February 14, 2025
Caroline Harper New - “Notes on Devotion”
Full disclosure, I read this for the first time yesterday, but then I read it again and again. I’m a sucker for birds in a poem and I think they’re approached perfectly here—beautifully, carefully, not treading too heavily but aimed straight for the heart. —Leila Jackson
Thomas Hobham - “Grindr at 3am again”
I really love this poem because of its formal experimentation, not being afraid that the reader will get lost as well as its appropriation of internet forms, something that has come to define intimacy these days. Its unabashed but also not sugarcoated depiction of queer desire and intimacy is so beautiful as it swings between tender and grotesque images, between mundanity and heightened senses of desire. —Colby Meeks
Richard Siken - “The museum”
I think this poem is the closest thing I can find to how it feels when you know a relationship is ending and you're just kinda watching it go. If you've ever been to a museum with somebody you liked and then realized that you have fundamental insurmountable differences and you can never have a meaningful romantic relationship this poem is for you. Sometimes people are different and it's nobody's fault. —Anna Popnikolova
Robert Hayden - “Those Winter Sundays”
This cold spring semester found me on a call with my dad. It was recent and it was surprising to me in many ways. I love this poem for its similar comfort and complexity. The word choice in that last couplet in particular kills me: all the definitions of "offices." It's a service or kindness, and yet I also think of a place for work and a position of authority. My initial impression of that line was endless rows of cubicles, at once a place meant to hold people (and love, in this case) and a place that sits unfilled — austere, lonely. —Sheerea Yu
Traci Brimhall - “Concerning Cuttlefish and Ugolino” (from Rookery)
When I was in junior year of high school, I spent hours each week sketching one sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Ugolino and His Sons, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. What drew me to the piece first was Ugolino’s hands, and those of his children: rough, clenched, despairing. Perfect for drawing practice. I studied the dimpled skin where fingers pressed into hard muscle. Finally I turned to the expressions: horror, fear. Prayer. I looked at how the oldest son, clutching his father’s knee, turns his eyes up as if to the sun. The middle child, burying his face in his lap. It’s very easy to find art in anguish. It’s much harder to find love. —Anika Hatzius
Traci Brimhall - “Aubade as Fuel”
The first time I read “Aubade as Fuel” in print, I didn’t get it. I don’t know why I decided to give it another try, but now it is one of my favorites in the New Yorker’s collection. Every time I read the first verse, I see crumpled white sheets, and every time I read the second, I see an empty train station. —Wyeth Renwick
Paul Celan - “Corona”
Paul Celan is maybe the most perfect poet ever and this is maybe the most perfect poem ever. It is time for it to be time. —Elena Ferrari
William Shakespeare - The Courting Sonnet from Act 1 Scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet
A classic for a reason ~ love me in the way that when we first meet we share space, meter, form, forming one sonnet. And love me in the way that when our love ends, not by us no never by us, our sonnet stills and snaps. —Niya Chagantipati
Lana Del Rey - “Sugarfish” from Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass
A talented lyricist and occasionally talented poet—Lizzie Grant, I love you, be my valentine today? This poem has such a modernly saccharine sentimentality to it and so does she and so I love them both. —Kyson Taylor
2025