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January 2002

Unknown Painter, Sung Dynasty, "Winter," 12th Century.

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

This issue is sold out.
  • Cathryn Essinger
  • Martin Galvin
  • Susan Kelly-DeWitt
  • Lynne Knight
  • Judy Longley
See Table of Contents
POETRY Magazine cover of January 2002 issue
From this Issue
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine Tenderness and Rot

      By Kay Ryan
      Tenderness and rot   
      share a border.   
      And rot is an   
      aggressive neighbor   
      whose iridescence   
      keeps creeping over.   

      No lessons   
      can be drawn   
      from this however.   

      One is not   
      two countries.   
      One is not meat   
      corrupting.   

      It is important   
      to stay sweet   
      and loving.

      Read More
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine The Dignity of Ushers

      By Al Maginnes
      Their authority did not unfold
      from ironed white shirts and thin ties
      or from the funereal seriousness that struck
      their acne-splashed faces but because
      they stood heir to our native faith in light.

      So we followed the thin white...

      Read More
    • poem

      Appeared in Poetry Magazine My Dog Practices Geometry

      By Cathryn Essinger
      I do not understand the poets who tell me
      that I should not personify. Every morning
      the willow auditions for a new role

      outside my bedroom window—today she is
      Clytemnestra; yesterday a Southern Belle,
      lost in her own melodrama,...

      Read More

Table of Contents

Poetry
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