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May 1999

Josef Váchal, Woodcut from Kalendár Tolerancy," 1923.

The oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world.

This issue is sold out.
  • Debra Allbery
  • John Allman
  • Debra Bruce
  • Robin Cooper-Stone
  • Cortney Davis
See Table of Contents
Image of poetry foundation magazine cover may 1999
From this Issue
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Schools

      By Paula Tatarunis
      All day they stream past, petitioners
      for understanding, accolade, critique.
      I read them all, a vast anthology
      of jumbled genres on a common theme:
      affliction. So I parse, interpret, scan.
      I graph dysrhythmias, dysmetrias;
      I eavesdrop on caesuras for unsaid
      murmurs, gallops, rubs, snaps, flutters, clicks.
      The perils...

      Read More
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Before the Rain

      By Lianne Spidel
      Minutes before the rain begins
      I always waken, listening
      to the world hold its breath,
      as if a phone had rung once in a far
      room or a door had creaked
      in the darkness.

      Perhaps the genes of some forebear
      startle in me, some tribal warrior
      keeping watch...

      Read More
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Wight

      By Stanley Plumly
      In the dark we disappear, pure being.
      Our mirror images, impure being.

      Being and becoming (Heidegger), being and
      nothingness (Sartre)—which is purer being?

      Being alone is no way to be: thus
      loneliness is the test of pure being.

      Nights in love I fell too far or...

      Read More

Table of Contents

Poetry
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