’s “autumn fields”
haiku is slated not only to be published, but to play a somewhat pivotal role,
in Fourteen Days, a collaborative work of fiction by famous authors
like Margaret Atwood (also a co-editor), Diana Gabaldon, John Grisham, Erica
Jong, Mary Pope Osborne, R.L. Stine and Scott Turow. Fourteen Days is
being published by The Authors Guild Foundation, America's oldest and largest
professional organization that advocates for the rights of authors, and Harper
Collins. The haiku in question compares our world to a darkening field briefly
lit by lightning flashes. Author’s Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger described the plot
of one of the episodes as follows: “The story in the book takes place in a
building on New York City's lower East Side at the beginning of the pandemic
when the tenants meet nightly on the roof to share stories. The book weaves the
stories together while reporting on the various goings-on among the tenants. Our
just-past president, author Doug Preston, wrote the frame narrative that
provides the background of the characters and introduces the stories each
evening. One evening the residents come up to the roof to find a poem written on
the wall – in Japanese and with your translation.” The proceeds from
Fourteen Days will go towards furthering the Guild's mission of “educating,
supporting, advocating and protecting American writers to ensure that a rich,
diverse body of literature can flourish.” How cool! — MRB
July 2023
Independence Day Poems and Songs
Let Freedom Sing!
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
Leslie Bergner
graduated from Trinity College, where she studied English literature and
creative writing. She went on to write for Yale University and several
corporations and to teach high school English. She is particularly enamored with
the sestina and sonnet. Her poem “Apple Picking” won a prize from the
Connecticut Poetry Society.
Conor Kelly
remains in our Spotlight with a poem in defense of the word "azure" and a number
of dictionary definition poems.
Robin Helweg-Larsen
returns to the Spotlight with four new poems.
Anaďs Vionet
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "veneer."
Janice Canerdy
remains in the Spotlight.
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with his first haiku sequence and several other new
poems.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem,
"Ode to an Opportunist."
Uyghur Poetry Translations by Michael R. Burch
include "Elegy" by Perhat Tursun, a poet who has been "disappeared" into a
Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp. According to John Bolton, such
concentration camps were praised by Donald Trump as "exactly the right thing to do"
while
he negotiated a trade deal with China that Trump saw as critical to his
reelection chances. Two of Burch's translations of Uyghur poets are scheduled to
appear in Uyghur Poems,
an anthology edited by Aziz Isa Elkun (Everyman’s Library, Penguin Books/Random
House). The translations in question are “My Feelings” by Dolqun Yasin and “Traces” by Abdurehim
Otkur.
Of Men, Mice and Mincemeat (Me) by Michael R. Burch
My Influences by Michael R.
Burch
How
many times is "hell" mentioned in the Bible?
June 2023
Conor Kelly
returns to our Spotlight with a poem in defense of the word "azure" and a number
of dictionary definition poems.
Anaďs Vionet
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "veneer."
Martin Elster
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "One Summer Day."
Martin Mc Carthy
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Unlocking Me."
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem,
"Ode to an Opportunist."
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Paul Buchheit is an author of books, poems, progressive essays, and
scientific journal articles. He recently completed his first historical novel,
1871: Rivers on Fire.
Janice Canerdy is a retired high-school English teacher from Potts Camp,
Mississippi. She has been writing for decades. Her poems have appeared in
numerous publications, including Light, The Road Not Taken, The Lyric, Parody,
Bitterroot, Westward Quarterly,
Lighten Up Online, Saturday Evening Post, and the contest journals of the
Mississippi Society and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Her
first book, Expressions of Faith (Christian Faith Publishing), was published in
December 2016.
Michael R. Burch Timeline of Early Poems with Grades
Our page of
Rabindranath Tagore translations by Michael R. Burch
has been updated with an original poem, "Only Let Me Love You," that was inspired
by Tagore's poem "Come As You Are."
May 2023
Poems for the
victims and survivors of the Nashville Covenant school shootings
We liked the poetry of
Martin Mc Carthy
so much that we invited him to become a contributing editor and he accepted.
Martin lives in Cork City, Ireland, and spent several years working
for the Defence Forces, before studying English at UCC. He has published two
collections: Lockdown Diary (2020) and Lockdown (2021). His most recent poems
appear in the pandemic anthology, Poems from My 5k, and in the journals
Drawn
to the Light, Seventh Quarry Poetry, Poetry Salzburg, The Lyric, The Road Not
Taken, The Orchards, WestWard Quarterly, Better Than Starbucks, Blue Unicorn,
Lighten Up Online, The Chained Muse, London & Newcastle, The Madrigal, Taj Mahal Review, New Lyre and Southword. He was
shortlisted for the Red Line Poetry Prize and was a nominee for the 2022
Pushcart Prize. His latest book is a collection of love poems
titled Book of Desire. He has a website at mccarthypoet.com.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem,
"Thus We Talk To Ourselves."
Paul Buchheit is an author of books, poems, progressive essays, and
scientific journal articles. He recently completed his first historical novel,
1871: Rivers on Fire.
Poems by Michael R.
Burch about Shakespeare.
April 2023
Tom o' Bedlam's Song
Leo Aylen was born in KwaZulu, South Africa, the son of Charles Aylen, whom the
Zulus elected Bishop of Zululand. Leo is a poet, playwright,
actor, director and musician.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems: "A Loose Translation,"
"Why Truth is Unpopular" and "Will Is Never Learned."
Bob Zisk remains in
the Spotlight with a sobering Holocaust poem.
Paul Buchheit is an author of books, poems, progressive essays, and
scientific journal articles. He recently completed his first historical novel,
1871: Rivers on Fire.
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Soon."
Christina
Pacosz remains in the Spotlight with three poems written during the early stages
of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
March 2023
Christina
Pacosz returns to the Spotlight after a long absence and we are happy to
have her and her poems. These three poems were written during the early stages
of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with a sobering Holocaust poem.
Edison Jennings lives in the southwestern corner of Virginia and works as a Head
Start bus driver. He served thirteen years active duty in the Navy, and after
separation he completed his education and began teaching and writing. His poetry
has appeared in several journals and anthologies. He is also the author of three
chapbooks: Reckoning, Small
Measures and A Letter to Greta.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems: "A Loose Translation,"
"Why Truth is Unpopular" and "Will Is Never Learned."
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Scarborough Thor."
THE SOCIETY OF CLASSICAL POETS — A CIRCLE JERK by Conor Kelly
has been updated with two postscripts.
Bringing Sappho to Life is a review by Martin Mc Carthy of Sappho
translations by THT editor Michael R. Burch.
Martin Mc Carthy lives in Cork City, Ireland, and spent several years working
for the Defence Forces, before studying English at UCC. He has published two
collections: Lockdown Diary (2020) and Lockdown (2021). His most recent poems
appear in the pandemic anthology, Poems from My 5k, and in numerous journals. He was
shortlisted for the Red Line Poetry Prize and was a nominee for the 2022
Pushcart Prize. At present he is working on a long sequence of love poems,
titled Book of Desire, and the poems included here are excerpted from that
sequence.
AARGH, Uncredited Again!
by Michael R. Burch
Veronica Franco translations by Michael R. Burch
Rumi
translations by Michael R. Burch
Hafez
translations by Michael R. Burch
Eihei Dogen Kigen
translations by Michael R. Burch
The "ur" poems of Michael R.
Burch
February 2023
Valentine's Day Poems
contains poems you can share with that "special someone," free of charge
for noncommercial purposes.
Bringing Sappho to Life is a review by Martin Mc Carthy of Sappho
translations by THT editor Michael R. Burch.
Martin Mc Carthy lives in Cork City, Ireland, and spent several years working
for the Defence Forces, before studying English at UCC. He has published two
collections: Lockdown Diary (2020) and Lockdown (2021). His most recent poems
appear in the pandemic anthology, Poems from My 5k, and in numerous journals. He was
shortlisted for the Red Line Poetry Prize and was a nominee for the 2022
Pushcart Prize. At present he is working on a long sequence of love poems,
titled Book of Desire, and the poems included here are excerpted from that
sequence.
The Best Ancient Erotic
Poems
THE SOCIETY OF CLASSICAL POETS — A CIRCLE JERK by Conor Kelly
Martin Elster
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "City Golf Course, Late Winter."
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Watermelon Guts."
F.F. Teague
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Lost at
sea."
Famous Comebacks and
Rejoinders
The Erratics:
These are poems I have written for poets I think of (unfondly) as the Erratics.
The Erratics fall into two main camps: one camp believes poetry should
always be metrical and/or rhyme, while the other camp thinks it should
never be metrical and/or rhyme. The first camp has no answer for the
excellence of Walt Whitman, while the second camp has no answer for the
excellence of Shakespeare. They are both mad as March hares, but not so
entertaining. — MRB
Anglo-Saxon Poems
January 2023
Julien Vocance
was the pseudonym of Joseph Seguin, a French poet and art collector who was
fascinated by Japan. A graduate of the École des Chartes and École
du Louvre with degrees in law and letters, he wrote haiku in the tradition
of the Japanese masters Basho and Buson. During World War I his collection of
haiku The Hundred Visions of War was composed at the front, in the mud
of the trenches, where the poet lost his left eye.
Bringing Sappho to Life is a review by Martin Mc Carthy of Sappho
translations by THT editor Michael R. Burch.
Kiriti Sengupta is a poet, editor, translator, and publisher from Calcutta.
A widely published poet, he
was awarded the Rabindranath Tagore Literary prize in 2018.
Satyananda Sarangi
remains in the Spotlight.
F.F. Teague
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
Translations of Roman, Latin and Italian Poets
by Michael R. Burch
the GAUD poems of michael r. burch
December 2022
The Best Christmas Poems of All
Time, in one person's opinion, range from nursery rhymes to Christmas carols to poems written by major
poets.
The Best
Christmas Songs of All Time is a collection based one fan's opinions.
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.
We are also re-featuring our page of Heretical
Christmas Poems, with contributions by Ann Drysdale, Tom Merrill and other poets
published by THT.
Julien Vocance
was the pseudonym of Joseph Seguin, a French poet and art collector who was
fascinated by Japan. A graduate of the École des Chartes and École
du Louvre with degrees in law and letters, he wrote haiku in the tradition
of the Japanese masters Basho and Buson. During World War I his collection of
haiku The Hundred Visions of War was composed at the front, in the mud
of the trenches, where the poet lost his left eye.
Mary Cresswell
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "NIGHT CROSSING," which was written
after a famous William Dunbar poem about the fear of death.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a
new poem, "Pro Forma."
Kiriti Sengupta is a poet, editor, translator, and publisher from Calcutta.
A widely published poet, he
was awarded the Rabindranath Tagore Literary prize in 2018.
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Satyananda Sarangi
remains in the Spotlight.
Bob Zisk
remains in
the Spotlight with several new poems.
November 2022
Julien Vocance
was the pseudonym of Joseph Seguin, a French poet and art collector who was
fascinated by Japan. A graduate of the École des Chartes and École
du Louvre with degrees in law and letters, he wrote haiku in the tradition
of the Japanese masters Basho and Buson. During World War I his collection of
haiku The Hundred Visions of War was composed at the front, in the mud
of the trenches, where the poet lost his left eye.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a
new poem, "Pro Forma."
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with several new poems.
Satyananda Sarangi
remains in the Spotlight.
October 2022
Julien Vocance
was the pseudonym of Joseph Seguin, a French poet and art collector who was
fascinated by Japan. A graduate of the École des Chartes and École
du Louvre with degrees in law and letters, he wrote haiku in the tradition
of the Japanese masters Basho and Buson. During World War I his collection of
haiku The Hundred Visions of War was composed at the front, in the mud
of the trenches, where the poet lost his left eye.
Satyananda Sarangi is a young civil servant by profession. A graduate in electrical engineering from IGIT Sarang, he enjoys reading Longfellow, Shelley, Coleridge, Yeats, Blake and many others. His works
have been featured in Shot Glass Journal, Snakeskin, WestWard Quarterly, Sparks of Calliope, The Society of Classical Poets, Page & Spine, Glass: Facets of Poetry, The GreenSilk Journal and elsewhere.
He currently resides in Odisha, India.
Mitali Chakravarty returns to the Spotlight with
several new poems.
Halloween Poetry was meant to be a seasonal page, but it has remained popular with readers year-round and continues to receive tens of thousands of page views per
year. Our Halloween Poetry page features tricks and treats for children and adults of all ages.
Vampire Poetry explores the eerie connections between the poet/artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, Bram Stoker, John William
Polidori (the writer of the first modern vampire story), the pre-Raphaelite models Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal, and the female vampire Lucy Westenra in Stoker's novel Dracula.
Dark Poetry has become one of our most popular pages.
Horror Poetry can be traced back to the monsters of Beowulf and the eerie Celtic underworld.
September 2022
Labor Day Poems and Songs
This is my
re-butt-al of Susan Jarvis Bryant's rebuttal of my criticism of her poem "A
Prayer for Sanity."
An'ya writes poetry in
Japanese short forms like haiku and tanka.
Susan Jarvis Bryant is the pride and
joy of the Keystone Scops. Well, perhaps not exactly the joy, if one has any
sympathy for transgender children.
Nina Parmenter
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with several new poems.
Martin Elster
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Ballade of Urban Wildlife."
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with
several
new poems.
Robin
Ouzman Hislop remains in the Spotlight with
a
new poem, "Damn You All."
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem.
August 2022
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with
several
new poems.
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
returns to the Spotlight with four new poems.
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Robin
Ouzman Hislop remains in the Spotlight with
several
new poems.
Mary Cresswell
remains in the Spotlight with several new poems after a long absence.
July 2022
Independence Day Poems and Songs
Let Freedom Sing!
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
Poems for
Ukraine
Robin
Ouzman Hislop returns to the Spotlight with
several
new poems.
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Martin Elster
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Fact or Fraud."
