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January 2016

Susannah Bielak, "Ventifact: Breath Drawing (detail)," 2013

The oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world.

  • Melissa Tuckey
  • Naomi Nye
  • David Baker
  • Yusef Komunyakaa
  • Elise Paschen
Cover for Poetry Magazine, Jan 2016
From this Issue
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine 300 Goats

      By Naomi Shihab Nye
      In icy fields.

      Is water flowing in the tank?

      Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?

      (Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?

      Scholars debating Chinese zodiac,

      follower or leader.)

      O lead them to a warm corner,

      little ones toward bulkier bodies.

      Lead them to...

    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Peril Sonnet

      By David Baker
      Where do you suppose
      they’ve gone the bees now


      that you don’t see them
      anymore four-winged


      among flowers     low
      sparks in the clover


      even at nightfall
      are they fanning have


      they gone another
      place blued with pollen


      stuck to their bristles
      waiting beyond us


      spring dwindle is what
      we call it...

    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Crossing a City Highway

      By Yusef Komunyakaa
      The city at 3 a.m. is an ungodly mask
      the approaching day hides behind
      & from, the coyote nosing forth,
      the muscles of something ahead,

      & a fiery blaze of eighteen-wheelers
      zoom out of the curved night trees,
      along the rim of absolute chance.
      A question hangs...

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