In celebration of National Poetry Month, every day we're posting a new poem from the spoken-word album Poetic License,a three-CD set that features one hundred performers of stage and screenreading one hundred poems selected by the actors themselves. FromShakespeare and Dickinson to Lucille Clifton and Allen Ginsberg, thelineup spans contemporary American poetry and classics of the Westerncanon.
John Donne (1572–1631) was a metaphysical poet known for his tumultuous relationship with the Roman Catholic faith of his upbringing. In the late sixteenth century, he published the volumes of love and erotic poems Satires and Songs and Sonnets, followed by Divine Poems in 1607, written while the poet was suffering a period of destitution. Donne also wrote numerous sermons as a chaplain of the Anglican Church, to which he converted in 1615, as well as a book of prayer, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624).
Claire Lautier has appeared in regional theater productions of An Ideal Husband, Cyrano, and Richard III, among others, as well as on Broadway in Chaucer in Rome.
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne, from Poetic License produced by Glen Roven. Copyright © 2010 by GPR Records. Used with permission of GPR Records.
Pass-Along Poems
Spread the word about debut poets and their work with this Pass-Along Poems chapbook. Print, assemble, and bind several handcrafted, saddle-stitched editions. Add your recommendations for first-time poets on the back pages, and while you’re at it, paste in your own polished, unpublished work or that of others you admire.
Poetry Challenge
Need a dose of inspiration for your writing routine this April? Take our Poetry Challenge and try out a new writing prompt or poetry-related assignment every day during National Poetry Month.
Six Video Poems
The video poem may be ushering a whole new demographic to poetry. Here are six that have been made available to a wide audience on YouTube.