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with
several
new poems.
Mary Cresswell
remains in the Spotlight with several new poems after a long absence.
June 2022
Poems for
Ukraine
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a
new poem, "Hope Against Hope."
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with two new poems about Ukraine and seven sonnets.
Sunil Sharma
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.
Jim McLean
remains in the Spotlight.
Mary Cresswell
remains in the Spotlight with several new poems after a long absence.
May 2022
Poems for
Ukraine
Mother's Day Poems
Jim McLean is new
to our Spotlight and our first featured poet this month.
Mary Cresswell
returns to the Spotlight after a long absence with several new poems.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a
new poem, "variations on a theme."
Martin Elster
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "The Heart of Hell."
Sunil Sharma
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.
F.F. Teague
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.
Peggy Landsman
remains in the Spotlight with three poems from her new poetry chapbook, Our
Words, Our Worlds (Kelsay Books).
Wedding Poems
Of Men, Mice and Mincemeat (Me)
by Michael R. Burch
April 2022
Poems for
Ukraine
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a
new poem, "Veritas Odium Parit."
Sunil Sharma
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.
F.F. Teague
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.
Peggy Landsman
remains in the Spotlight with three poems from her new poetry chapbook, Our
Words, Our Worlds (Kelsay Books).
March 2022
Poems for
Ukraine, and for Ukrainian Children and their Mothers
Sunil Sharma
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Peggy Landsman
returns to the Spotlight with three poems from her new poetry chapbook, Our
Words, Our Worlds (Kelsay Books).
Jim Levy remains in
the Spotlight.
February 2022
We recently reached and passed 15 million page views, so thanks to all our poets and
readers!
Valentine's Day Poems
contains poems you can share with that "special someone," free of charge
for noncommercial purposes.
F.F. Teague
remains in the Spotlight with her naughty poem "The Penis Tree."
Bob Zisk remains in
the Spotlight with his even naughtier translation of "Catullus LIX."
He also has English adaptations of lines from François Villon and Alain Chartier.
Jim Levy grew up in Taos and Los Angeles, the son of a Freudian
psychoanalyst. He worked in executive positions for nonprofit organizations for
forty years while writing a variety of books. He was married for eight years to
the woman who became Pema Chodron, the Buddhist teacher and author. Jim has
published memoirs, essays, poetry, travel journals and a book about two
dogs. His most recent books are Those Were the Days, Life and Love in 1970s New
Mexico, written with his partner Phaedra Greenwood; Chekhov’s Mistress, literary
essays; and Of All the Stars, the Evening Star, real and fictional
Roman women poets. He lives in the village of Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico.
January 2022
We recently reached and passed 15 million page views, so thanks to all our poets and
readers!
New Year Poetry: the Poetry of Endings and New Beginnings
Famous Poems
about Drinking
Sunil Sharma is a Principal at Bharat College (affiliated with the University
of Mumbai, Mumbai) at Badlapur, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with "A Redundant Advocate Of The Inevitable."
F.F. Teague
returns to the Spotlight with a naughty new poem, "The Penis Tree."
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with an even naughtier translation of "Catullus LIX."
Martin Elster
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Where is Winter."
David B. Gosselin
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Fukuda Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), also known as Kaga
no Chiyo, was a Japanese poet, painter and calligrapher of the Edo period. She
began writing haiku at age seven and by age seventeen was popular throughout
Japan. At age 52 she became a Buddhist nun, shaved her head, adopted the name
Soen (“Escape”), and took up residence in a temple.
December 2021
The Best Christmas Poems of All
Time, in one person's opinion, range from nursery rhymes to Christmas carols to poems written by major
poets.
The Best
Christmas Songs of All Time is a collection based one fan's opinions.
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.
We are also re-featuring our page of Heretical
Christmas Poems, with contributions by Ann Drysdale, Tom Merrill and other poets.
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with six touching poems written for his cousin Patsy who died with
terminal cancer at age twelve.
John Claiborne Isbell is a poet, a professor in the Languages department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and the
author of The Birth of European Romanticism: Truth and Propaganda in Staël's 'De l'Allemagne' and Slavery in the Caribbean Francophone World.
Mitali Chakravarty returns to the Spotlight with
a new poem, "Ageing."
Martin Elster
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Your Abstract Body."
F.F. Teague
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Ode on Bird Island, Seychelles."
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with "A Redundant Advocate Of The Inevitable."
November 2021
Martin Elster
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Richard A.
Finburg is an attorney and writer based in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Tom Merrill remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "A
Redundant Advocate Of The Inevitable."
F.F. Teague
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with his "Anachronistic, Archaic and Hybridized Version of a
Rondeau by Villon, from Le Grant Testament."
October 2021
Halloween Poetry was meant to be a seasonal page, but it has remained popular with readers year-round and continues to receive tens of thousands of page views per
year. Our Halloween Poetry page features tricks and treats for children and adults of all ages.
Vampire Poetry explores the eerie connections between the poet/artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, Bram Stoker, John William
Polidori (the writer of the first modern vampire story), the pre-Raphaelite models Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal, and the female vampire Lucy Westenra in Stoker's novel Dracula.
Dark Poetry has become one of our most popular pages.
Horror Poetry can be traced back to the monsters of Beowulf and the eerie Celtic underworld.
Takaha Shugyo
is a modern master of haiku and tanka.
Mitali Chakravarty returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Peggy Landsman returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Eric Mellen returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "My first memory."
Tom Merrill remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "From The Observation Tower."
Charles (Charlie) Southerland remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
F.F. Teague remains in the Spotlight with two new poems: "Moppet’s Meteorite" and "The African jacana; or, Rhapsody
in bluebeak."
Best Sports Poems by Michael R. Burch
September 2021
Aints, Saints, Formalist Plaints by Michael R. Burch
Labor Day Poems and Songs
Rhina P. Espaillat
reminds us why it's called "Labor Day" with her poem "Find Work."
Jerome Betts
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem, "Thought For Food."
Mark Blaeuer
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Metamorphosis."
Jared Carter remains
in the Spotlight with six new poems.
Ann Drysdale
remains in the Spotlight with her poem "Shearing Day."
Martin Elster
remains in the Spotlight with "Photograph of the Last Ili Pika on Earth."
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with his
provocative
new poem, "Food For The Hungry."
Charles (Charlie) Southerland
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
F.F. Teague
remains in our Spotlight with an utterly charming new poem, "Busy
Bumblebee."
Gail White remains in our
Spotlight after an extended vacation with a new poem, "Ballade of Vanishing Species."
August 2021
We invite everyone to visit our
INSECTAGEDDON page. We have invited experts on the plight of earth's insects
to contribute their opinions and one of them called the presentation of poetry
and images "absolutely beautiful." Poets are welcome to submit poems in the
Comments. The poems we like best will be published here as well, over time.
INSECTAGEDDON is a movement of poets, artists and nature lovers to increase
global awareness of the dangers currently being faced by bees, butterflies and
other insects — many of whom we depend on to pollinate our
crops. What happens to us, without them?
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a
provocative
new poem, "Food For The Hungry."
Martin Elster,
who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford
Symphony Orchestra (now retired). Aside from playing and composing music, he
finds contentment in long walks in the woods or the city and, most of all,
writing poetry, often alluding to the creatures and plants he encounters. His
career in music has influenced his fondness for writing metrical verse, which
has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the US and
abroad. His honors include Rhymezone’s poetry contest (2016) co-winner, the
Thomas Gray Anniversary Poetry Competition (2014) winner, the Science Fiction
Poetry Association’s poetry contest (2015) third place, and four Pushcart
nominations. A full-length collection,
Celestial Euphony, was published by Plum White Press in 2019.
Gail White is back in our
Spotlight after an extended vacation with a new poem, "Ballade of Vanishing Species."
F.F. Teague
remains in our Spotlight with a new poem, "King of the Lakes."
Ann Drysdale
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Shearing Day."
Jared Carter remains
in the Spotlight with six new poems.
Mitali Chakravarty
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Peggy Landsman
remains in the Spotlight with
a new poem, "FALLING."
Dante
Translations by Michael R. Burch
July 2021
Robert
Lavett Smith
returns to our Spotlight with a relevant poem: "The Fourth of July, 2020."
F.F. Teague (Fliss) is a copyeditor/copywriter by day and a poet by night. She
lives in Pittville, a suburb of Cheltenham (UK), with various characters
including a colombine companion. From 2014 to 2016, Fliss was Poet-in-Residence
for Happenstance Border Morris; and she has enjoyed some success at The Mighty,
an online community for chronically ill persons. Fliss has severe arthritis yet
is able to work from home while sporting supportive gloves. To date, her
favourite project has been co-creating a children’s section for a safari company
website. While at work, Fliss listens to a range of music – Franck, Fats,
Faithless – and occasionally takes time out to compose lyrics (featured here).
Ann Drysdale
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Shearing Day."
Jared Carter returns
to the Spotlight with six new poems.
Michael Spangenberg, aka smilingStocks, is an American investment banker and a
poet-philosopher who reads the daily newspapers with the New Testament (the
gospel of love) and Machiavelli's The Prince (the gospel of reality) in
mind. Aside from his PhD thesis on Finance & Economics (1989), he wrote a play
for the BBC, two novels (with Bradford Gilmore MD), and 10,000 poems online. As
a literary critic, he reviewed 7,500 pieces from poets all over the world,
whilst hosting 375 contests. When it comes to Truth and Justice, he believes
that form follows substance. Dr. Michael doesn't suffer fools gladly so that he
can enjoy the simple pleasures of life such as smoking cheap cigars and writing
poetry.
Peggy Landsman
returns to the Spotlight with
a new poem, "FALLING."
Independence Day Poems and Songs
Let Freedom Sing!
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
June 2021
Memorial Day Poems and Songs
War Poems and
Anti-War Poems
Renée Vivien, born Pauline Mary Tarn (1877-1909), was a British poet and high-profile lesbian of the Belle Époque who wrote French poems in the style of the Symbolistes and Parnassiens.
Fadwa
Tuqan (1917-2003), the Grande Dame of Palestinian letters, is also known as
"the Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the very best
contemporary Arab poets. The sister of the poet Ibrahim Tuqan, she was born in
Nablus in 1917. She began writing in traditional forms, but became one of the
leaders of the use of the free verse in Arabic poetry. Her work often deals with
feminine explorations of love and social protest, particularly of Israel's
occupation of Palestinian territories.
Mahmoud Darwish
is also generally considered to be one of the very best contemporary Arab poets,
and many consider him to be the very best.
Antinatalist Poetry
May 2021
Armen Davoudian is the author of Swan Song, which won the 2020 Frost
Place Chapbook Competition. His poems and translations from Persian have
appeared in AGNI, The Sewanee Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere.
He grew up in Isfahan, Iran and is currently a PhD candidate in English at
Stanford University.
Freddy Niagara Fonseca hails from South America and currently lives in Iowa.
He has absorbed the histories and cultures of Greece, France, Spain, England,
Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United States through his travels;
worked in graphic design and banking in Amsterdam; studied voice and Italian;
and worked in films in Rome. He has read extensively in six languages, including
well over 10,000 poems by authors native to Germany, the Netherlands, Great
Britain, France, Italy, Spanish-speaking countries, and America, and feels a
particular resonance with, and a link to, American poetry.
As a young adult, he actually disliked poetry. However, while visiting Rome he
was moved by a pedestal inscription on a statue of Lord Byron in Villa Borghese
Park, and wrote his first poem the next day.
Eric Mellen
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Out of body dick."
Adam Sedia
remains in the Spotlight with several new poems.
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem, "Waiting for Dr. Kumar."
Bob Zisk remains in
the Spotlight with two new poems.
Bible False Prophecies
Translations of
Anglo-Saxon/Old English poems:
The Ruin,
Wulf and Eadwacer,
The Wife's Lament,
The Husband's Message,
Deor's Lament,
Caedmon's Hymn,
Bede's Death Song,
The Seafarer,
Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings,
The Rhyming Poem,
The Rhyming Poems of Saint Godric of Finchale
The Best Poems of Michael R.
Burch (in his own opinion)
April 2021
Armen Davoudian is the author of Swan Song, which won the 2020 Frost
Place Chapbook Competition. His poems and translations from Persian have
appeared in AGNI, The Sewanee Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere.
He grew up in Isfahan, Iran and is currently a PhD candidate in English at
Stanford University.
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with two new poems.
Eric Mellen
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Out of body dick."
Adam Sedia
remains in the Spotlight with several poems published newly in March.
The Rhyming Poem
is aptly named, since it appears to be the oldest
rhyming poem in the English language. The only rhyming poem in the oldest
English poetry anthology, the Exeter Book (circa 950 AD), this 87-line
original may have been experimental verse in its day, but it did catch on in a
big way!
Timeline of Rhyme
Romantic Poetry Timeline
Free Verse Timeline
MICHELANGELO Translations by Michael R. Burch
Ancient Egyptian Harper's Songs
The Longer Poems of Sappho of Lesbos
The Roses of Pieria
Translations of the ancient Anglo-Saxon poems The Wife's Lament and The Husband's Message
March 2021
The Keystone Scops are at it again. In their unassailable wisdom they have
explained why the enslavement and enserfment of
darker-skinned people is actually good and beneficial for
them! The real victim is, ta-da!, the White Master! Thankful to have been
enlightened by the Key Stoners, THT editor Michael R. Burch has written a new
poem, "Sonnet to White Supremacism #666," which you can read here:
The Society of Classical Poets: The Keystone Scops.
Robin Helweg-Larsen
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems — new to us but
not to him, since they're his two oldest surviving poems, written at age 17 and
20.
Eric Mellen
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Out of body dick."
