Thousands of poets publish their work on WordPress.com every year, building a loose network of communities centered around a shared love of language.
To celebrate the breadth and depth of the poetry you shared over the past year, we turned to editors from some of the (many, many) literary journals and webzines that use WordPress to publish powerful, cutting-edge verse. We asked each one to choose a poem from 2016, and to explain why it stayed with them. Here are their selections.
“How to Survive a Glacial Meltdown”
Vivian Faith Prescott, Hawai’i Pacific Review
Acquire animal skills.
Become a loon, a haunting crier,
swallowing the remains of this world underwater.Learn to skin. Yourself.
Pull your feathered hood
over your head, adjust your chinstrapto your throat.
Tyler McMahon, Editor, Hawai’i Pacific Review: We’re always trying to emphasize the “Pacific” in Hawai`i Pacific Review. I’m constantly on the lookout for more work from Oceania and the Pacific Rim. Vivian Faith Prescott is a Sámi-American from a small island in Alaska. Hers is the sort of voice we love to feature on HPR.
The poem itself is incredible. It takes on climate change not as a nebulous policy issue but as a real, concrete phenomenon. It’s not about global warming, so much as it’s about local warming. Prescott doesn’t treat her subject with fatalism or liberal guilt, but with absurd humor and a deep sense of history. It is at once a documentary, a call to action, a lament, and a reminder of the ways in which we are all connected.
“07 August, 1943: U-84, After Her Disappearance in the Caribbean Sea”
Paul David Adkins, Panoplyzine
Eins Zwei
When the hollow
of their boat echoed
like a tubercular ward,
when they lolled
on The Tongue of The Ocean,
a black pill to be swallowed,
their rivets popping from pressure.Sieben Acht
Andrea, Jeff, and Ryn, Editors, Panoplyzine: Filled with implication, bursting with white space, this poem covers duty, brotherhood, leadership, even courage. It is both heartbreaking and heroic, defying catastrophe with grace.
Image from “Focusing,” by PaulaB at The Temenos Journal.
“Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life”
Jennifer Finstrom, Silver Birch Press
I inspect Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life
with a magnifying glass, hoping to find
the smallest connection between us. But I
don’t know Morse code or how to throw
my voice. I don’t drive a fancy blue roadster.
Melanie Villines, Editor/Publisher, Silver Birch Press: Since Nancy Drew’s 1930 appearance in The Secret of the Old Clock, the teenage sleuth has inspired generations of girls — including this one — with her moxie, intelligence, determination, but most of all her independence. For me, Jennifer’s poem took on even greater meaning, since 2016 was an election year, with a woman candidate who’s cited Nancy Drew as a childhood inspiration. The poem generated so many comments that it led to a call for submissions, which resulted in the Nancy Drew Anthology: a 212-page collection featuring writing and art from 97 contributors from around the world.
“Did the Universe Have a Beginning, and If So, What Happened Before Then?”
Carolyn Hembree, Sundog Lit
Names you could pass through on—Roane County, Calfkiller River
After I would flatten my hand hard for the medium-colored horse to eat her sugar cubes, I was thought a girly-girl
Ought to count herself lucky. First in the family to keep her teeth this long
You mean to tell me a perfectly normal twenty-five-year-old man died of a hen peck. Set into blood poisoning. You mean sepsis. Why’d they call him Fred if his name was John
Carrie Chappell, Poetry Editor, Sundog Lit: Carolyn Hembree’s poem speaks to me because of its question, its investigation, but also because of its music. The poem recalls an American South I recognize, yet one that is jumbled. I’m fascinated by how she achieves this through collage, an imagistic chord — an arpeggio of language, images, anecdote — which encapsulates the mania of origin, the enchanting disquiet of people reasoning existence.
Image from “Focusing,” by PaulaB at The Temenos Journal.
