Resources
From Category: Poetry Archives
From a Secret Location
This site is the companion to A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980 (Granary Books, 1998). It is a history and digital archive of poetry zines and small press ephemera from the "mimeograph revolution" that circulated work by poets in such movements as the Black Mountain poets, Beats, New York School, Fluxus, concrete poetry, Black Arts, deep image, ethnopoetics, and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.
RHINO Poetry Archives
RHINO Poetry, a prestigious journal, has made selections from its issues from 2010-present free to read online. Browse work by jason b. crawford, Joseph Fasano, Amorak Huey, Cynthia Huntington, Sally Wen Mao, and many more.
The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database
Split This Rock, an organization of progressive poets for social justice, curates this searchable database of over 600 contemporary poems by authors such as Richard Blanco, Eduardo Corral, Aracelis Girmay, and Michal 'MJ' Jones.
Public Domain Poetry
Public Domain Poetry is an online archive of over 35,000 poems from classic and lesser-known authors, searchable by title, author name, or first line. Though the site design is old-fashioned and sometimes distracting with commercial pop-ups, the content is useful for researching favorite writers and discovering new ones. You can also ask it to generate 50 random poems for your browsing enjoyment.
CTRL + WALT + DELETE
In 2022, the Poetry Center at Smith College in Northampton, MA invited students, alums, staff, faculty, and visitors to create collage and erasure poems from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Images of their creations are collected on the Poetry Center website.
Deerfield Public Library Queer Poem-a-Day
Launched in 2021, this daily podcast from the Deerfield Public Library in Illinois features a recording of a poem written and read by a contemporary LGBTQIA+ poet for each day of June. Authors include Donika Kelly, Spencer Reece, Cameron Awkward-Rich, and Jenny George.
Significant Objects
DIAGRAM Magazine editor Ander Monson and his creative writing students created this series of impressionistic short pieces inspired by cheap knickknacks from thrift shops.
Telephone: A Game of Art Whispered Around the World
Inspired by the children's game "Telephone", where a phrase transforms as it is repeated from one participant to another, multimedia artist Nathan Langston invited writers, musicians, and visual artists around the world to create pieces responding to a source text and the other artists' interpretations thereof. Read an article about the genesis of the project in the Sept/Oct 2021 Poets & Writers.
African Poetry Digital Portal
A project of the African Poetry Book Fund at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the African Poetry Digital Portal is a resource for the study of the history of African poetry, providing access to biographical information, artifacts, news, video recording, images and documents related to African poetry from antiquity to the present.
Celan at 100
This 2021 feature in the magazine Jewish Currents commemorates the centennial of the birth of Paul Celan (1920-70), with translations of his poetry and prose by Pierre Joris and multi-genre responses to his writing by poets such as Anne Carson and Peter Cole. Also included are a translation and essay on Rose Ausländer's poem "To Life", from which Celan drew the famous image of "black milk" in his Holocaust poem "Todesfuge" (Deathfugue).
Tweetspeak Poetry
Tweetspeak is a friendly online poetry community with a clean, sophisticated design. They offer a variety of features to help people engage with poetry, including writing prompts, book clubs, audio recordings, and craft essays.
RHINO Poetry
RHINO is a well-regarded poetry journal established in the 1970s. Their handsomely designed online archive features selections from back issues up to 2015, with more to come.
A Hundred Falling Veils
A Hundred Falling Veils is the poem-a-day blog of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Her poetry collections include Naked for Tea (finalist in the Able Muse Book Award), Even Now, The Less I Hold, The Miracle Already Happening: Everyday Life with Rumi, Intimate Landscape, and Holding Three Things at Once (Colorado Book Award finalist). Visit her Word Woman site for information on her writing workshops and speaking engagements.
Contemporary Native American Poetry Essentials
At the blog of the literary journal Ploughshares, Dean Rader offers a syllabus for becoming educated about the heritage and future of Native American poetry. The essay includes links to significant poets, presses, and anthologies. Rader writes, "Reading work by Native writers and poets is important for a number of reasons, but at the very least we should be reading Native writing because it helps tell the stories of America’s original selves."
Queer Indigenous Women Poets at LitHub
Award-winning Mojave poet Natalie Diaz curates this bimonthly feature of selected poems by contemporary queer indigenous women. The first installment includes work by No'u Revilla, Janet McAdams, Lehua M. Taitano, Deborah A. Miranda, and Arianne True.