Adam Sedia is a poet, author, essayist and composer. His poems,
essays, and stories have appeared in The Chained Muse Review, Indiana Voice
Journal, Tulip Tree Review, and other publications, and he has published three
volumes of poetry: The Spring's Autumn (2013), Inquietude
(2016), and Visions Beyond (2018). His music can be heard on his
YouTube channel. He lives in his native Northwest Indiana with his wife, Ivana,
and their children, where he practices law as a civil litigator and municipal
attorney.
Bob Zisk returns to
the Spotlight with a poem about capital punishment gone hellishly awry, "May 2,
1960."
Bob Zisk's poem reminded us of Clarence Darrow and his remarkable
VOLTAIRE essay.
Darrow of course defended teenage "thrill killers"
Leopold and Leob in their sensational "trial of the century."
Literary Devices
Poems about EROS and CUPID
Antipater of Sidon
Anglo-Saxon/Old English poems:
The Ruin,
Wulf and Eadwacer,
The Wife's Lament,
Deor's Lament,
Caedmon's Hymn,
Bede's Death Song,
The Seafarer,
Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings
February 2021
Valentine's Day Poems
contains poems you can share with that "special someone," free of charge
for noncommercial purposes.
ALL SHOOK UP: We have another episode in the continuing saga of the Keystone
Scops. Don Shook recently shook the literary world to its very foundations, by crying
out for God Almighty to replace free verse with excruciatingly bad formal
verse. But shouldn't addresses to the LORD be properly punctuated? THT editor
Michael R. Burch is not convinced that Shook's shaky prayer will be answered
affirmatively:
The Society of Classical Poets: The Keystone Scops.
This bio of the Holocaust poet
Ber Horvitz or
Ber Horowitz comes from the
aptly-named website Poetry in Hell:
Born to village people in the
woods of Maidan in the West Carpathians, Ber Horowitz (1895-1942) showed artistic talent early on.
He went to gymnazie in Stanislavov, and then served in the Austrian army during
WWI, where he was a medic to Italian prisoners of war. He studied medicine in
Vienna and was published in many Yiddish newspapers. Fluent in several
languages, he translated Polish and Ukrainian into Yiddish. He also wrote poetry in
Yiddish. There are two different versions of his murder in 1942: He was
either killed by Nazis with nine thousand other Jews in Stanislavov, or he was
killed by peasants in his home village and birthplace of Maidan.
Here is a podcast
in which New Lyre editor David Gosselin and Adam Sedia discuss the
poetry of
Kevin Roberts
and recite a number of his poems.
Ranald Barnicot
returns to the Spotlight with a new translation of a Diotimus epigram.
Mitali Chakravarty
is an Indian poet and the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Borderless
Journal.
Catherine Chandler is a poet, translator, editor and an unapologetic formalista.
She was born in New York City and raised in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She holds
a Master of Arts from McGill, where she has lectured in Spanish in its Department of Languages and
Translation. Her new formalist poems and Spanish and French translations have been published in numerous
print and online journals and anthologies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and
Australia, including Measure, The Raintown Review, Orbis, The Barefoot Muse, Mezzo Cammin,
Blue Unicorn, The Lyric, Candelabrum, Umbrella, Chimaera, The Centrifugal Eye,
Möbius, Modern Haiku, First Things, Iambs and Trochees, Texas Poetry Journal, Alabama Literary Review,
Soundzine and others. She won the 2016 Richard Wilbur award for her book The Frangible
Hour, which was selected by Dick Davis and published by
the University of Evansville Press.
Amanda Gorman (1998-) is
an American poet and activist. She became the youngest
poet, at age 22, to recite a poem at an American presidential inauguration when
she performed her original poem "The Hill We Climb" during the ceremonies as Joe
Biden was sworn in. Gorman followed in the
footsteps of previous inaugural poets such as Robert Frost (the first) and Maya
Angelou.
Peggy Landsman is back in the Spotlight with
a new poem, "MEMORY."
Tom Merrill,
our most published-poet, remains in the Spotlight with a
new poem, "To A Secret Friend."
Robert Lavett Smith
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES."
Charles (Charlie) Southerland
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Anaďs Vionet
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Understatement Examples
from Shakespeare and Elsewhere
Matsuo Basho's Famous Frog
Poem
The Love Song of Shu-Sin:
The Earth's Oldest Love Poem?
The Best Celebrity Poets and the Worst
Prose Poems by Michael R.
Burch
Experimental Poems by
Michael R. Burch
January 2021
New Year Poetry: the Poetry of Endings and New Beginnings
Famous Poems
about Drinking
Tom Merrill,
our most published-poet, returns to the Spotlight with three
new poems.
Leslie Mellichamp
was the longtime editor of The Lyric, the oldest magazine in North
America devoted to traditional poetry. He was also the author of scores of poems,
essays, and short stories that appeared in major publications
such as
the Atlantic, New York Times, Saturday Review, Ladies'
Home Journal and the Georgia Review. Believing with the gifted
contributors who have kept The Lyric alive since 1921 that the roots of a
living poetry lie in music and the common life, rather than in the fragmented
bizarre, and that rhyme, structure, and lucidity are timeless attributes of
enduring poetry, he offered his own lyrics as tributes to life's ancient
ironies, the earth's patient resilience, the impudence of lovers, the wondrous
eyes of children, and the cunning of that soft-shoed thief, Time. Although he
died in 2001, Leslie Mellichamp's poems continue to speak to us. And let me add that
The Lyric is still in publication, now edited by Leslie's daughter, Jean
Mellichamp Milliken. We
encourage all THT visitors to consider a subscription to The Lyric, and
we support The Lyric in its many worthwhile endeavors. — Michael R.
Burch, editor of The HyperTexts
Anne Whitehouse
has four published poetry collections. She is also the author of a novel and her fiction has appeared widely in literary magazines. Her long poem,
Surrealist Muse, about Leonora Carrington, has been published as a
chapbook and online. She has also published an essay, The Imp of the
Perverse, about Edgar Allan Poe.
Bob Zisk once had
thoughts (bordering on plans) to become a medievalist, then came late to poetry
late because his Muse was "not a good girl" in his youth.
Richard Craven is an Anglo-Canadian former academic philosopher who writes
high-burlesque literary fiction and formal verse, primarily iambic pentameter in
its two dominant forms, the sonnet and the heroic couplet. His writing satirises
the sociocultural deracination and degeneracy, of his adoptive Bristol
specifically, and of contemporary Western civilisation by extension. He is the
author of the novels Bile (written as Mark Brand), Amoeba Dick,
Pretty Poli, Odour Issues, and the forthcoming Helix Folt the
Conservative, and has also written a full-length Jacobean revenge tragedy,
The Senseless Counterfeit.
Joseph Andros describes himself as an Unprofessional Songwriter, a Freelance Insultant (Undeliberate), a Professional Debtor, a Chief Neologian and Synonym
Differentiator, a Social Justice Worrier and Unrepentant Unregenerate Privilege
Apologist, and an Online Poet of Note (at least one).
Jemshed Khan
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem he describes as an oddity: a sestina
written in authentic period 1600's English language and narrating the Mayflower
journey and introduction of pox into the native population. According to the
author it is historically accurate in all details, and the language, syntax, and spelling are based on the period writings of Wm
Bradford.
Edward Nudelman
returns to our Spotlight with three new poems.
There is a podcast review by David B. Gosselin, editor of New Lyre, and
Adam Sedia: The Poetry of Michael R.
Burch, with nine poems recited and discussed.
The Top Hundred
Athletes of All Time
December 2020
Leslie Mellichamp
was the longtime editor of The Lyric, the oldest magazine in North
America devoted to traditional poetry. He was also the author of scores of poems,
essays, and short stories that appeared in major publications
such as
the Atlantic, New York Times, Saturday Review, Ladies'
Home Journal and the Georgia Review. Believing with the gifted
contributors who have kept The Lyric alive since 1921 that the roots of a
living poetry lie in music and the common life, rather than in the fragmented
bizarre, and that rhyme, structure, and lucidity are timeless attributes of
enduring poetry, he offered his own lyrics as tributes to life's ancient
ironies, the earth's patient resilience, the impudence of lovers, the wondrous
eyes of children, and the cunning of that soft-shoed thief, Time. Although he
died in 2001, Leslie Mellichamp's poems continue to speak to us. And let me add that
The Lyric is still in publication, now edited by Leslie's daughter, Jean
Mellichamp Milliken. We
encourage all THT visitors to consider a subscription to The Lyric, and
we support The Lyric in its many worthwhile endeavors. — Michael R.
Burch, editor of The HyperTexts
Mark Blaeuer grew up in Illinois but has also resided in Pennsylvania, Colorado,
Utah, and Arkansas. He was employed for many years as a park ranger and an
archeologist but now researches, writes about, and presents programs on
Hot Springs, Arkansas, baseball history. His poems (as well as a few translations) have appeared in
several dozen literary journals, including Able Muse, Antiphon, The
Centrifugal Eye, Chrysanthemum, The Edge City Review, The Ekphrastic Review, El
Portal, The Lyric, Measure, The Plains Poetry Journal, Pudding, The Raintown
Review, Slant, SPSM&H, Westview, and The Windsor Review. Kelsay
Books published a collection of his work in 2014.
David B. Gosselin
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems in his "Modern Dreams" series.
Robin Helweg-Larsen
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Charles (Charlie) Southerland
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem, "Rope."
Anaďs Vionet
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems: "Alarm!!!" and "the agent."
Anne Whitehouse
has four published poetry collections. She is also the author of a novel and her fiction has appeared widely in literary magazines. Her long poem,
Surrealist Muse, about Leonora Carrington, has been published as a
chapbook and online. She has also published an essay, The Imp of the
Perverse, about Edgar Allan Poe.
November 2020
Vera Pavlova
(1963-) is a contemporary Russian poet, born in Moscow. She is a graduate of the
Schnittke College of Music and the Gnessin Academy
of Music, where she specialized in music history. She has worked as a guide at
the Shaliapin Museum in Moscow and has published several essays on music. She
began writing poetry at age twenty, after the birth of her first daughter, while
she was still at the maternity ward.
Line Gauthier
describes herself as "A late babyboomer Canadian born in the
beautiful Eastern Townships of Quebec and raised in Northern Ontario" who "fell in love with Ottawa, where she received her B.A. with a major in
French literature." In her oncoming golden years she writes mostly free verse and
micro poetry. She has published several photography/poetry books and has other works in
progress. A member of Haiku Canada, her haiku has been published in various
anthologies.
Ranald Barnicot
returns to the Spotlight with three new translations of Catullus, to go with one
previous one.
Peggy Landsman is back in the Spotlight with
a new poem, "WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW."
Max Rifkin
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Leaves So Lifeless," that he wrote
about Anne Sexton at age thirteen.
Mike Alexander
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.
Nina Parmenter lives in Wiltshire, UK. She squeezes her writing into the tiny
spaces between work and motherhood. Her poems have been published or are
forthcoming in Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, The Lyric, The New Verse
News and Ink, Sweat & Tears.
Richa Sharma
has been published in haiku journals. She hopes to continuously develop a
quality of natural writing that will be uniquely her own.
Muhammad Ali, Poet?
October 2020
Halloween Poetry was meant to be a seasonal
page, but it has remained popular with readers year-round and continues to get
tens of thousands of views per year. It features tricks and treats for
children and adults alike.
Vampire Poetry explores the eerie
connections between the poet/artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet Algernon
Charles Swinburne, Bram Stoker, John William Polidori (the writer of the first
modern vampire story), the pre-Raphaelite models Jane Morris and Elizabeth
Siddal, and the female vampire Lucy Westenra in Stoker's novel
Dracula.
Dark Poetry has
become one of our most popular pages.
Horror Poetry can be traced back to the
monsters of Beowulf and the eerie Celtic underworld.
Mike Alexander
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Nina Parmenter lives in Wiltshire, UK. She squeezes her writing into the tiny
spaces between work and motherhood. Her poems have been published or are
forthcoming in Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, The Lyric, The New Verse
News and Ink, Sweat & Tears.
Charles (Charlie) Southerland
remains in our Spotlight with a new poem, "My Pompeii."
David B. Gosselin
returns to the Spotlight with two new poems in his "Modern Dreams" series.
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem, "Writer Guy Next Door..."
Anaďs Vionet
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Breathlessly..."
Japanese Zen Death Poems
September 2020
Labor Day Poems and Songs
Nina Parmenter lives in Wiltshire, UK. She squeezes her writing into the tiny
spaces between work and motherhood. Her poems have been published or are
forthcoming in Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, The Lyric, The New Verse
News and Ink, Sweat & Tears.
Peggy Landsman is back in the Spotlight with
a new poem, "TALKING IT OVER WITH MYSELF."
Robert Lavett Smith
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "ELEGY WITH EVENING FOG."
Charles (Charlie) Southerland
remains in our Spotlight with a new poem, "A Cordial Undertow."
Anaďs Vionet
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Unwise Advances."
Kevin N. Robert's Fatal Women book review by David Gosselin
Randal A. Burd's Memoirs of a Witness Tree book review by Michael
R. Burch
Poems about Icarus,
Flying and Flights of Fancy by Michael R. Burch
August 2020
Al-Qassim Abdulsalam is a Nigerian poet, born in 1992 in Dekina, a local
government area of Kogi State, Nigeria. He is a graduate of Kogi State
University and currently lives in Abuja, Nigeria, in the western part of Africa.
He calls himself the "Bloody Poet" and has written many poems yet to be
published.
Ms. dONNA m. dAVIS-pRUSIK started writing creatively instead of
practicing during Typing Class in High School. Hence flunking typing, eventually
turning the accumulated error-ridden nonsense into poetry and some short
stories.
Gordon Ramel,
an eco-poetry pioneer, returns to our Spotlight with a new poem, "In the Time of
the Masks."
Ed Shacklee is a public defender who lives on a boat in the Potomac River.
His first collection, The Blind Loon: A Bestiary, was published in 2017 by Able
Muse Press.
Robert Lavett Smith
remains in the Spotlight with four new poems.
