A reading room for poems
Read something.
Say something.
Poems published here are free to read and free to post — no account needed to read a word of it. The response you leave is worth more than the count of it, so length decides whether it sits with the critiques or with the short notes, and nothing on this site can be bought.
Waiting on a reader
12 poems have been published here and not yet had a single critique.
Theme
AnyLoveMemoryAngerDeathFaithLossWorkFamilyHomeIdentityNatureTimeDesireHopeJourneySolitudeWarWonderFearFriendship
+14 more
Form
AnyFree verseSonnetLyric poemAcrosticElegyOdeProse poemVillanelleBalladBlank verseEkphrasticHaikuLimerickSestina
+8 more
00Studio Portrait, Accra, 1974In the photograph my mother is nineteen
and has not met the country I was born in.1 critique01Sestina for a Flat I RentedI still have the key to a house with a different door.
It was not mine for more than a year.1 critique02Small InheritanceHer keys still turn the lock, though she does not.
Once, this hallway held more furniture than light.Waiting on a reader03The Long Way to Forgiving My FatherHe taught me how to check the oil
by never once explaining why,1 critique04Instructions for Leaving a CountryTake the photographs out of their frames; the frames are heavier than the years. Take the recipe your mother never wrote down, which means take your mother, which means take the morning she stood over the pot and would not say how much. Leave the plates. Leave the good ones especially — you will not be the kind of person who has occasions for a while.1 critique05Kitchen, 3 a.m.The fridge hums its one note
and I stand in its light1 critique
Three ways in
4 poemsWorking HoursWhat a job costs, in poems by people who have had one.Chosen by Ilse Brandt3 poemsSmall PrayersFaith as habit, inheritance and argument, not as certainty.Chosen by Nadia Osei3 poemsWhat We Mean By LoveThree ways the word gets used before anyone agrees what it means.Chosen by Dev Ramanathan2 poemsNight WorkWritten close to the dark, where the odd and the exact meet.Chosen by Mara Okonkwo2 poemsWhat Outlasts UsMonuments, memory, and the weather that keeps going after we stop.Chosen by Dev Ramanathan2 poemsSmall HopesPoems that hold on to something, plainly and without arguing for it.Chosen by Ilse Brandt