Blog Posts by Subject: Poetry

Crowd-pleasing poems for Poetry Month.

The Doughnut Boy and Other Poems offers a glimpse of New York City through the eyes of a sassy little beret-wearing, doughnut-loving, public-transit-taking, library-visiting child.

April is National Poetry Month! To celebrate here at The New York Public Library we recorded thirty of our librarians and other staff members reading a favorite poem.

The daily musical activities of poet Emily Dickinson reveal a great deal about the cultural offerings available to a woman of her time, place, and class. For Dickinson, these experiences provided a vital and necessary backdrop for her identity and and more importantly, for her emerging poetic voice.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately for several committees including NYPL’s Best Books For Teens 2014 (coming later this month -- stay tuned!) When I looked back over all the young adult books I read this year, I definitely noticed a recurring theme of poetry.

The beloved poet and author joined us this past October to discuss art, imagination, and the life of the mind.

Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley reminds all of us children to beware of goblins.

Today the Academy of American Poets features Johnson's powerful poem "In the Absence of Sparrows," honoring his close friend, as part of its Poem-a-Day series.

For Week 3 of Imagination Academy, we shifted our focus to poetry. The week kicked off with Jane LeCroy, a New York based poet, singer, teacher and performance artist. According to Jane, poetry is ”Something that takes a while to understand. Once you first read it through, you can’t at first decipher what the author is trying to say. But that’s what makes poetry so much fun. There are no rules.”

Books for kids and teens that tie into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) are all the rage nowadays. Here is a list of books for kids and teens that are related to those subjects but which you’ll find in some unexpected areas of the library -- fiction, graphic novels, and poetry!

The life and work of Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 - March 26, 1892) are prodigiously documented in the Oscar Lion Collection, held in the New York Public Library's Rare Books Division.

Though National Poetry Month is coming to an end, you can continue to celebrate all year long! You don't have to read poetry to celebrate; you can create it instead.

The Den is warm today With April sun Just in time For Poetry Month! More epistolary poetry: letters in the form of a poem.

After the winter we've had, I've been really looking forward to April. With the longer daylight hours, signs of green, and chances to enjoy the city's parks and rivers without shivering, I feel something in my brain waking up and it seems natural to break out the poetry.

December 10th is the birthday of Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), a beloved poet who in her youth was a talented pianist and active music collector. The collections of The New York Public Library serve to illuminate those interests and activities in a variety of ways.

Archives & Special Collections,Amherst College, used with permission.In 1846, Emily Dickinson's second cousin, Olivia Coleman, wrote to Emily from Philadelphia: "We discovered a new Music Store, and I purchased the song 'I'm alone—all alone,' for I am truly alone without 

Following an enthusiastic session spent creating their own graphic novels, our tween writers gathered last week to explore the realm of poetry. Local poets led the nine to twelve year olds in workshops in which they studied many different types of poetry. The kids all enjoyed this special opportunity to express themselves with this unique form of writing.

Shape PoemDave Johnson began the week by having the kids introduce themselves through acrostic poems. The tweens spelled out their names vertically and assigned to each letter a descriptive word or phrase that 

My colleague MN said she would be coming the 'my' next lecture. Of course I said what?? (your friends will come to your funeral, your real friends go to your lectures). She had just discovered John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic and pointed me to the YouTube clip of the aria "Batter My Heart," one of Donne's most famous poems. Cool, as the youngbloods say (used to say?)

But back to the lecture, which is neither mine, nor a lecture. This 

Most of the collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman building are closed-stacked, i.e., we bring them to you. But on the 3rd floor, the Rose Main Reading Room maintains open, very open stacks of about 30,000 volumes on every subject, not just the humanities and social sciences which is our collection strength.

Here is a picture of the Shakespeare section, on the short shelves at the north-east corner. In addition to the complete works, it holds critical editions, 

Well, it's April and time for Shakespeare Week. And once again, to read a great novel—The Juliet Club, by Wertheim writer Suzanne Harper.  Here is the