Charles (Charlie) Southerland
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem, "Responding to the Howl."
Uyghur Poetry Translations by Michael R. Burch
including "Elegy" by Perhat Tursun, a poet who has been "disappeared" into a
Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp. According to John Bolton, such
concentration camps were praised by Trump as "exactly the right thing to do" as
he negotiated a trade deal he saw as critical to his reelection chances prior to
the coronavirus pandemic.
July 2020
Independence Day Poems and Songs
Robert Lavett Smith
remains in our Spotlight with his highly relevant poem "The Fourth of July,
2020."
Let Freedom Sing!
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
Lance Jencks has been writing poetry for fifty years. In the 1970s he earned an
MFA in playwriting and a PhD in Contemporary Theatre. In the 1980s he published
his verse-based roman á clef, The Wisdom of Southern California, then toured
that region with a one-man show of the same name. Lance has been an advertising
copywriter, a stock-and-bond broker, and the guy who hooks your car to the chain
at the car wash. He lives today in Newport Beach, California, where he was
recently featured in the epic bodysurfing movie Dirty Old Wedge, streaming on
Amazon Prime.
Robin Helweg-Larsen
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Sly Reality."
Max Rifkin began writing poems at age twelve. Now
eighteen, he has a
poetry book in the works. This is Max's first publication by a
literary journal, but surely not his last.
Tina Sequeira is an Indian author, poet and marketer. Winner of the Rashtriya
Gaurav Award in association with the Government of Telangana for ‘Author of the
Year’ (2019), the Orange Flower Award (2017) by Women’s Web, the Literoma Nari
Samman Award (2020), and GrandQueens Leadership Award (2020) by Lions Club
International, Tina has published over twenty short stories and poems in
anthologies and literary journals since 2017. Tina is the author of two
books–both fiction and non-fiction. Soul Sojourn, a melange of real-life
stories, experiences, and learnings, tops the ‘Best Ebooks Ever 2017’ on
Goodreads. Bhumi (2019), a collection of sixteen stories of the contemporary
Indian woman, fetched her awards and ‘by invite’ an Amazon Prime Reading deal. She
is also the founder of ‘Write Away’, where she mentors her students on the subtle
nuances of creative writing. Find her at
www.thetinaedit.com and @thetinaedit.
Anaďs Vionet
remains in the Spotlight with four new poems.
June 2020
Archbishop Michael Seneco has published THT editor Michael R. Burch's Holocaust
poem "Pfennig
Postcard, Wrong Address" on his Facebook page and personal website
— on around twenty pages in all.
Poems for the Victims and Survivors of the
Coronavirus
Tom Merrill
remains in our Spotlight with a new poem, "LIFE AS AN OBSTRUCTION."
Max Rifkin began writing poems at age twelve. Now
eighteen, he has a
poetry book in the works. This is Max's first publication by a
literary journal, but surely not his last.
Anaďs Vionet is
a sixteen-year-old high school student with a very promising future as a poet
and writer. This is also her first publication by a literary journal.
David B. Gosselin returns
to the Spotlight with two new poems.
Robert Lavett Smith
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
May 2020
Memorial Day Poems and Songs
Poems for the Victims and Survivors of the
Coronavirus
Mother's Day Poems
Tom Merrill
remains in our Spotlight with a new poem, "LIFE AS AN OBSTRUCTION."
Gail Kaye-Naegele
remains in our Spotlight. This is her first publication by a literary journal.
Claire Brew is a poet
and actress who lives in Sydney, Australia. She
describes herself as "a passionate and expressive woman who has a great love for
telling stories." This is her first publication by a literary journal, but we
suspect it won't be the last.
Anne Hurlebaus lives in the Greater Boston area and is a single mother of a
rambunctious three-year-old boy. A “retired” bartender, she is currently a Quality Assurance Manager/Food Safety Specialist
for a national brand. She started writing poetry at the age of 14 and is “world
renowned” ... among her family and friends, at least! After dozens of notebooks
filled and many online posts, this is her first publication by a literary
journal.
Anaďs Vionet is
a sixteen-year-old high school student with a very promising future as a poet
and writer. This is also her first publication by a literary journal.
Robert Lavett Smith
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems. He has been widely published,
breaking the string.
Ancient
Mayan Love Poems
Gulzar
April 2020
Poems for the Victims and Survivors of the
Coronavirus
Gail Kaye-Naegele is a retired nurse, a former book indexer, a lifelong
lover of the arts, a poet, and a visual artist. She has published her poems online
as Gaill Naegele, using a variation of her maiden name, g.EveKaye, and as
Loretta Young. We are glad to solve the mystery and confirm that these three talented poets
are actually one! This is her first publication by a literary journal.
Bruce Bennett co-founded and served as an editor of FIELD: Contemporary Poetry
and Poetics. He then co-founded and
served as an editor of Ploughshares. Bruce is also the author of ten
books of poetry, more than thirty poetry chapbooks, and has won a Pushcart Prize
for his villanelle "The Thing's Impossible."
David Sklar lives in a cliffside cottage in northern New Jersey, and almost
supports his family as a freelance writer, editor, and drug pusher. A Rhysling
nominee and past winner of the Julia Moore Award for Bad Verse, he has more than
100 published works. He’s also the creator of the Poetry Crisis Line,
which features new verse-related cartoons every Monday and Thursday.
Gilda J. Math,
the former Gilda Castillo, lives in sunny Florida where she writes poems in
English, French, Spanish and Italian. She has worked as a translator, tutor,
portrait artist and financial counselor, and is currently retired.
Jake Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and former Foreign Service
officer who served 27 years with the U.S. State Department in ten
countries. He has completed four SF novels
and his work has appeared in numerous literary magazines online.
Tom Merrill
remains in our Spotlight with a new poem, "LIFE AS AN OBSTRUCTION."
Jared Carter remains
in the Spotlight with five new poems.
Reviewed: Jared Carter's
The
Land Itself.
Peggy Landsman is back in the Spotlight with four new poems.
Robert Lavett Smith
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems pertinent to the coronavirus
pandemic.
David B. Gosselin remains in the Spotlight with four new translations.
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
returns to our Spotlight with a four-part poem, "Saving You."
Robin Helweg-Larsen returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Ranald Barnicot
returns to the Spotlight with three translations of Horace.
Nasir Kazmi
Song Lyrics by Michael R.
Burch, who has had poems set to music by seven composers.
March 2020
Tom Merrill
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem, "LIFE AS AN OBSTRUCTION."
Jared Carter remains
in the Spotlight with five new poems.
Reviewed: Jared Carter's
The
Land Itself.
Robert Lavett Smith
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems.
David B.
Gosselin remains in the Spotlight with four new translations.
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
is an American poet, storyteller, painter and artist.
Ranald Barnicot
remains in the Spotlight with translations of Catullus, Rimbaud and
Verlaine.
Rahat Indori
Doggerel and Nonsense Verse by
Michael R. Burch
Erotic Poems by Michael R. Burch
February 2020
Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor
is an American poet, storyteller, painter and artist.
jacob erin-cilberto, originally from Bronx, NY, now resides in Carbondale,
Illinois. erin-cilberto has been writing and publishing poetry since 1970. erin-cilberto has
been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in 2006-2007-2008 and again in
2010. He has taught poetry workshops for Heartland Writers Guild, Southern
Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild.
Robert Lavett Smith
returns to our Spotlight with three new poems.
David B.
Gosselin is back in our Spotlight with four new translations.
Ranald Barnicot
returns to the Spotlight with translations of Catullus, Rimbaud and
Verlaine.
Matsuo Basho
Yosa Buson
Kobayashi Issa
Ono no Komachi
Yamaguchi Seishi
Jaun Elia
January 2020
The title of
Jemshed Khan's
poem "#48689" refers to the tattooed numbers on the arm of Sonia Warshawski,
a survivor of the Holocaust who is Khan's tailor and the subject of the movie Big
Sonia.
Jared Carter returns
to our Spotlight with five new poems you won't want to miss.
Reviewed: Jared Carter's
Darkened Rooms of Summer.
Mandakini Bhattacherya
returns to the Spotlight with five new poems.
Ranald Barnicot
returns to the Spotlight with two translations of the Portuguese poet
António Ferreira (1528-1569).
Robin Helweg-Larsen
returns to the Spotlight with two heretical poems: "Religions" and "Four God
Limericks."
Lem Ibbotson in his own words: "At 20 I had a degree in Physics and
Math, followed later by a diploma (degree equivalent) in electrical engineering.
I taught electrical and electronic subjects in Polytechnics and Universities,
being what you would call a professor, although in the UK that appellation is
reserved for the most senior. From that background I have written two text books
and collaborated in a third. At the end of my career I took an arts degree and a
masters in education. I have always been regarded as a competent writer, and
have written poetry as a hobby most if my life — much more since I retired (I am
87 years old)."
Jane Morris is a free-spirited Cornish woman who loves nothing more than to
wander by the sea and watch the waves ebb and flow. She is passionate about
everything to do with marine life and is a member of Seaquest Southwest, an
organisation which aims to track and protect ocean wildlife. She and her husband
welcome all kinds of birds and wildlife to their village garden.
Michael R. Burch Free Verse
Geoffrey Chaucer translations
Charles d'Orleans translations
Amir Khusrow
December 2019
The Best Christmas Poems of All
Time, in one person's opinion, range from nursery rhymes to Christmas carols to poems written by major
poets.
The Best
Christmas Songs of All Time is a collection based one fan's opinions.
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.
We are also re-featuring our page of Heretical
Christmas Poems, with contributions by Ann Drysdale, Tom Merrill and other poets.
Did Lord Bryon inspire Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein? is
a speculative essay by Michael R. Burch.
Sonnets by Michael R. Burch
Charles Baudelaire translations by Michael R. Burch
Paul Verlaine translations by Michael R. Burch
Rabindranath Tagore translations by Michael R. Burch
November 2019
The Best Thanksgiving Poems and Poems of Gratitude and Hope
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems, "How Possibility Breeds Religion"
and "Just Asking."
Robert Lavett Smith, raised in New Jersey, has lived since 1987 in San
Francisco, where for the past fifteen years he has worked as a Special Education
Paraprofessional. He has studied with Charles Simic and Galway Kinnell. He is
the author of several chapbooks and two full-length poetry collections, the most
recent of which is Smoke
In Cold Weather: A Gathering of Sonnets (Full Court Press, 2013).
Al-Qassim Abdulsalam
has been nominated for a Best of the Net by Better Than Starbucks for
his poem "Papa" (which now appears at the top of his poetry page).
Keith G. Balser is a retired copy editor and freelance writer, originally from
Long Island, currently residing in Northeast Florida. His preferred poetic forms
are the sonnet and villanelle. His poetry book, Girl of My Autumn Dreams,
is a collection of 250 traditional rhyme-and-meter verse form poems. It is
available on Amazon.
Jerome Betts
remains in our Spotlight.
Randal A.
Burd, Jr. remains in our Spotlight.
This World's Joy is a modern English translation of an ancient classic.
The Common Thread
is an essay about the common characteristics of poetry through the ages, going
back to the first written poetry of ancient Sumer and Egypt.
The Cosmological
Constant: Limericks by Michael R. Burch
The HyperTexts and Commaful recently sponsored a free poetry
contest for mostly younger writers and the contest results are
here.
October 2019
Halloween Poetry was meant to be a seasonal
page, but it has remained popular with readers year-round and continues to get
tens of thousands of views per year. It features tricks and treats for
children and adults alike.
Vampire Poetry explores the eerie
connections between the poet/artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet Algernon
Charles Swinburne, Bram Stoker, John William Polidori (the writer of the first
modern vampire story), the pre-Raphaelite models Jane Morris and Elizabeth
Siddal, and the female vampire Lucy Westenra in Stoker's novel
Dracula.
Dark Poetry has
become one of our most popular pages.
Horror Poetry can be traced back to the
monsters of Beowulf and the eerie Celtic underworld.
Al-Qassim Abdulsalam
has been nominated for a Best of the Net by Better Than Starbucks for
his poem "Papa" (which now appears at the top of his poetry page).
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems, "How Possibility Breeds Religion"
and "Just Asking."
Jerome Betts
remains in our Spotlight.
Randal A.
Burd, Jr. remains in our Spotlight.
Charles d'Orleans was born into an aristocratic family: his
grandfather was Charles V of France and his uncle was Charles VI. His father was
a patron of poets and artists, and the poet Christine de Pizan dedicated poems
to his mother, Valentina Visconti. He became the Duke of Orleans at age 13 after
his father was murdered by John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. He was captured
at age 21 in the battle of Agincourt and taken to England, where he remained a
prisoner for the next quarter century. While imprisoned he learned English and
wrote poetry of a high order in his second language. A master of poetic forms,
he wrote primarily ballades, chansons and rondels. He has also been credited
with writing the first Valentine’s Day poem.
Is Jimmy Carter a good poet?
Much depends on what one means by “good.” Jimmy Carter is certainly a capable
writer. Some of his poems do little for me personally, but I have read a few
that seem pretty good. For instance:
I Wanted to Share My Father's World
by Jimmy Carter
This is a pain I mostly hide,
but ties of blood, or seed endure,
and even now I
feel inside
the hunger for his outstretched hand,
a man's embrace to take me in,
the need for just a word of praise.
The internal rhymes of “ties” with “hide” and “inside,” of “man” with “hand,” of
“endure” with “hunger,” and of “need” with “seed” make this a sonically dense
little poem. I think this is good poetry, and I like the poem.
— Michael R. Burch
Poems
for Children by Michael R. Burch
September 2019
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Just Asking."
Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England and edits the quarterly
Lighten Up Online. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and
anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam
Quarterly, Angle, Light, The Asses of Parnassus, The New Verse News, Per Contra,
The Rotary Dial, and Snakeskin.
Randal A.
