Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

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Mary Oliver:

Lew Welch:

William Bronk:

Elise Cowen:

Alan Dugan:

Funk is a hamhock in your eggnog.—George Clinton

Horace Silver Quintet, “Filthy McNasty,” rec. 1961:

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

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The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

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Anaïs Nin:

Yona Wallach (tr. from Hebrew by Linda Zisquit):

Stanley Kunitz:

Galina Rymbu (tr. from Russian by Joan Brooks):

Jenny Offill:

James Blunt, “Monsters,” rec. 2019:

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1. Emily Dickinson’s white dress

   Dickinson’s white dress is in her room at the Dickinson home in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was made in the 1870s of cotton piqué, no waistline, featuring 12 mother-of-pearl buttons, a flat collar, and a pocket (for paper and pencil?) on the right hip. It’s embroidered with lace edges. She started wearing white in her 30s and it became her choice from then on. The dress evoke’s Dickinson’s mystery and inherent strangeness, a position at the periphery of society and contrarian spirit.

   

2. Walt Whitman’s butterfly

   This is an Easter card from 1850 that Whitman owned and became part of his self-promotion and image marketing in the 1870s. It’s a die-cut cardboard butterfly with a hymn on the obverse side. He posed with it perched on his finger in a studio photo from 1877. It evokes Whitman’s persona of the great gray bard, in touch (literally) with nature and expression of spiritual dynamism through his selfhood.

   

3. Henry Thoreau’s pencils

   Thoreau’s father opened a pencil business in 1823 after his brother-in-law found a vein of graphite in New Hampshire. The family had lots of financial problems. Thoreau got a job as a teacher, but quit after 10 days rather than punish disobeying students. He joined his father and soon developed a formula for kiln-fired pencil leads which mixed graphite and clay. In 1844, he inventing a grinding machine that turned graphite into powder—the key feature of a strong, even pencil line. Thoreau pencils won more awards in 1847 and 1849, and the family was able to move into a better and bigger house. Since poetry is fundamentally about slowing down, the pencil is still the best analog tool to do that.

   

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

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The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

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Sarah Gridley:

Jen Hadfield:

Emily Wilson:

Talvikki Ansel:

Lew Welch:

Mary Lou Williams, “Zoning Fungus,” rec. 1974:

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

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The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

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Emily Dickinson:

Lynda Hull:

Philip Whalen:

Coral Bracho (tr. from Spanish by Forrest Gander):

W.S. Merwin:

James Ensor’s self-portrait as a beetle, drawn 24 years before The Metamorphosis:

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

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The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

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Jericho Brown:

Lynda Hull:

Sylvia Plath:

Mary Szybist:

Louis Simpson:

Edmond Hall, “Night Shift Blues,” rec. 1943:

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He published two books, The Spectral Boy (Wesleyan University Press) in 1964 and Early and Late: Selected Poems (Ivan R. Dee) in 2001. He taught at State University at New York at Oneonta for 38 years. “He is a perfectionist,” Donald Justice said, “willing to spend actual years polishing and repolishing his poems.” Of his own poetry, Petersen said:

In a time when partly-formed verse is being widely published and praised, the attempt to write a finished poem may not be fashionable, but it is still worth making. Poetry must present not merely what one has observed with interest or amusement, not merely a bright array of words, but the things that a man has loved and hated and feared in his lifetime.

Formalism, in 2026, sometimes seems like something from grandma’s house: plastic on the sofas and a glass dish of Werther’s Originals placed there during the Johnson Administration. But formalism can also provide a structural system to give a poem its context, unfolding, and a way to move forward concepts like a poem’s plot and ideas.

