poetry

This poet wants brown girls to know they're worthy of being the hero and the author

By PBS News Hour

For girls who didn't grow up seeing themselves as the main characters of books, award-winning poet Elizabeth Acevedo wants them to know that their stories are just as important as any other. Acevedo shares her Brief but Spectacular take on…

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This poet imagines black victims of police violence 'alive someplace better'

By Jennifer Hijazi

Danez Smith sees another life for the black victims of police violence: at last living in a world where blackness is celebrated and “everything/is a sanctuary & nothing is a gun.”…

'What we did while we made more guns' confronts the violence of extreme belief

By Jennifer Hijazi

Dorothy Barresi's “What We Did While We Made More Guns” examines Americans’ anxieties and moral uncertainties in poems on international torture, war and police brutality.

For Valentine's Day, put down your phone and face your feelings with these poems

By Jennifer Hijazi

We are more connected than ever, but poet Matthew Siegel finds it’s made communication and knowing our own feelings more difficult.

Feminist poetry is having a renaissance. Here are 3 poets to watch

By Jennifer Hijazi

Feminist poetry is flourishing -- particularly for women of color.

This Salvadoran poet writes to humanize the immigrant story

By Patty Gorena Morales

Javier Zamora began writing poetry as a teenager after a wave of national protests over immigration reform. Zamora’s poems piece together the strained but inherent connection between the U.S. and El Salvador, and aim to shed light on the immigrant…

After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rican poets ask again what it means to belong

By Jennifer Hijazi

For artists who are both New Yorkers and Puerto Ricans, the concept of identity is fluid and complicated.

How poet Rupi Kaur became a hero to millions of young women

By PBS NewsHour, Jaywon Choe, Elizabeth Flock

Rupi Kaur, one of Instagram’s favorite poets, writes about love, heartbreak and womanhood. She speaks to Jeffrey Brown about her rise to fame and her message for young women.

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Listen to Rupi Kaur, one of the most popular poets in the world, read her work

By Elizabeth Flock

Listen to Rupi Kaur read from "The Sun and Her Flowers," which has sold a million copies since its release in October, and her first book, "Milk and Honey,"…

This New Year's poem honors 'the wrong roads we've taken'

By Jennifer Hijazi

Jimmy Santiago Baca wrote the collection, "Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande" in 2004 after living on the banks of that river. Every morning, he ran through snow, rain and mud in a ritual that he called a spiritual experience.