Burd, Jr. is a married father of two and an educator who works with the
disadvantaged in rural Missouri. He holds a master's degree in English
Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Missouri. Randal is currently
the Editor-in-Chief of Sparks of Calliope magazine. His latest
collection of poems, Memoirs of a Witness Tree, is forthcoming from
Kelsay Books in Summer 2020.
This poem is a somber reminder of man's inhumanity to man ...
Speechless
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch
At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
mountains of shoes
returning, we stared out different windows.
Alexander Pushkin's tender, touching poem "I
Love You" has been translated into English by Michael R. Burch.
Adi Wolfson is an eco-poetry pioneer. In addition to being a poet, he is also an
environmental activist, an expert on sustainability, and a professor of chemical
engineering. Adi has published four poetry books and has won several awards,
including Israel's prestigious Levi Eshkol Prize for Literature, in
2017. He also writes a regular column on environmental issues at YNET and
in 2014 was
awarded a "Green Globe" by Life and Environment, an umbrella organization that
works with more than a hundred Israeli "green" groups.
But recently Adi has written an entirely different kind of book, a compelling
collection of poems called I Am Your Father. THT editor Michael R.
Burch helped translate the Hebrew poems into English. Adi explains the book's genesis as follows: "Recently, I have
accompanied my daughter on her long and complex journey to find herself. She
eventually figured out that she wants to be a boy, and we began the new,
challenging path of transgenderism. During this time, I wrote poems as a way of
thinking, processing, and speaking with myself." THT is honored to publish
an
Interview with Adi Woodson about his latest book.
Gordon Ramel,
another eco-poetry pioneer,
returns to our Spotlight with a number of new poems.
Sonny Kerr is a translator of the poems of Robert Burns.
José Eustacio Rivera,
born in 1888 in the Huila department, is one of the most important figures in
Colombia’s literary history.
Native American Poetry Translations
Mirza Ghalib Translations by Michael R. Burch
Ahmad
Faraz Translations by Michael R. Burch
Faiz
Ahmed Faiz Translations by Michael R. Burch
Allama Iqbal Translations
by Michael R. Burch
The Best Poems about Mothers
August 2019
Curses, Foiled Again! by
Michael R. Burch is a short piece about the blessings and curses of poems going
viral.
Kevin Roberts
remains in our Spotlight.
ROMANTICS QUARTERLY: A
Retrospective, Chronology and History
Michael R. Burch Romantic
Poems
Meleager was a Greek poet who lived during the first century BC. Meleager is most famous today for
The Garland, an anthology of
epigrammatic poems written over the previous two centuries. In its preface
Meleager names his contributors and assigns each poet the name of a flower,
shrub or herb (hence the title). This work was subsumed into what has become
known as The Greek Anthology. In his commentary on The Greek Anthology, editor
and translator J. H. Merivale said of Meleager that as a “composer of epigrams
he was very far superior” to the authors he included in The Garland.
July 2019
Vera Ignatowitsch
returns to our Spotlight with a hard-hitting poem, "I Will Not." We
have also published a review of Vera's poetry:
Vera Ignatowitsch: A Critical Appreciation
by THT editor Michael R. Burch.
Adi
Wolfson is an eco-poetry pioneer previously published by The HyperTexts.
He has recently written a startling new book of poems, I Am Your Father.
Adi explains the book's genesis as follows:
"Recently, I have accompanied my daughter on her long and complex journey to
find herself. She eventually figured out that she wants to be a boy, and we
began the new, challenging path of transgenderism. During this time, I wrote
poems as a way of thinking, processing, and speaking with myself. I Am Your
Father includes English versions of the poems as translated by THT editor
Michael R. Burch. The book is now being published by Finishing Line Press and
can be ordered by clicking the hyperlinked book title:
I Am Your Father.
Ranald Barnicot
remains in our Spotlight with five new translations.
Mandakini Bhattacherya, from Kolkata, lives there with her family. She is a
product of Bhavnagar University, Gujarat and Punjabi University and is currently
an Assistant Professor of English at Fakir Chand College, affiliated with
the University of Calcutta. She has been published by Better Than Starbucks,
The Dotism Journal, The HyperTexts and Poetry Nation.
Blake Campbell
returns to our Spotlight with three new poems you won't want to miss.
Elizabeth
Daryush was much more than Robert Bridges' daughter.
James Joyce is
better known for his poetic prose today, but in his day he was a "real" poet
highly regarded for his musicality.
Kevin Nicholas Roberts [1969-2008] was a poet, fiction writer
and professor of English Literature. Kevin
spent three
years in the English countryside of Suffolk writing Romantic poetry and
studying the Romantic Masters beside the North Sea. His poetry has been
compared to that of Algernon Charles Swinburne, one of his major influences. Kevin was
born on the 4th of April in the United States, which, accounting for the hour of
his birth and the time zone difference, just happened to be Swinburne's
birthdate, April the 5th, in England. And Kevin Roberts claimed to be the reincarnation of
Swinburne ...
ROMANTICS QUARTERLY: A Retrospective, Chronology and History
Charles (Charlie) Southerland
returns to our Spotlight.
Independence Day Poems and Songs
Let Freedom Sing!
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
Epitaphs by Michael R. Burch
June 2019
Libelous
Blasphemies of the Lord of Hosts (unless they're true) by Michael R. Burch
CHATTERTON
(recently updated)
Why did William Wordsworth call Thomas Chatterton the "marvellous Boy,"
capitalizing the "b"? Why did John Keats called him the "purest writer in the
English language" and write "Endymion" in a "feverish attempt" to set Chatterton
"among the stars / Of highest heaven"? Why did Samuel Taylor Coleridge work on
his first published poem, "Monody on the Death of Chatterton," on-and-off for
more than forty years, so that it was also one of his last published poems? Why
did Percy Bysshe Shelley name Chatterton among his "inheritors of unfulfilled
renown"? One would think great poets would recognize great poetry when they
encountered it, and the great Romantics thought Thomas Chatterton was a truly
great poet, even though he died at age seventeen.
Charlotte Turner Smith
was an early Romantic poet who published in her own name and spoke for women's
rights in a male-dominated era. She also helped
revive interest in the English sonnet and influenced English romantic poets like
William Wordsworth with her poetic landscapes.
Rejection Slips by
Michael R. Burch asks the question: did the poet slip up, or was it his editors?
Of course the author is perfectly object-ive!
John Whitworth
remains in our Spotlight with madcap musical satires that border on the
incantatory, such as "The Examiners" and "God Squad."
Conrad Geller, a native Bostonian, now lives in Northern Virginia.
His poem "Skaters" is one of the eerier poems we've read recently, and one of
the better ones as well.
Michael Ferris
remains in our Spotlight with a poem that won The Lyric's
quarterly award.
Several poems by THT editor Michael R. Burch have been translated into Hungarian
by István Bagi and can be read
here.
Michael R. Burch Critical Writings and Miscellanea
May 2019
The Best Memorial Day Poems and Songs
Conrad Geller
remains in our Spotlight.
Michael Ferris
remains in our Spotlight with a poem that won The Lyric's
quarterly award.
Michael R. Burch Animal Poems
April 2019
We deeply regret to inform our readers that
John Whitworth
died recently. But we are happy to share poems that John shared with us over the
years, which you can read by clicking his name. My personal favorites included
madcap musical satires that border on the incantatory, such as "The Examiners"
and "God Squad." In my opinion, for whatever it's worth, John Whitworth was
without peer at that sort of poem.―Michael R. Burch,
editor, The HyperTexts
Conrad Geller, a native Bostonian, now lives in Northern Virginia.
His poem "Skaters" is one of the eerier poems we've read recently, and one of
the better ones as well.
Michael Ferris
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem (to us) that won The Lyric's
quarterly award.
Seamus Cassidy
remains in our Spotlight.
Blake Campbell
remains in our Spotlight.
Lana Hanson
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem "ARRHYTHMIMIC" that has won awards
elsewhere. Deservedly so, we think.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with three new poems: "Undelivered Letter,"
"An Abridged Agrarian History," and "Prayer For Survival."
Lynne Hugo
remains in the Spotlight.
Al-Ma'arri: Bits of Unburied Treasure
by Tom Merrill
Original Haiku by Michael R. Burch
March 2019
We were saddened to learn that
Seamus Cassidy
is no longer with us. "Seamus Cassidy" was the pen name of Jim Michael Patrick
McManmon. Jim McManmon passed away unexpectedly at age 75 on February 4, 2019.
Jim was a native of Chicago, and grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey. From age 14 to
28, he was a Jesuit of the order of The Brothers of the Sacred Heart. From what
we understand, Jim left the Jesuits in order to marry and raise a family. He
dedicated his life to helping children by running the Broman Group Home for boys
in Las Vegas for over 30 years, then by later becoming a substitute teacher. We
were very fortunate to receive and publish poems Jim wrote over the years about
two of his favorite things: teaching children and helping the homeless. He will
be very sorely missed, and never forgotten.
Blake Campbell was born in northeastern Pennsylvania and now lives in Salem,
Massachusetts. He is the recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets College
Poetry Prize for Emerson College, and his poem “Bioluminescence” won the 2015 Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award from the Academy of
American Poets. His work has appeared in the Emerson Review, The Road Not Taken:
A Journal of Formal Poetry, and Hawk & Whippoorwill. His chapbook
Across the Creek is forthcoming from Pen and Anvil Press.
Lana Hanson
returns to our Spotlight with a new poem "ARRHYTHMIMIC" that has won awards
elsewhere. Deservedly so, we think.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems: "Undelivered Letter,"
"An Abridged Agrarian History," and "Prayer For Survival."
Lynne Hugo
remains in our Spotlight.
Al-Ma'arri: Bits of Unburied Treasure
by Tom Merrill
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."
Words That Burn is an online poetry anthology and human rights educational resource for students and
teachers created by
Amnesty International in partnership with The Poetry Hour. "The Little Boy with His Hands Up" by Holocaust
survivor and longtime THT contributor Yala Korwin is included (5 Burn 3), as is "First They Came for the Muslims" by THT founder Michael R. Burch (7 Burn 3), immediately beneath the famous Holocaust
poem that inspired it, "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller.
Giovanni Quessep
remains in our Spotlight.
Ranald Barnicot
remains in our Spotlight.
What is
Poetry? An Attempt at a Definition by Michael R. Burch
The Best Books of All Time (in
one person's opinion) by Michael R. Burch
The Best
Writing in the English Language (in one person's opinion) by Michael R.
Burch
The Songs with the Most
Cliches
Baseball Timeline
Poetry by Michael R. Burch
February 2019
Valentine's Day Poems
contains poems you can share with that "special someone," free of charge
for noncommercial purposes.
The Love Song of Shu-Sin:
The Earth's Oldest Love Poem?
Urdu Love
Poetry: Modern English Translations by Michael R. Burch
Early Poems: The
Best Juvenilia has been recently updated.
The Chained Muse
attempts to live up to its name by fettering the fairest Muse!
Giovanni Quessep is one of the most important poets in Colombia's history.
The son
of a Lebanese father and a mother from Bogotá, Giovanni Quessep was born in San
Onofre, a small town in the Colombian Caribbean coast, in 1939. In a career that
has spanned over 60 years, he has published fourteen books of original poetry.
In addition, various publishing houses in Colombia have published several
collections of his work and he has been included in many Colombian and Latin
American anthologies of poetry. His work has already been translated partially
into Portuguese, Arab, German, Italian, French, English and Greek. The four Giovanni Quessep
poems published by The HyperTexts were translated by Felipe Botero
Quintana and Ranald Barnicot.
Ranald Barnicot has a BA in Classics from Balliol College, Oxford
and an MA in Applied Linguistics from Birkbeck College, London. He has published
or is due to publish original poems and translations—of Anacreon, Catullus,
Horace, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Lorca, Hernandez, Vallejo, Alfonso X (El
Sabio) of Castile, Violante do Céu, D’annunzio and La Compiuta Donzella—in
Priapus, Acumen, Poetry Strasbourg Review, Transference, In Translation Brooklyn
Rail, Ezra, The Rotary Dial, Meniscus, Sentinel, Poetry Salzburg Review, The
French Literary Review, Better Than Starbucks, Orbis, Stand, The Dark Horse
and Metamorphoses.
Lynne Hugo is a
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient who has also received
grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her
memoir, Where The Trail Grows Faint, won the Riverteeth Literary
Nonfiction Book Prize and her novel, A Matter of Mercy, received the
2015 Independent Publishers Silver Medal for Best North-East Fiction. She has
published seven novels, one of which became a Lifetime Original Movie of the
Month. Through the Ohio Arts Council’s renowned Arts in Education program, Lynne
has taught creative writing to hundreds of schoolchildren. Born and educated in
New England, Lynne and her husband live in Ohio with a yellow Lab feared by
squirrels in a three state area.
Al-Ma'arri: Bits of Unburied Treasure
by Tom Merrill
Sappho was one of the earliest and best
love poets; she may also have been the first "make love, not war" poet.
The Best Love Songs: One Fan's
Opinion
Sports: All-Time Cincinnati Reds Baseball Team,
The Greatest Baseball Infields of All Time,
Cincinnati Reds Trivia,
Is Mike Trout the GOAT?,
Best Baseball Nicknames,
Mike Trout Nicknames,
Weird Baseball Facts and Trivia,
Baseball Hall of Fame: The Best Candidates,
Why Pete Rose Should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame,
Big Red Machine Chronology,
Baseball's All-Time Leaders in WAR per Season,
Baseball's All-Time Leaders in WAR7,
Baseball's 100
WAR Leaders,
Weird Sports Trivia,
Who is the NBA
GOAT?,
NBA
All-Time PPG Leaders,
NBA Greatest Scorers,
The Best All-Time SEC Basketball Players by Position,
The Best Tennessee Vols Basketball Teams and Players of All Time
January 2019
New Year Poetry: the Poetry of Endings and New Beginnings
Famous Poems
about Drinking
Sentimental Poetry: Is it Invariably Bad and to be Avoided
at All Costs? Is it Wrong to Like It? by Michael R. Burch
The Best Sentimental Poems in the English Language
Al-Ma'arri: Bits of Unburied Treasure
by Tom Merrill
Heresy Hearsay: Poems Heretical, Blasphemous and Vulgar
has been updated with poems by the great heretical and antinatalist Arab poet,
Al-Ma'arri.