American Prison Writing Archive
Founded by writer Doran Larson, the American Prison Writing Archive is a free online archive of personal essays submitted by currently and formerly incarcerated people, correctional officers, and prison staffers. The project grew out of an anthology of prison writing that Larson edited, Fourth City: Essays From the Prison in America (Michigan State University Press, 2014). In a 2018 interview in Poets & Writers Magazine, he called the APWA a "virtual meeting place" to "spread the voices of unheard populations."
Bloom
Bloom is a website that showcases authors whose first book was published at age 40 or older. Contemporary authors can contact the site to request a feature. There are also articles on late-blooming greats of the past. Editors say, "Bloom's mission and intention are not to critique or detract from the success of young writers; our interest is in contributing to the conversation about literary life and creative process, offering up a diverse range of paths as models. Our hope is to present some counter-balance to the disproportionate attention paid to precocity by exploring and presenting stories of slower, zig-zag, later-life, development...Bloom seeks to challenge any narrow or uniform ideas about what constitutes literary success or authenticity."
American Literature
American Literature is a free online archive with the complete text of hundreds of classic public-domain short stories, poems, and novels for adults and children. There are also study guides and writing exercises for young readers.
Lodestar Quarterly
Lodestar Quarterly was an online journal of gay, lesbian, and queer literature, published 2002-06. Contributors included S. Bear Bergman, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Jane Rule, Susan Stinson, Michelle Tea, and Emanuel Xavier. Complete archives are available on the website.
Lesbian Poetry Archive
Julie R. Enszer, editor of the long-running lesbian-feminist literary journal Sinister Wisdom, maintains this free digital archive of poetry chapbooks, pamphlets, anthologies, and out-of-print journals of lesbian writing.
Poetry Archive (Arts Council England)
A project of Arts Council England, the Poetry Archive features great poems for adults and children, video interviews with poets, and lesson plans. Their online store offers recordings of classic poetry read by writers and celebrities, and contemporary poets reading their own work.
Complete Works of Shakespeare at MIT Online
Hosted by the student newspaper The Tech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1993, this website offers free HTML versions of William Shakespeare's complete plays and poems.
Badilisha Poetry X-Change
Badilisha Poetry X-Change is both an online audio archive and a Pan-African poetry show delivered in radio format. Now the world's largest online collective of African poets, Badilisha features over 350 poets from two dozen countries. The project aims to introduce African readers to the best contemporary and classic work from their continent, bringing together literary cultures that had been isolated from one another by colonialism and language barriers.
Library of Congress Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature
This online archive at the Library of Congress features over 150 recordings of significant 20th and 21st century American writers reading their work.
Black Poets Speak Out
Black Poets Speak Out is a video series launched in November 2014 to protest police violence against people of color. In these videos, contemporary black poets read their own writing or that of their predecessors who have written about blackness and police brutality. Featured work includes poetry by Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton, Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Langston Hughes, and Audre Lorde. Follow them on Twitter at #BlackPoetsSpeakOut or subscribe to this Tumblr blog to be notified of new videos.
Tattooed Poets Project
Launched in 2009, the Tattooed Poets Project blog features photos of artistic tattoos paired with a poem by the wearer. Some of the tattoos are also portraits of notable poets such as Whitman and Dickinson. Contributors to the site include award-winning authors Kim Addonizio, Kazim Ali, Charlie Bondhus, Joy Harjo, Noelle Kocot, Simone Muench, Carl Phillips, and many others.
Poetry Magazines Online (Saison Poetry Library)
The Saison Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre maintains this online archive of 20th and 21st century UK poetry magazines, including both active journals and those that are no longer publishing. Not all journals have a complete press run available.
Open Culture
Educational media website Open Culture provides this archive of over 500 literary classics available as free e-book downloads for your computer or mobile device. Genres include poetry, literary novels, science fiction, philosophy, and children's stories. There are also links to other free e-book libraries.
Poets for Living Waters
Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico begun on April 20, 2010, one of the most profound human-made ecological catastrophes in history. See website for instructions for submitting your poems by email. Previously published work accepted.
Poetry International Web
Editors from over 20 countries collaborate on this site showcasing the best contemporary poetry from around the world, plus literary essays and interviews.
The Moth: True Stories Told Live
The Moth is a NYC-based literary organization and performance space dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth directors work with storytellers to shape their tales into a performance piece. See website for submission guidelines, tour dates, and podcasts of The Moth Radio Hour.
Slam News Service
Keep track of upcoming poetry slams and bouts across the US and the world. Hosted by "teacher, poet and traveling man" Michael Brown.
