Critics and readers love the term, but it can be awfully slippery to pin down. That’s what makes it so fun to try. By Elisa Gabbert Elisa Gabbert’s collections of poetry and essays include, most ...

One of the things a poem does that is so wonderful is to change its tendencies right in the middle of the poem. Richard Hugo calls this "writing off the subject." When a poem shifts its directional ...

Suzanne Lummis, one of Los Angeles' most venerated poets, has two new books this year. Marc Haefele talked to her about L.A. poets, Philip Levine and what makes a bad poem bad. Charles Lummis, one of ...

Poet and professor Matthew Zapruder (@matthewzapruder) says that the way that poetry is taught often gets in the way of enjoying and understanding it. He writes about ways to look at poetry anew in ...

Use rhythm, repetition, and rhyme, and rearrange the found words to create your own powerful poem. What if you could write a poem without using your own words? Jeff Kass shows you how to create a ...

How Poems Work is a marvellous feature of the Books section and has sparked a renewed interest in poetry for me. But the Nov. 3 dissection of The Women Washing Dishes raises the question of what turns ...

Newbery Medal-winning author Kwame Alexander joins NPR's Rachel Martin to discuss poetry about the holidays, and to ask listeners for their help writing a poem about the season. We are entering that ...