A. E. Stallings was one of the first poets published by The
HyperTexts, over twenty years ago, and she's still going strong.
Charles (Charlie) Southerland
remains in our Spotlight.
Donald Trump versus Ronald Reagan: Contrasts and Parallels
Trackdown Trump: Did a 1958 TV Show Predict Trump?
Medieval Poetry Translations
December 2018
Al-Ma'arri: Bits of Unburied Treasure
by Tom Merrill
Charles (Charlie) Southerland lives peaceably on his critter-filled 240 acre
farm in North-Central Arkansas where he makes walking and hiking sticks to sell
and writes poems when he has the time. He has poems published or forthcoming in
a few good journals: Measure, The Lyric, The Road Not Taken, Trinacria, The
Pennsylvania Review, First Things, Blue Unicorn, The Rotary Dial, and
others. Charlie likes to write sonnets, sapphics and villanelles. He enjoys
trying other forms, except ghazals.
The Best Christmas Poems of All
Time, in one person's opinion, 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.
The Night the Veil Thinned by
Beth Burch is the story of one person's glimpse at what may lie beyond.
The Best
Christmas Songs of All Time, in one person's opinion.
We are also re-featuring our page of Heretical
Christmas Poems, with contributions by Ann Drysdale, Tom Merrill and other poets.
Donald Trump Russia Quotes
Donald Trump Hypocrisy
Collectively Speaking: Nouns of Assemblage (Collective Nouns) and Terms of
Venery for Animals and Human Beings
November 2018
Pittsburgh Synagogue Poetry: Poems for the Victims and Survivors of
the Tree of Life — Or L'Simcha Congregation
Al-Ma'arri: Bits of Unburied Treasure
by Tom Merrill
More Good
News by Tom Merrill explains how The HyperTexts was used as a
resource by student scholars of the EU's Erasmus Programme as they worked on
presentations of the horrors and cruelties of the Holocaust. Of course the
Holocaust was the worst news imaginable, but it is good that new generations of
scholars are keeping its memory alive in order to avoid repetitions. Never again!
Peggy Landsman is back in the Spotlight with a new poem, "The Music of It All."
Gordon Ramel
returns to the Spotlight with a number of new poems.
Paschal Amuta lives in Ilorin, Nigeria. He goes by the moniker "Muse Son" on the Internet.
He returns to the Spotlight with three new poems.
Tom Merrill remains in the Spotlight with
two new poems, "Pronounced and Deep" and "Yet Another Unnecessary Necessity."
The Society of Classical Poets: The Keystone Scops
Poet Laureates 'R' US
Joseph Charles MacKenzie: Poet or Pretender?
Evan Mantyk's Poetic Tic
James Sale's Blue Light Special
October 2018
Halloween Poetry was meant to be a seasonal
page, but it has remained popular with readers year-round and continues to get
tens of thousands of page views per year. It features tricks and treats for
children and adults alike.
Vampire Poetry explores the eerie
connections between the poet/artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet Algernon
Charles Swinburne, Bram Stoker, John William Polidori (the writer of the first
modern vampire story), the pre-Raphaelite models Jane Morris and Elizabeth
Siddal, and the female vampire Lucy Westenra in Stoker's novel
Dracula.
Dark Poetry has
become one of our most popular pages.
A. E. Housman: Selected Poems
Anita Dorn was
born into Estonian nobility on May 25, 1922. In 1945 she and her sister fled
their Baltic home in Talinn as the Red Army advanced; they did so by walking and
hitching rides on retreating Wehrmacht transports heading back to Germany. Her
family lost all their property and money. As a refugee in postwar Germany she
became what the American Army called a "DP" or displaced person. She lived in
refugee camps and endured much deprivation, which she wrote about extensively in
her memorial letters to friends every Christmas. After emigrating to the United
States, she lived in Flushing, New York. 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 on March 21, 2005 at age
82, and will be sorely missed. After her death, her husband established the
Anita Dorn Memorial Award for Poetry in her honor.
Some of
the Best Lines from Poems and Songs
The Society of Classical Poets: The Keystone Scops
The Holocaust of the Homeless has
been updated with "The Song of the Beggar" by Rainer Maria Rilke, in the form of
an excellent translation by Albert Ernest Flemming.
Weird Sports Trivia
Villanelles by Michael R. Burch
September 2018
My Memories of Joe Ruggier by
Michael R. Burch
Labor Day Poems and Songs
9-11 Poetry
The Holocaust of the Homeless has
been updated with "The Song of the Beggar" by Rainer Maria Rilke, in the form of
an excellent translation by Albert Ernest Flemming.
Muhammed E Rafeek graduated from the University of Calicut, Kerala with a BA and
B.Ed in English and earned an MA in English Language and Literature from Periyar
University, Selam. He now works as an Asst. Professor at a private college.
Paschal Amuta lives in Ilorin, Nigeria. He goes by the moniker "Muse Son" on the Internet.
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, LIGHT, Lighten Up Online, Shit Creek Review, The Rotary Dial, 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.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
Donald Trump Couplets
and Epigrams
Did Sir Walter Raleigh Prophesy Donald Trump?
Famous Super Couples
Famous Love Triangles
A Simple Proof that the Bible is Not "Infallible"
August 2018
My Memories of Joe Ruggier by
Michael R. Burch
Pat Falk is an award-winning poet and professor at SUNY's Nassau Community
College in Garden City, New York where she teaches writing and literature. She's
the author of five books of poetry and prose, including the forthcoming A
Common Violence from Finishing Line Press. Her work has appeared in several
literary journals including The New York Times Book Review and
Creative Nonfiction. American Book Review has called her writing
“visionary,” creating “a new language.” She lives in Amityville, New York and
maintains a website at patfalk.net.
Paschal Amuta lives in Ilorin, Nigeria. He goes by the moniker "Muse Son" on the Internet.
Glory Sasikala is a poet and writer currently residing in Chennai, Tamilnadu,
India. She is the Editor and Publisher of the Monthly Online Prose and Poetry
magazine GloMag and is the administrator of the group of the same name
on Facebook. She is a language editor and quality analyst by profession.
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem, "Mirage Magnetism."
Flabby Adjectives: Are Adjectives Bad and
to be Avoided?
Famous Comebacks
Famous Flameouts, Burnouts,
Meltdowns, Flubs and Failures
Famous Geniuses
Famous Confessionals
Famous Epitaphs
Famous Firsts
Weird Sports Trivia
July 2018
My Memories of Joe Ruggier by
Michael R. Burch
We regretfully announce the sudden passing
of
Joe M. Ruggier at the age of 61 on Sunday July 8, 2018. Joe was born in
Malta on July 26, 1956 and emigrated to Canada in 1981. He married Maria Julia
Raminhos Lourenco in 1984, with whom he raised their daughter, Sarah Thérčse.
Joe attended St. Aloysius' College, then earned a B.A. in English with first
class honours from the Royal University of Malta. He then continued his studies
in Canada, earning a certificate in Writing and Publishing (SFU) and a Diploma
in Typesetting (VCC). Joe wrote and published poetry in both Maltese and
English, managed a small press, Multicultural Books of BC, and edited a poetry
journal, The Eclectic Muse. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to
publish dozens of titles, and he sold over 20,000 books, many of them
door-to-door. Joe was committed to the written word, and to elevating the works
of his peers and the poets he loved. In his final days he worked fervently,
translating work by the Maltese priest, writer and poet, Dun Karm Psaila. Joe
was passionate about his faith, his family—most especially his beloved Sarah
Thérčse—international sports (soccer), languages, playing classical guitar and
listening to his wide-ranging record collection.
Independence Day Poems
and Songs
Let Freedom Sing!
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
David B.
Gosselin is a student of classics and languages in Montreal. He is also the
founder and editor of The Chained Muse.
Iqbal Hashimi was born into a rural family in Paktia, Afghanistan, in 1996. When
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, he moved to Pakistan where he lived for
five years. When the Taliban regime was felled by American forces in 2001, he
returned to Afghanistan. He currently attends the University of Paktia. He loves the English language
and English poetry; therefore, he chose to seek a Bachelor's degree in English
Literature. He has also attended a private English language center where
he obtained first position in his class. He was subsequently asked by the
center's director to teach there, which he did for three years. He then decided
to create his own English language teaching center. He has also taught English
at the Paktia Press Club (PPC), where many journalists and attorneys learn
English. His future plan is to obtain a Master's degree in English literature
via a Fulbright scholarship in the US. He also hopes to
become a professional English author and editor.
Al-Qassim Abdulsalam
remains in our Spotlight with his latest poem, "African Child."
Sunil Sharma is a Principal at Bharat College (affiliated with the University
of Mumbai, Mumbai) at Badlapur, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India.
Kyrielle Definition, Examples and History
The Best Book Titles of All
Time
June 2018
Al-Qassim Abdulsalam
is back in our Spotlight with a compelling new poem, "African Child."
Sunil Sharma is a Principal at Bharat College (affiliated with the University
of Mumbai, Mumbai) at Badlapur, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India. His expertise
is in Persian and Indian poetry. 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). Some of his poems and short stories have been anthologized in national and
international collections. He is also a freelance journalist and serves on the advisory
boards of international literary and online journals.
A Brief Defense of Punctuation by
Michael R. Burch
Poetry: The State of the Art
(with a Little Horn Tootin') by Michael R. Burch (recently updated after the
surprising and encouraging results of NEA research were published)
Human Perfection: Is It Possible?
May 2018
Poems for Santa Fe High School Shooting Victims and Their Families
The Best Memorial Day Poems and Songs
Al-Qassim Abdulsalam
remains in our Spotlight.
The Best Mother's Day Poems
The Best Lyrical Poems
The Best Lyric Poetry
Parkland Poems
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."
Words That Burn is an online poetry anthology and human rights educational resource for students and
teachers created by
Amnesty International in partnership with The Poetry Hour. We are very pleased
to announce that the poem "The Little Boy with His Hands Up" by Holocaust
survivor and longtime THT contributor Yala Korwin is now included (5 Burn 3).
The poem "First They Came for the Muslims" by THT founder Michael R. Burch
is also now online (7 Burn 3), immediately beneath the famous Holocaust
poem that inspired it, "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller (also 7
Burn 3).
Amnesty International is the world's largest human rights organization with
seven million supporters. Its new webpage has been designed to "enable young
people to explore human rights through poetry whilst developing their voice and
skills as poets." This exemplary resource was inspired by the poetry anthology
Words that Burn, curated by Josephine Hart of The Poetry Hour, with a
title taken from Thomas Gray's observation that "Poetry is thoughts that breathe and
words that burn."
April 2018
Tom Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with four new poems:
"Highway Litter," "Our Ranking Bamboozler," "Antagonists" and "The Ultimate Con Man."
Al-Qassim Abdulsalam
remains in our Spotlight.
Jean L.
Kreiling remains in our Spotlight.
Parkland Poems
England's Greatest Artists
The Best Abstract Poetry
March 2018
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with three new poems:
"Our Ranking Bamboozler," "Antagonists" and "The Ultimate Con Man."
Al-Qassim Abdulsalam is a Nigerian poet, born in 1992 in Dekina, a local
government area of Kogi State, Nigeria. He is a graduate of Kogi State
University and currently lives in Abuja, Nigeria, in the
western part of Africa. He calls himself the "Bloody Poet" and has written many poems yet to be published. "MY
MENTOR AND I" is a poem he has dedicated to his mentor, Professor Wole
Soyinka, for whom he has an undying love.
Jean L.
Kreiling is the author of two collections of poetry, The Truth in
Dissonance (2014) and Arts & Letters & Love (2018). Her work has appeared widely in print and online journals,
including American Arts Quarterly, Angle, The Evansville Review, Measure,
and Mezzo Cammin, and in several anthologies. Kreiling is a past winner
of the Able Muse Write Prize, the Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters Sonnet
Contest, two New England Poetry Club prizes, and the String Poet Prize; she is a
six-time finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Kreiling teaches music
history at Bridgewater State University; her interdisciplinary essays on music
and poetry have appeared in several academic journals.
We Call BS! is an eloquent, impassioned speech made by Emma Gonzalez, a
survivor of the recent Parkland, Florida massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School.
Parkland Poems
February 2018
We Call BS! is an eloquent, impassioned speech made by Emma Gonzalez, a
survivor of the recent Parkland, Florida massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School.
Child of 9-11 by
Michael R. Burch was written for a young victim of another senseless massacre.
Parkland Poems
Barbara Lydecker Crane
was a graphic designer and then, for many years, a fabric artist, designing and
sewing landscape quilts for wall display. In 1995 she was awarded a New England
Foundation for the Arts Regional Fellowship in Visual Arts. She started writing
formal poetry in 2005, finding it a refreshing change from fabric art—yet
similar in its slow, collage-like process.
Adi
Wolfson is an eco-poetry pioneer. In addition to being a poet, he is also an
environmental activist, an expert on sustainability, and a professor of chemical
engineering. Wolfson has published four poetry books and has won several awards,
including Israel's prestigious Levi Eshkol Prize for Literature. Wolfson also
writes a regular column on environmental issues at YNET and was awarded a "Green
Globe" by Life and Environment, an umbrella organization that works with more
than a hundred Israeli "green" groups. Dead Sea—Bureaucracy is a
project that asks readers to increase global awareness about the increasingly
bad conditions of the Dead Sea, and to be a voice for the Sea. "Bureaucracy" is
an eco-poem, a poem that speaks for nature and not just about nature, written
originally in Hebrew by Adi Wolfson. By sharing, using, translating and reading
the poem, you can make a difference and lead a change. Please help us translate
the poem into all languages in the world! To participate in this global project,
you can visit Adi Wolfson's Dead Sea—Bureaucracy
website or his
Facebook page.