“While Watching the Music Video for ‘Only One’ at Midnight, Kanye West Walks Into the Fog Holding His Daughter in His Arms and I Can See the Clouds Outside of My Window Parting Into Two Wings”
Hannif Willis-Abdurraqib, Drunk in a Midnight Choir
I have your smile and nothing else / I am most you when I am wrecked with joy / isn’t that a miracle / I let the grass grow over your grave / until it ate your name / until the year of your dying was swallowed / until there was nothing left but the year you were made possible / which is the year I, too, was made possible / and isn’t that a miracle /
Todd Gleason, Editor in Chief, Drunk in a Midnight Choir: Hanif has become one of my favorite poets writing today. Just in the short time that I have known him, he has rocketed into well-deserved acclaim as a prolific writer of astonishing poetry and personal essays. He loves pop culture, particularly music, and he engages with it in ways that peel back the layers of socially constructed meaning that surround it, showing us how something as simple as a song is able to change an entire life from the inside out.
While part of me wanted to share a poem by someone perhaps less well-known and celebrated, I just couldn’t get away from this one. I love it too much. Starting with the title, it begins with a single, small moment — the watching of a music video — and gradually expands into something epic and sprawling and deeply personal — a tribute to the poet’s mother and a meditation on family, loyalty, death, grief, survival, where we come from, and how we carry that legacy into the future.
Since there’s no such thing as too much poetry, explore our archives for more verse from across WordPress.
Awesome list Ben!
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Poetry! So glad you shared a lot of poems. What a nice treat to stay awake for.
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It was a pleasure to read this… )) Thank you..
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Thank you for sharing deep thoughts and beautiful poems
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Great, what the world needs is lots more poetry 😊😊
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Thank you. What an inspiring post. So wonderful poetry is alive and strong.
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Words, the most powerful weapon if not used wisely.
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Hi. I have also penned down my thoughts related to life, love, heartbreak and healing.
http://wp.me/p7Djzw-1a
I would really appreciate if you would give it a read and leave your valuable reviews.
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Great post. And this is specially for me because I love poetry. Poetry is dynamic and timeless, it’s life itself. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you for sharing your list of poetry. It inspired me a bit…and so I wrote. Smooches for the heads up.
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Thank you for the gift in linking me to other poets. What a wonderful idea to showcase the poems that spoke to you. ❤
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Beautifully written
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You made my day!
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Thank you! Lissy Verghese
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Nice reading your poem.Its was good and different.
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Poetry is amazing and these poems fall in that list 📝✅
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They are really beautiful!
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Hey, ya know what?…Thank you.
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Absolute great!
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So many words in single frame.. Loved it..
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Beautiful work
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Stunning gathering of poetry here. I agree with a previous comment: the world needs more poetry. Thank you for sharing, Ben! 🙂
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Loved reading the poems! Thank you for gathering these poems together. I really wish their were more poetry in the society we live in!
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Wonderful. Thanks Ben
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Very nice
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cool. I liked Panoplyzine. Great piece
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Great work !!!
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Beautiful. 2016 is the year I started to write
https://amiweirdblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/realisation-and-distraction/
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Nice collection man.
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So inspiring and beautiful
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Thanks for helping me start my day with the gift of lovely words.
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Good thing to think about
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Thanks for posting some fantastic writing. I am a big fan of poetry. If any outdoor enthusiasts are lurking, I wrote a poem at https://mountainthoughts.com/2016/12/23/twas-the-night-before-hunting-season/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true
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Poetry can be so complex yet mesmerising to the reader who can decode it. I think that is what I love most about poetry. Its ability to speak to people in the most hidden and underlying way possible. Would you mind checking out my blog? It revolves a lot around poetry and I think you might find an interest in it…
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Well, words are everything. Good choice of poetry.
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This is so good !!!!
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❤ Inspired
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I like poetry so much!
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The truest poem of all time is The Bluebird by Charles Bukowski.
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Thanks for this! A great collection.
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Nice collection, thank you!
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Nice collection. Even I am fond of poetry and I write too.
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Great effort — this will inspire all the writers, especially the new ones.
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