What you have here are poems, artwork, and essays, most by self-proclaimed angsty teens, and some by adults who were once angsty teens and still kind of feel like angsty teens. I wanted to hash out the fear so many of us have of writing and reading poetry, which is really a fear of seeming like an angsty teen. I wanted emotion and watercolor and tiny handwriting, void of any self-aware cringing or patronizing pity-smiling, but not commendable only by virtue of its sincerity.

If you write a book of poetry about sharks, you might get attention from readers who care about sharks. If you write a book of poetry that is explicitly and consistently about poetry—its institutions and conventions, how we decide what counts as poetry, what we expect it to do—you might get extra attention from readers who care about poetry, which is to say from anyone likely to pick up new poetry at all.

"Once a poem is made available to the public, the right of interpretation belongs to the reader." “Darker emotions may well put on the mask of quite unworldly things,” Sylvia Plath observed in a BBC interview shortly before she took her own life. But the seed of those dark emotions started sprouting many years earlier, when Plath was still a teenager — quite a common life-stage for the first onset of depression.

MEXICO CITY — On September 26, 2014, more than 100 students, often referred to as normalistas, attempted to travel to the city of Iguala. "If there is no justice in our present, writing is exercising an act of justice, for the future that will be the present for other generations. That’s the vital importance of writing poetry for the case of the 43 normalistas, among others."

Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected one poem by Jason Koo for his series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers. "The day always came with more than mere light, came hugely pawing through the windows, Frisking you up, no soft fortress of pillows cobbled around your head could help you, The sunlight in silence pouring down, insidiously weighted With all the expectations of the city..."

A hammer was wrapped in a canvas bag, gagging the piano’s middle C. I think you’re trying to tell me something. Once, I stood near the river so long, I heard two of them whispering in a tree. He said...

Poem by Alicia E Stallings (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

Five years ago, a legendary art dealer filled a chest with treasure and hid it somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Why?

At sixteen I believed the moonlight could change me if it would. I moved my head on the pillow, even moved my bed as the moon slowly crossed the open lattice.

people are starting to come back but they - are not the right people. people are moving away but they are not the right people. I have said terrible things and I - have meant them.

I want to read poetry, but I don’t know how. I’m not even sure what poetry is. So I asked Damian Rogers to explain it to me. Damian, who lives in Toronto but grew up in Detroit and Chicago, is the poetry editor at publisher House of Anansi; the poetry editor at The Walrus magazine; the creative director of Poetry in Voice/Les voix de la poésie, a recitation competition for students; and the author of two collections, most recently Dear Leader, published in May.

In 2013, 44-year-old Wood starved to death after his benefits were cut. Now, an exhibition of his art, poetry and music has opened to show that those who do not fit neatly into society’s rigid systems can still bring positive change

Opportunities to meet one’s heroes can go any number of ways. They can be underwhelming and disappointing, embarrassing and awkward, or—as Tom Waits found out in meeting Keith Richards and Charles Bukowski—completely overwhelming.

The internet mistook Richard Siken's poetry for TV fan fiction—and then it consumed him

Last year a public typewriter was placed on Governors Island during the NYC Poetry Festival, and it has now returned—currently stationed at Tompkins Square Park through July 19th. The project comes from NYC Parks and The Poetry Society of New York, who bill the typewriter as "The Subconscious of the City."

British independent music project The Wraiths offers a contemporary counterpart in Welcome, Stranger, To This Place, setting twelve of William Blake’s most beloved poems to song.

Stephen Henighan on Silvina Ocampo.

Popular British poet selected for prestigious post ahead of strong field including Wole Soyinka

I have known great gold Sorrows: Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully...

I don’t know what I am seeking In the cool night rivers and birds a sensuous lip a rainbow of dreams past waterfalls the ruins of cities appear and fade in front of me awkward man he dresses and clowns seeking love and shelter in criminal ways