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September 2003

Arthur Rothstein, Black & White photograph, 1936.

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

This issue is sold out.
  • Diane Ackerman
  • Mark Aiello
  • Lisa Barnett
  • Elinor Benedict
  • Andrea Hollander
POETRY Magazine cover of September 2003 issue
From this Issue
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine The Shoes

      By Brent Pallas
      When they first came
      their mouths agape
      their bodies shining
      like beetles about to stir

      every edge poised
      for the multitude of steps
      some moment
      of leaping not yet taken

      their hides stiff
      shielding some tenderness
      within, warming...

    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Anagrammer

      By Peter Pereira
      If you believe in the magic of language,
      then Elvis really Lives
      and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin.

      If you believe the letters themselves
      contain a power within them,
      then you understand
      what makes outside tedious,
      how desperation becomes a rope ends it.

      The circular...

    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Love Recidivus

      By Lisa Barnett
      Whatever it may be, we may suppose
      it is not love, for love must leave its trace
      like contraband seized and displayed in rows;
      is not sufficient reason to erase

      the careful lives we have so far lived through—...

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