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

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Michael Chitwood:

Nicanor Parra (tr. from Spanish by Patricio Lerzundi and Lynne Van Voorhis):

Danielle Pafunda:

Cornelius Eady:

C.K. Williams:

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

SIGN-UP IN AUGUST AND I WILL INCLUDE A 30-MIN. EDITORIAL CONSULTATION

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

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William Blake:

Adonis (tr. from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa):

Juan Gelman (tr. from Spanish by Hardie St. Martin):

Rachel Richardson:

Catherine Barnett:

The Bad Plus, “Silence is the Question,” rec. 2003:

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

SIGN UP IN AUGUST AND GET A 30-MIN. EDITORIAL CONSULATION

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

Subscribe now

Sandra Lim:

Sappho (tr. from Greek by Anne Carson):

Jean Valentine:

Wanda Coleman:

Bob Kaufman:

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Laurie Sheck’s writing is beyond category. These excerpts from her novel-in-verse, A Monster’s Notes, are spoken by Mary Wollstonecraft in delirium as she is dying. They are addressed to her husband William Godwin. Wollstonecraft died 11 days after giving birth to Mary Shelley. Characteristic of Sheck’s poetry generally, the language pushes into strangeness and a world-forming mythology; it’s psychologically rich, but physically disorienting. The speakers are entwined with monsters of internal and external pressures. The language oscillates between impulses towards a wild spark and a refusal to acknowledge death.

SS: What is the function of poetry?

LS: The Oxford dictionary defines function as “an activity or purpose natural to or intended for a person or thing.” For example, “bridges perform the function of providing access across water.” For me, one of the beautiful and essential things about poetry, or any art form, is that in a sense it transcends function. Yes, it makes visible the invisible and so helps create a bond and understanding and solace among humans; yes it enacts the mystery, precision and texture of human thought and feeling and the nature of language itself, but it is also like the sun and moon—elemental in that it exists in and of itself, a nervous system made of words, existing the way a human body exists—pure being in all its radiances, curiosities, hurts and contradictions.

SS: What is the hardest thing about writing poetry?

LS: The hardest thing about writing poetry is when, even with great effort, it just isn’t happening. When the poetry is happening in a genuine way the challenges can be difficult but they are a difficult joy—challenges of how to be receptive and active at once; how to understand what honesty truly is and how to push it to its farthest edge; how to feel every syllable; how not to be consumed by a period style or approval from outside.

SS: What would make poetry better or healthier?

LS: I don’t think poetry needs to be healthy; the human race isn’t healthy. I think it needs to be alive without our judging what is better or healthier because we cannot know. It is the genuine that survives, a kind of radical willingness that creates an authentic piece of art, an utterance, but that can’t really be foreknown or prescribed. What can look misguided in one era may shine in the next. To take an example from another form, the novel, Frankenstein was seen as an abomination when it was first published; it was seen as the epitome of “unhealthful”, bad writing; almost all of the reviews were extremely negative. Time has shown those reviews were glaringly mistaken.

SS: What non-poetry book should poets read?

LS: I don’t believe in “shoulds” but for myself I have found that reading widely in many areas has greatly enriched my life and my ways of thinking, my areas of inquiry and my own writing, especially as I have moved into writing in more hybrid forms. Science, philosophy, graphic novels, histories, memoirs, art books, detective novels—the list goes on and on. For myself, I am very grateful to have read over these past years the great Chinese classic, Dream of the Red Chamber, Anne Dufourmantelle’s Power of Gentleness, Cormac McCarthy’s Stella Maris, many books on black holes and the universe, Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, the Deadpool comics, W.G. Sebald’s books, John Berger’s essays, and Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Helgoland.

SS:Which poet do you think is underrated?

LS: I’m not sure I’m too good at knowing how various poets are really regarded except in a kind of general way. One poet who is not necessarily underrated but is worth drawing attention to especially in this time we are now living in is the Austrian poet and writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) whose brilliant poems grappled with a war-ravaged world that had in many ways gone mad and the beauties that endured even so: “Like an afterthought, the universe submits / to familiar equations, such as the light / that falls but leaves the snow untouched.” And: “And where is the sun? / It’s far away. / In fact I / am where I / cannot be.”