Brian Allgar, although immutably English, has lived in Paris since 1982. He
started entering Spectator and New Statesman competitions in
1967, but took a 35-year break, finally re-emerging in 2011 as a kind of Rip Van
Winkle of the literary competition world. He also drinks malt whisky and writes
music, which may explain his fondness for Mendelssohn's “Scottish” Symphony.
The
Seafarer: A Modern English Translation by Michael R. Burch
Valentine's Day Poems
contains poems you can share with that "special someone," entirely free of charge.
Sappho was one of the earliest and best
love poets; she may also have been the first "make love, not war" poet.
The Love Song of Shu-Sin:
The Earth's Oldest Love Poem?
Urdu Love
Poetry: Modern English Translations by Michael R. Burch
The Best Love Songs: One Man's
Opinion
Poetry Definitions and Examples
Donald
Trump and Benito Mussolini: Striking Parallels
Poetry: The State of the Art
(with a Little Horn Tootin') by Michael R. Burch
Robert
Frost's "Directive" — Theme, Summary and Analysis
January 2018
New Year Poetry
Famous Poems
about Drinking has been updated with "Song of the Alleycat" by Tom
Merrill and several other poems and songs.
The
Seafarer: A Modern English Translation by Michael R. Burch
The Most Popular Poems of All Time
Shekhar Aiyar was born in India and educated at Delhi, Oxford and Brown
Universities. His work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Able
Muse, The Formalist, The New Formalist,
Avatar
Review, and several journals in England, Sri Lanka and Canada. His first
collection of poems, Continental Drift, was published by Writer's
Workshop, Calcutta. He lives in Washington, DC.
Michael Seeger is a poet and educator residing in the Coachella Valley near
Palm Springs, California. Prior to his life as a middle school English
instructor, he worked as a technical writer for a baseball card company and
served as a Marine infantry officer during Desert Storm.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem,
"Soul Brothers," which speaks of a vision shared with Abul 'Ala Al-Ma'aari, the
great
Arab poet and philosopher.
The HyperTexts recently passed 10 million page views. Our twenty most
popular contemporary poets, as of December 31, 2017, were:
Yala Korwin
(over 38,000 page views!)
Michael R. Burch
Leonard Nimoy
Richard Moore
Luis Omar Salinas
Nadia Anjuman
Tom Merrill
A. E. Stallings
Richard Blanco
R. S. Gwynn
X. J. Kennedy
Fadwa
Tuqan
Robert Mezey
Rhina P. Espaillat
Mahmoud Darwish
Sophie
Hannah Jones
Janet Kenny
Iqbal Tamimi
John Whitworth
Julie Kane
Poets in our top forty include Jared Carter, Jack Butler, A. M. Juster, Ann
Drysdale, J. Patrick Lewis, Norman R. Shapiro, Bruce Weigl, Judy Jones, Greg
Alan Brownderville, Jennifer Reeser, Janet Kenny, Michael McClintock, Quincy R.
Lehr, Richard Wakefield, Joseph S. Salemi, Gail White, Jim Barnes, George Held,
Ellaraine Lockie and Catherine Chandler.
If you'd like to see where your favorite poets ended up in our rankings of the most popular poets and pages,
please click the hyperlink.
Donald Trump Racism and Sexism Timeline/Chronology
Crucial Moments in Music History: A Musical Chronology/Timeline
The Ten Greatest
Poems Ever Written (in one man's opinion)
Famous Synchronicities & Eerie
Coincidences
December 2017
Tommy Bissonnette is publishing his first two poems with The HyperTexts.
He has also worked on stage and screen. And he's looking for gainful employment,
if anyone is hiring!
Ambrose Philips
was an English poet who had a running feud with Alexander Pope and was mocked
in The Dunciad as Namby-Pamby. Apparently Pope didn't appreciate
suggestions by other poets that Philips' pastorals were better than his! While I'm not
an avid reader of pastorals, Philips caught my eye―and my ear―with his
translations of two poems by Sappho that struck me as good indeed. As a matter
of fact, his "Hymn to Venus" is the best translation I've found of Sappho's only fully
intact longer poem.―MRB
Coming Out Timeline/Chronology
Free Verse Timeline
November 2017
The Children of Gaza: a Song Cycle
by Eduard de Boer and Michael R. Burch
with vocals by Dima Bawab, a Palestinian soprano,
has been performed recently in Hoorn, the Hague
and Amsterdam.
How
to Write a Real Good Poem by R. S. Gwano contains his deeply-thought-out
reflections on Dr. Joseph Salemi's "The Hard Edges of a Poem." Now, some of us
thought the State Pen Review was a bit hard on Gwano and presented his
first poem in an unflattering light. But to show that there are no ill feelings
on his part, and to demonstrate that he is a quick and willing learner, Gwano
sat at the master's feet, soaked up his considerable inspiration, and―we
think―really delivered the goods this time. Dr. Salemi will undoubtedly be proud
and pleased as punch to have been understood so profoundly!
Coming Out Timeline/Chronology
David Berman
(1934-2017)
Rhina P. Espaillat
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Cutting Bait."
Peggy Landsman
is back in the spotlight with some new "cosmic" poems, which appear on her page
after her Holocaust poems.
Ambrose Philips
was an English poet who had a running feud with Alexander Pope and was featured
in The Dunciad as Namby-Pamby.
The return of the
Glob Blog: "Everything including the Kitchen Sink and sometimes the Garbage
Disposal!"
October 2017
The Best Poems of Digby Dolben
is a must-read page if you like the idea of uncovering and recovering long-forgotten
gems by neglected poets. We had heard the name Digby Dolben as a possible love
interest of Gerard Manley Hopkins, but knew nothing else about him. Then, thanks to
research
by Simon Edge, our advisory editor Tom Merrill became aware that Dolben was not
only a poet, but an exceptional poet in our opinion, even though he drowned at age nineteen.
Fortunately, the prodigy's poems were collected and published by an English poet
laureate, Robert
Bridges, who also published the poems of Hopkins. (The literary world owes
Bridges two thunderous rounds of applause.) We have also published a
Digby Dolben Bio
written by Simon Edge.
Puerto Rico Hurricane Poetry
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW:
His Last Poem
My
Colorful Bible: Is the Bible the Word of God?
Words That Burn is an online poetry anthology and human rights educational resource for students and
teachers created by
Amnesty International in partnership with The Poetry Hour. We are very pleased
to announce that the poem "The Little Boy with His Hands Up" by Holocaust
survivor and longtime THT contributor Yala Korwin is now included (5 Burn 3).
The poem "First They Came for the Muslims" by THT founder Michael R. Burch
is also now online (7 Burn 3), immediately beneath the famous Holocaust
poem that inspired it, "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller (also 7
Burn 3).
Amnesty International is the world's largest human rights organization with
seven million supporters. Its new webpage has been designed to "enable young
people to explore human rights through poetry whilst developing their voice and
skills as poets." This exemplary resource was inspired by the poetry anthology
Words that Burn, curated by Josephine Hart of The Poetry Hour, which in
turn was inspired by
Thomas Gray's observation that "Poetry is thoughts that breathe and
words that burn."
Richard Wilbur
(1921-2017)
Coming Out Timeline/Chronology
Gail White is back in our
Spotlight with a new poem―or at least one new to our
pages―called "Resemblances." I was so taken with "Resemblances" that I felt
compelled to add it to our Best
of The HyperTexts page right away.―Michael R. Burch
September 2017
Tom Merrill:
Recognizing a
Rare Voice by Michael R. Burch
For a brief but very interesting bio of the "boy genius" poet Digby Mackworth
Dolben, written by Simon Edge, please click here:
Digby Dolben Bio.
To read his work, please click here:
The Best Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben.
Early Poems: The
Best Juvenilia
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.
Peggy Landsman is the author of a poetry chapbook, To-wit To-woo (Foothills
Publishing), and an out-of-print romance novel, Passion's Professor (Midnight
Showcase), which she wrote under the pen name Samantha Rhodes. Her poetry, short
fiction, and creative nonfiction have been published in many online and print
literary journals and anthologies, including Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology
of Very Short Poems (Accents Publishing), Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes (C&R
Press), The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press), and Nasty Women Poets: An
Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press). She lives in
South Florida, where she swims in the warm Atlantic Ocean every chance she gets.
Miklós Radnóti: Modern English Translations of Holocaust Poems
Langston Hughes
was one of the best and most influential American poets. While he is best known
today for his innovative "jazz poetry" and as a leading figure of the Harlem
Renaissance, Hughes actually spent most of his childhood in Lawrence, Kansas. In
his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea he wrote: "I was unhappy for a long
time, and very lonesome, living with my grandmother. Then it was that books
began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the
wonderful world in books — where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful
language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas." The descendent of enslaved
African Americans and their white enslavers on his father's side, Hughes spoke
both frankly and passionately about the problems of race in America. And he
spoke eloquently in a highly original voice that continues to influence American
poetry and music to this day.
Jack Arkell is a
poet and writer from Birmingham, England. He has performed poetry from
underground bars in Seoul to vegan cafes in Manchester, headlining events across
the UK. He has been published in Anapest, Inigo Online, Blunderwoman, Under
the Fable, Outsider, Better Than Starbucks, Starving Artist and 12
Point Collective. He has CDs entitled Poets Are The Worst Type of
People and A Mood I Try to Capture.
Tom Merrill
remains in our Spotlight with five new poems:
"Huit Clos," "The Suspicion of Being Noticed," "Our Bodies Are Our Sworn Enemies," "The
Grand Bequeathal"
and "The Misfit's Lot."
August 2017
Words That Burn, an online resource for students and educators created by
Amnesty International in partnership with The Poetry Hour, will include "First
They Came for the Muslims" by THT founder Michael R. Burch.
Langston Hughes
was one of the best and most influential American poets, irrespective of race.
Tom Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with four new poems:
"The Suspicion of Being Noticed," "Our Bodies Are Our Sworn Enemies," "The
Grand Bequeathal"
and "The Misfit's Lot."
Louise Bogan has long been one of my favorite poets, and it's a shame (actually, a complete and utter travesty) that she isn't better known today. In my opinion she's a major poet;
at least two other critics
agree, as she has been called "the most accomplished woman poet of the twentieth century"
and "one of the finest lyric poets America has produced." On this page we have published some of her finest poems, including
the lovely but hard-to-find "After the Persian," followed by an essay by Jeffrey Woodward on Bogan's poem "The Mark." — Michael R. Burch, editor, The HyperTexts
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. She has lived life mostly on her own terms, with no
regrets. Poetry and short stories are her pastime, although she says, "I am not
prolific like most writers."
Eric Mellen is a freelance writer who currently writes poems and short
stories. He has been published by Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times
and Nostrovia! Poetry and is currently pursuing multiple
publishing opportunities. When he is not writing, he is studying English at
Athens State University and hopes to be a technical writer.
July 2017
Independence Day Poems
and Songs
Let Freedom Sing!
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
We have added a new poem, "Small Child," to the poetry page of
Vera Ignatowitsch.
Vera loves poetry and has been writing it for decades;
however, she has only recently begun to submit poems for publication. Her poetry has
appeared in The Lyric, two anthologies, and in online publications. She is also
the Formal & Rhyming Poetry Editor for Better Than Starbucks.
June 2017
Vera Ignatowitsch loves poetry and has been writing it for decades;
however, she has only recently begun to submit poems for publication. Her poetry has
appeared in The Lyric, two anthologies, and in online publications. She is also
the Formal & Rhyming Poetry Editor for Better Than Starbucks.
Miklos Radnoti: Modern English Translations of Holocaust Poems
May 2017
S. Sel-yksir,
the young Burmese poet who debuted with THT in February, has submitted a new poem,
"Ode to O'Reilly," which
refers to a poem published by the Pennsylvania Review by one "Ass
Elixir."
Conor Kelly was born in Dublin and spent his adult life teaching
in a school in the Dublin suburbs. He retired to a small village in the
Charente region of France to play boules, sample the local cuisine
and run his twitter site, @poemtoday, which is dedicated to the short poem.
He has had numerous poems published in Ireland and abroad in
such magazines as Poetry Ireland Review, Boyne Berries, The
Honest Ulsterman, Revival (Limerick), The Irish Times, Envoi, The
Huffington Post, The Southern Review (Louisiana) and The Ofi
Press (Mexico City). He has also been a poetry critic for The Irish
Times, The Sunday Tribune (Dublin) and Poetry Review (London).
He was once shortlisted for a Hennessy New Irish Writers award. At
the ceremony one of the judges, Fay Weldon, asked him, “Where are
you in these poems?” He is still asking himself that same question.
Famous Nicknames
April 2017
Edward Nudelman's poetry collections include Out of Time, Running (Harbor
Mountain Press, 2014), What Looks Like an Elephant (Lummox Press, 2011), and
Night Fires (Pudding House Press,
2009). He has received numerous awards and recognition for his poetry. His
poems have appeared in dozens of journals, including:
Rattle, Cortland Review, Valparaiso Review, Chiron Review, Evergreen Review, Poets and Artists, Ampersand,
Syntax, The Atlanta Review, Mipoesias, Plainsongs, Floating Bridge Press,
The Penwood Review. Nudelman founded and operates a notable rare
bookshop in Seattle (est. 1980) and has recently retired from a scientific
career in cancer biology where his research was published in over 60 papers
in top-tier scientific journals.
