The Daily Poem

Today’s poem is by Matthea Harvey, the author of five books of poetry—If the Tabloids are True What Are You?, Of Lamb (an illustrated erasure with images by Amy Jean Porter), Modern Life (a finalist for the National Book Critics Cirlcle Award and a New York Times Notable Book), Sad Little Breathing Machine and Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form. She has also published two children’s books, Cecil the Pet Glacier, illustrated by Giselle Potter and The Little General and the Giant Snowflake, illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel. She teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence and lives in Brooklyn.Snowflake (2009), illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel. In 2017, Harvey was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

—Bio via MattheaHarvey.info

Today’s poem is by Theodore J. Kooser (born 25 April 1939)[1], an American poet. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.[2] Kooser was one of the first poets laureate selected from the Great Plains,[3] and is known for his conversational style of poetry.[4]

—bio via Wikipedia

Today’s poem is by Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany FRSL (/dʌnˈseɪni/; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957, usually Lord Dunsany) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. Over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays appeared in his lifetime,[1]: 29 (I.A.92)  and a modest amount of material was published posthumously. He gained a name in the 1910s as a great writer in the English-speaking world. Best known today are the 1924 fantasy novel, The King of Elfland's Daughter, and his first book, The Gods of Pegāna, which depicts a fictional pantheon. Many critics feel his early work laid grounds for the fantasy genre.

—bio via Wikipedia

Today’s poem is by Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997), a British-born naturalised American poet.[3] She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. Levertov wrote and published 24 books of poetry, and also criticism and translations. She also edited several anthologies. Among her many awards and honours, she received the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Frost Medal, the Lenore Marshall Prize, the Lannan Award, a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

—Bio via Wikipedia

Today’s poem is by Robert Morgan (born 1944), an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He studied at North Carolina State University as an engineering and mathematics major, transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an English major, graduating in 1965, and completed an MFA degree at the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 1968. He has taught at Cornell University since 1971, and was appointed Professor of English in 1984.[1]

—Bia via Wikipedia

Today’s poem is by Mary Jane Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019), an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild. It is characterised by a sincere wonderment at the impact of natural imagery, conveyed in unadorned language. In 2007, she was declared to be the country's best-selling poet.

—Bia via Wikipedia

Today’s poem is by Pablo Neruda (/nəˈruːdə/;[1] Spanish: [ˈpaβlo neˈɾuða] (listen))(born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto; 12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature.[2] Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924).

—Bio via Wikipedia

Today’s poem is by Thomas Merton OCSO (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968), an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and given the name "Father Louis".[1][2] He was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 to his death.

Merton wrote more than 50 books in a period of 27 years,[3] mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews. Among Merton's most enduring works is his bestselling autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain (1948). His account of his spiritual journey inspired scores of World War II veterans, students, and teenagers to explore offerings of monasteries across the US.[4][5] It is on National Review's list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the century.[6]

—Bio via Wikipedia

Today’s poem is by Donald Andrew Hall Jr.[1] (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018), an American poet, writer, editor and literary critic. He was the author of over 50 books across several genres from children's literature, biography, memoir, essays, and including 22 volumes of verse. Hall was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard, and Oxford.[2] Early in his career, he became the first poetry editor of The Paris Review (1953–1961), the quarterly literary journal, and was noted for interviewing poets and other authors on their craft.

On June 14, 2006, Hall was appointed as the Library of Congress's 14th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry (commonly known as "Poet Laureate of the United States").[3] He is regarded as a "plainspoken, rural poet," and it has been said that, in his work, he "explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects [an] abiding reverence for nature."[4]

—Bio via Wikipedia

Today’s poem is by Walter Whitman Jr. (/ˈhwɪtmən/; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American history. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse.[1]

Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892.

His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, who Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln.

—Bio via Wikipedia