Poetry.LA
Online video showcase of over 150 poets reading their work at various venues in Southern California. Poets featured include US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan and Anne Carson. The site also includes video interviews with authors and publishers. Poetry.LA was started by poet Hilda Weiss and videographer/writer Wayne Lindberg as a way to bring broader exposure to poets beyond the coffeehouses, bookstores and cafes where most of these readings were taped.
Poetry Series on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
PBS and the Poetry Foundation collaborated on this series of broadcasts featuring short-form profiles on living American poets and long-form segments on current debates in poetry. Listen/view past segments on their website.
National Jukebox
This project at the Library of Congress makes historic recordings of popular and classical music and spoken-word performances available online. Search the archives by artist name and genre, or simply enjoy the eclectic selections of the day. The collection features more than 10,000 78rpm disc sides issued by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1900 and 1925. Other material from the archives is currently being brought online.
From the Fishouse
Audio archive of emerging poets features text and recordings of work by dozens of contemporary writers as diverse as Matthea Harvey, Leslie McGrath, Tyehimba Jess, and Xochiquetzal Candelaria.
Dodge Poetry Festival YouTube Channel
This YouTube channel features videos of readings and performances from the renowned Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, held biennially since 1986 in northern New Jersey.
Clips: The Video Blog at Poets & Writers
A curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.
Button Poetry
Founded by National Poetry Slam champion Sam Cook, Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of distribution, promotion and fundraising for performance poetry. Button produces and distributes poetry media, including: video from local and national events, chapbooks, collaborative audio recordings, scholarship and criticism, and many other products.
Your Daily Poem
This growing archive of accessible contemporary and classic poetry will deliver a poem to your email inbox daily, weekly, or monthly. Subscriptions are free. There is also a moderated forum for sharing poems for critique. See website for submission guidelines. Reprints and previously published work accepted.
Verse Daily
Similar to Poetry Daily. Visit for a new free poem each day. Verse Daily selects from review copies of literary magazines and books. Web Monthly page links to poems on the Internet. Both famous and lesser-known poets are represented. Publishers, send review copies here.
The Writer’s Almanac
A daily program of poetry and history hosted by Garrison Keillor, suffused with his characteristic nostalgia and humor. Each day presents a pithy new poem and recalls birthdays of famous writers and artists, unusual holidays and resonant historical events. Rich food for a literary mind. Sign up to receive the Almanac each morning by email. The website archives past issues.
The University of Texas at Austin - UT Library Online
This large page of links to etexts shows what a wealth of classic literature is available free online. Choose from thousands of works of prose, poetry, philosophy, religion and world literatures. Some resources are limited to UT Austin users, but many are open to the public. Notable resources include Project Gutenberg, Bartleby and Banned Books Online.
The Post Office Poems
This blog is an interactive, ongoing poetry project highlighting Fall City, Washington, and the Snoqualmie Valley, written by an anonymous author and posted weekly on the bulletin board at the Fall City Post Office.
The Poem Tree
This outstanding site reprints contemporary and traditional poetry, with an emphasis on formal (metered) verse. Essays like this one by Richard Moore show the punch that rhythm can put into a line. If you're a published poet, consider submitting your work to the site. See the FAQ for details.
The NUB: Indie Arts Hub
The NUB is an app for iPhone and Android smartphones that provides a stream of independent arts and culture content from across North America directly to readers 5 times per week. Each day, you will find in your phone a new column, poem, short story, interview, profile, book/zine review, comic or rant from one of North America's best independent arts and culture magazines. As of 2013, The NUB features content from Broken Pencil: The Magazine of Zine Culture and the Independent Arts; Geist Magazine; Subterrain Magazine; Matrix Magazine; and Taddle Creek Magazine.
The HyperTexts
Showcases the work of classic and contemporary poets, with an emphasis on traditional forms.
The Academy of American Poets
Site includes over 1,200 poems by 450 noteworthy poets, with an emphasis on American and 20th century poets. Search by poem, poet and text. Numerous audio selections. See also the Online Poetry Classroom sponsored by the Academy, with its suggested 100 Best Poems to Memorize.
Sporting Poems by Carol Ann Duffy and Others
In this July 2010 feature from The Guardian newspaper, UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has collected sports poems from such well-known authors as Billy Collins, Wendy Cope, Lavinia Greenlaw, and Paul Muldoon.
Sonnet Central
An extensive archive of English-language sonnets with a discussion forum where poets can post their own work. Includes a selection of World War I poems by Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke and other contemporaries.
