April update: celebrate National Poetry Month with 54 new poems

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.
—Robert Herrick, "The Argument of His Book"

Each year, spring opens its blooms just as Americans open their books—and hearts—to celebrate National Poetry Month. Coincidence? We think not.

Wherever you are in the world, join us in celebrating this month's festivities. Discover 54 poems from 28 brilliant poets, past and contemporary, that traverse buses and blossoms, birds and trees, time travel, sci-fi, protest, and, naturally, the coming of spring.

Explore the poems we've gathered from 12 outstanding contemporary poets:

• Joshua Bennett – "Owed to the Durag"
• Joshua Jennifer Espinoza – "I Am Draped in Heavenly Skin," "My First Love"
• Louise Glück – "End of Summer," "Field Flowers"
• Jane Hirshfield – "Let Them Not Say," "Spell To Be Said Against Hatred," "The Weighing"
• Tyehimba Jess – "What the Wind, Rain, and Thunder Said to Tom"
• Joan Naviyuk Kane – "Nunataq"
• Vanessa Kisuule – "Hollow"
• Kamilah Aisha Moon – "Taking Out the Trash," "Watching a Woman on the M101 Express"
• José Olivarez – "My Mom Texts Me for the Millionth Time"
• Camille Rankine – "Fireblight," "Instructions for the Forest," "Little Children, My Apologies," "Still Life Mechanical"
• Brenda Shaughnessy – "I Have a Time Machine," "Streetlamps"
• Tracy K. Smith – "Driving to Ottawa," "Sci-Fi," "Unrest in Baton Rouge"

Plus, browse through poetry by great poets of the past from the US, England, Scotland, and France, including 10 new to our site:

• Léonie Adams – "Kennst du das Land," "Lullaby," "Many Mansions," "Thought's End"
• Charles Baudelaire – "Syllogisms" (trans. Peter Halstead)
• William Stanley Braithwaite – "It's a Long Way," "Sic Vita," "Turn Me to My Yellow Leaves"
• Robert Herrick – "The Argument of His Book," "Delight in Disorder," "To Daffodils"
• Hugh MacDiarmid – from "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle"
• Elizabeth McFarland – "Myself"
• Arthur O'Shaughnessy – "Ode"
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson – "Crossing the Bar," "The Eagle," "The Lady of Shalott," "To J. S."
• Paul Valéry – "The Graveyard by the Sea" (trans. Cecil Day-Lewis), "Palm" (trans. Denis Devlin)
• Yvor Winters – "At the San Francisco Airport," "Before Disaster," "By the Road to the Air-Base"

We've also added poems by 6 more historic poets previously represented on our site: Anna Lætitia Barbauld ("Ode to Spring," "The Rights of Women"), Countee Cullen ("Heritage," "Yet Do I Marvel"), Thomas Hardy ("The Convergence of the Twain"), Edward Nathaniel Harleston ("The Approach of Spring"), Georgia Douglas Johnson ("The Dreams of the Dreamer"), and Alexander Posey ("Tulledega").

We hope you'll enjoy our spring offering of poetry, through National Poetry Month and beyond!