Vera Pavlova
(1963-) is a contemporary Russian poet, born in Moscow. She is a graduate of the
Schnittke College of Music and the Gnessin Academy
of Music, where she specialized in music history. She has worked as a guide at
the Shaliapin Museum in Moscow and has published several essays on music. She
began writing poetry at age twenty, after the birth of her first daughter, while
she was still at the maternity ward.
March 2017
S. Sel-yksir,
the young Burmese poet who debuted with THT in February, has submitted a new poem,
"Victory Arch View of a Terrorist Manqué," which
he indicated had been written in honor of a much-revered American poetry critic.
He later provided us with a second new poem, "Teaching Donald To Hit The High Notes."
"Whitman's
Worth" is a response to Sally Cook's recently-published poem "What a Wit is
Worth."
Henry George Fischer
[1923-2006] is 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.
Donald Trump's Inaugural Day Sermon by Michael R. Burch
My
Memories of Alfred and Anita Dorn by Michael R. Burch
William Sykes Harris II is a tribute and a
poignant plea for Americans not to settle for an ACA replacement that leaves
people struggling with mental illness and addictions uncovered.
Seamus Cassidy
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Afraid of
the Light."
CHATTERTON
Pages of Special Interest (if you want to get back to your English
poetic roots)
English Poetry Timeline
(Prehistoric, Celtic, Anglo-Roman, Anglo-Saxon/Old English, Anglo-Norman/Middle
English, English Renaissance, Elizabethan, Reformation, Restoration, Romantic,
etc.)
Robert Graves proposed a date of
1268 BC for the
Song of Amergin, but dating such orally-transmitted
Prehistoric works may be a highly speculative
endeavor.
Caedmon's Hymn,
the oldest authenticated English poem (circa 658 AD), marks the beginning of
what came to be known as English poetry (although it was Anglo-Saxon and thus
heavily Germanic at the time).
Bede's Death Song
may have been written on his deathbed in 735 AD by the Venerable Bede, a notable scholar
and translator who has been called the "father of English history."
Deor, an Anglo-Saxon scop, wrote
Deor's Lament,
perhaps during the reign of King Alfred the Great (849-899), the most literate
of the Anglo-Saxon kings.
The Exeter Book (circa 950-990 AD) may contain the first extant
English poems written by women:
Wulf and Eadwacer
and
The Wife's Lament.
The
Exeter Book
also contains
Anglo-Saxon
riddles and kennings
and the first known English
rhyming poem.
Now
skruketh rose and lylie flour is one of the earliest English love
poems, circa 1000 AD.
How Long the Night
("Myrie it is while sumer
ylast") is one of the great early rhyming poems of the Middle
English period (circa 1200 AD); it remains largely understandable to modern
English readers.
The terms "ballad" and "ballet" have the same root: dance or "the cadence of
consenting feet."
Ballads were
originally written to accompany community dances: think of two-stepping to a reel at a
hoe-down.
Now Goeth Sun Under Wood
dates to around 1240 AD and has some very clever punning wordplay.
Sumer is icumen in is a
medieval English round, or rota (circa 1260 AD). It came with a musical score
and instructions for the singing of rounds, in Latin! It is one of the oldest
songs that can still be sung today.
Fowles in the Frith,
also circa 1260 AD, expresses deep sympathy for "beasts of bone and
blood" in an arresting short lyric. Or is the sorrow expressed for a lover, or
Jesus Christ?
Ich
am of Irlaunde ("I am of Ireland") has been dated to around the same
time.
I Have a Yong Suster
("I Have a Young Sister") is an anonymous Medieval English poem that has been
described as a "haunting riddle-chant," circa 1430 AD.
In 1503 William Dunbar's
stellar
Sweet Rose of Virtue
and
Lament for the Makaris
appeared in the first book of Scottish poems.
In 1620 the Pilgrims set sail for America in the Mayflower; they landed at Cape Cod
and founded the New Plymouth colony.
Tom
O'Bedlam's Song was published
the same year.
February 2017
S. Sel-yksir is
a young Burmese poet living in Moldova. As a member of his homeland's Rohingya
minority he began dreaming of living elsewhere. Since he had no travel
allowance, nor in fact any money at all, he conceived a daring plan, and sailed
to Europe on a freighter as a stowaway. Stolen cans of ngapi helped keep him
alive during the long boatride. In Marseilles he succeeded in safely debarking
in a crateful of silks. He slipped out of the box later the same day and cut
through some corrugated metal siding with a tool he had brought. A new world lay
before him. His English was acquired as a child from an imam who thought he
showed promise. He now lives with a Moldovan gentleman, with whom he sips
wonderful Moldovan wines and shares a bed. They are planning to get married in
Luxembourg soon.
The two poems
submitted by S. Sel-ykisr address the current American political crisis.
T. Merrill
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem: "Mechanism
Will Of Course Prevail."
"Whitman's
Worth" is a response to Sally Cook's recently-published poem "What a Wit is
Worth."
Valentine's Day Poems
contains poems you can share with that "special someone," entirely free of charge.
Sappho was one of the earliest and best
love poets; she may also have been the first "make love, not war" poet.
Urdu Love
Poetry: Modern English Translations by Michael R. Burch
The Best Love Songs: One Man's
Opinion
CHATTERTON
January 2017
New Year Poetry
Famous Poems
about Drinking has been updated with "Song of the Alleycat" by T.
Merrill.
E. M. Darnell is a floor tech and online tutor in Fremont, Nebraska. He received
his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1990, where he studied under Gerald
Stern, Marvin Bell, Jorie Graham, and the late James Tate. He has published
poems in The Lyric, The Eclectic Muse, Verse (online edition),
Quantum Leap, Candelabrum, Aries, Open Minds Quarterly, Skid Row Penthouse,
Plainsongs and Ship Of Fools, and has poems forthcoming in
Form Quarterly and Shot Glass Journal. He has also been a
phlebotomist, hotel supervisor, editorial assistant, farmhand, landscaper,
busboy, critic of modern society, devout recluse, and incurable brooder/dreamer―causing
near auto collisions but still alive.
Paul Michelsen is active in the Las Vegas poetry scene; he was recommended to us by longtime THT contributor Nick Marco, who moves in the same poetic circles.
Michael R. Burch: Early Poems
December 2016
Raymond Oliver
has published hundreds of poems in periodicals, chapbooks, and anthologies,
about a dozen essays on poetry and translation, and four books.
Mladen Blažević
was born in Rijeka, Croatia, in 1969. In the past he has worked on
archaeological field projects and for daily and weekly newspapers as a
journalist. A large number of his short stories and poems have been
published in various literary journals and websites.
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.
November 2016
During his lifetime, the poems of
Wilmer Mills were published in journals (Poetry,
The New Republic, The Hudson Review, The Southern Review,
The New Criterion, among others), in two anthologies (Penguin/Longman
Anthology of Contemporary American Poets, 2004; The Swallow Anthology
of New American Poets, 2009) and in two books: a chapbook, Right as
Rain (Aralia Press, 1999) and a full-length collection of poems, Light
for the Orphans (Story Line Press, 2002). After working as a carpenter,
sawmill operator, songwriter, and artisan bread baker, he became the Kenan
Fellow at U.N.C. Chapel Hill from 2008-2010. Wil was the Writer-in-Residence at
Covenant College when he died in 2011 following a two-month battle with liver
cancer. His Selected Poems (May 2013), edited by his wife Kathryn, were
published posthumously by the University of Evansville Press in 2013. His last
two manuscripts, Arriving on Time and The World That Isn't There,
are forthcoming from Measure Press in 2017.
Born in Montréal,
Yves L-Thrace
was passionate about art at a very young age. As a child, he converted the
family shed into an art studio and worked with oil and charcoal. By the age of
16, he discovered the American poet Walt Whitman and a number of French poets
including Arthur Rimbaud. Later, he became keenly interested in oriental
mysticism as well as in Chinese and Japanese art and poetry.
Olfa Philo is an English teacher, a PhD scholar and a committed
poetess from Tunisia. Her poems have appeared in print and online reviews such
as The Poet Sanctuary, The Voices Project, The Sirens Call,
Taj Mahal Review, The Haiku Journal,
S/tick Review, Three Line Review and
The Recusant Journal. She is an ex-international volleyball player and
is also gifted in design and interior decoration.
The Love Song of Shu-Sin:
The Earth's Oldest Love Poem?
Fadwa
Tuqan (1917-2003), the Grande Dame of Palestinian letters, is also known as
"the Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the very best
contemporary Arab poets. The sister of the poet Ibrahim Tuqan, she was born in
Nablus in 1917. She began writing in traditional forms, but became one of the
leaders of the use of the free verse in Arabic poetry. Her work often deals with
feminine explorations of love and social protest, particularly of Israel's
occupation of Palestinian territories. We have recently updated her poetry page
with three new translations by THT editor Michael R. Burch.
We have added two new poems to the poetry page of
John Beaton.
Famous Poems
about Drinking
Famous Songs
about Drinking
THT editor Michael R. Burch has an article published online by Elephant
Journal that asks whether what Donald Trump proposes would create an
American Holocaust, by considering things that went wrong with Hitler's plan to
deport Germany's "undesirables":
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/10/are-we-headed-for-an-american-holocaust/
October 2016
Halloween Poetry was meant to be a seasonal
page, but it has remained popular with readers year-round, and is now getting
tens of thousands of page views per year.
Olivia Byard was born in South Wales, and grew up on the Cotswolds
and in Montreal, Canada, where she subsequently studied at Queens University and
the University of Alberta. She returned to Britain as a young adult. She started
to write and publish poems both at home and abroad in the late eighties.
September 2016
THT editor Michael R. Burch has an article about Gabby Giffords and the
shooting massacres of children published online by Elephant Journal at
the following hyperlink:
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/09/shooting-victim-demands-an-end-to-the-massacre-of-children/
The article concludes with Burch's poem "Child of 9-11." If you like
the article and/or the poem, please feel free to share the link via email, on
social media, or however you prefer.
David Alpaugh's essay “The Professionalization of Poetry” was serialized in two issues of Poets &
Writers Magazine in 2003. It drew over two hundred letters and emails and
was widely discussed on the internet. Alpaugh's poetry, fiction, drama and
criticism have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including
Exquisite Corpse, The Formalist, Modern Drama, Poetry, Twentieth Century
Literature, The Literature of Work, and California Poetry from the Gold
Rush to the Present.
T. Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem: "Epitaph."
August 2016
Norman R. Shapiro is professor of Romance languages and literatures
and a much-published translator. Among his many translations are Four Farces by Georges Feydeau, which was nominated for a National
Book Award; The Fabulists French: Verse Fables of Nine Centuries, named Distinguished Book of the Year by the American Literary
Translator's Association; One Hundred and One Poems by Paul Verlaine, which won the Modern Language Association of America's
Scaglione Prize in 2001; and Charles Baudelaire: Selected Poems from "Les Fleurs du mal."
T. Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem: "Lost
in the Crowd."
July 2016
Independence Day Poems
and Songs
Independence Day Thoughts: Blind Faith vs. Independent Thinking
Independence Day Madness
Let Freedom Sing!
June 2016
Aaron
Poochigian earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota in 2006
and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University in 2016. His book of translations
from Sappho, Stung With Love, was published by Penguin Classics in
2009, and his translation of Apollonius' Jason and the Argonauts was
released October 2014. For his work in translation he was awarded a 2010-2011
Grant by the National Endowment for the Arts. His first book of original poetry,
The Cosmic Purr (Able Muse Press) was published in 2012, and several of
the poems in it collectively won the New England Poetry Club's Daniel Varoujan
Prize. His work has appeared in such journals as The Guardian, Poems Out
Loud and POETRY.
T. Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with a new poem: "Lost
in the Crowd."
The Best Quatrains Ever
May 2016
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."
Michael R. Burch's
review of
Darkened Rooms of Summer by Jared
Carter.
Jared Carter Interview with Michael R. Burch
Muhammad Ali Poetry
April 2016
Siham Karami's poetry has been or will be published in
The Comstock Review,
Measure, Right Hand Pointing, The Rotary Dial, The Ghazal Page, Unsplendid,
Möbius, Mezzo Cammin, Raintown Review, Amsterdam Quarterly, Innisfree Journal,
The Lavender Review, The Centrifugal Eye, and other venues and anthologies.
She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a winner of the Laureates' Prize in the
Maria W. Faust Sonnet Competition.
Famous Women
The Greatest Movies of All Time
March 2016
Rhina P. Espaillat
returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "Snow."
Catherine Chandler returns to the Spotlight with a new poem, "The Deep
Season." She recently won the Richard Wilbur award for her book, The Frangible
Hour, which was selected by Dick Davis and will be published later this year by
the University of Evansville Press.
A. E. Stallings was one of the first poets we published; now she's back
in the Spotlight with a new poem, "The Catch."
February 2016
Kate Bernadette Benedict's first
poetry collection, Here From Away, came out
in 2003. Her second, In Company, appeared eight years later.
Earthly Use: New and Selected Poems was published in 2015 and includes
poems from both volumes, along with others heretofore uncollected.
Kate has edited and published a number of online poetry journals: Umbrella:
A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose; Bumbershoot (Umbrella's
lighter offshoot); and Tilt-a-Whirl, a poetry “sporadical” of
repeating forms.
Leland James is the author of three books of poetry. He has been published in
over fifty journals and magazines worldwide, including Form Quarterly, The
South Carolina Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New Millennium
Writings, The London Magazine, Vallum, Orbis, Magma, Osprey, Scotland's
international journal of literature, Arc, HQ, and The Haiku Quarterly.
Not much is known about
Marcus Bales except that he lives and works in
Cleveland, Ohio, and that his work has not been published in Poetry or
The New Yorker.
T. Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with four new poems.
January 2016
New Year Poetry: the Poetry of Endings and New Beginnings
T. Merrill
remains in the Spotlight with two new poems.
The Best Humorous
Poems of All Time
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
For issues from January 2013 to
December 2015, 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