For further reading:

Sheck, Laurie. Cyborg Fever. North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2025. [Buy at Bookshop]

—. A Monster’s Notes. New York: Knopf, 2012. [Buy at Bookshop]

—. Black Series: Poems. New York: Knopf, 2012. [Buy at Bookshop]

—. Captivity: Poems. New York: Knopf, 2009. [Buy at Bookshop]

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe now

Share The Sharpener

Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

Sign up in August and get a free 30 minute editorial services consultation!

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

Subscribe now

Barbara Howes:

Thom Gunn:

Michael Longley:

Jane Mead:

Yosa Buson (tr. from Japanese by R.H. Blyth):

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

Subscribe now

Jim Harrison:

Kobayashi Issa (tr. from Japanese by Robert Hass):

Rachel Wetzsteon:

Yang Li (tr. from Chinese by Simon Patton):

Ange Mlinko:

The radish spirit, Oshira-sama (お白様, literally “Great White Lord”) in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away:

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

Subscribe now

Loren Goodman:

Robert Mezey:

Gemma Gorga (tr. from Catalan by Sharon Dolin):

Zbigniew Herbert (tr. from Polish by John and Bogdana Carpenter):

Jean Garrigue:

William Carlos Williams:

Lee Morgan, “Tom Cat,” rec. 1964:

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Hemphill was born in Chicago, but his family moved to Anacostia, a neighborhood in SW Washington, DC. Early influences were Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. In Washington he became a feature of an artistic scene that included performance, visual, music-poetry collaborations, and literary arts. This was a regional part of the broader Black Arts Movement. “Ours should be a vision willing to exceed all that attempts to confine and intimidate us,” Hemphill said. Hemphill died of AIDS in 1995 when he was 38.

Hemphill’s poems were elegiac, and sometimes memorialized the speakers’ own self-destructive impulses. The first person I in his poems is sometimes a lyric voice, a voice of authority, a character, or an autobiographical fragment.

“Object Lessons” contains many of the threads in his poems, the vulnerability and serrated edge mixed with pathos and defiance.

Hemphill preferred straightforward diction, clear syntax, and direct address rather than expressionistic pyrotechnics. But he had mastered the delicacy of exposure, of pressing the exact right point inside the person speaking to get to something tender and exposed.

His subjects, too, demanded the vulnerable uncovering that feels almost metabolic, seeping from his skin.

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 29, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

Subscribe now

Aaron Shurin:

Yehuda Amichai (tr. from Hebrew by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell):

Gwendolyn Brooks:

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (tr. from Portuguese by Mark Strand):

Bill Knott:

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

New Guided Poetry Reading Groups

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.seansingerpoetry.com/join-book-club

Fall/Winter 2026

Reading Groups are facilitated sessions guiding committed poets and poetry readers in a practice of reading more deeply, creatively, and intentionally. Each month, groups perform a close reading of a current book of poetry—books that are overlooked and underrated, books that have something important to tell us about what it is to be alive today.

Groups meet once a month for two hours. Outside of meeting times, I’ll support your reading with prompts, guiding questions, and supplementary materials with a special focus on issues of craft.

Sunday Reading Group Fall 2026

11 am-1 pm EST
Sept. 20, Oct. 25, Nov. 22, Dec. 20

Christopher Gilbert, Turning into Dwelling (Graywolf, 2015)
Caroline Knox, To Drink Boiled Snow (Wave, 2015)
Joan Murray, Drafts, Fragments, and Poems: The Complete Poetry (NYRB, 2018)
Rachel Wetzsteon, Sakura Park (Persea, 2006)

Thursday Reading Group Fall 2026

10 am-12 pm EST
Sept. 29, Oct. 22, Nov. 19, Dec. 17

Robert Hayden, Collected Poems (Liveright, 2013)
Laurie Sheck, Captivity (Knopf, 2009)
Bill Knott, I Am Flying into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 (FSG, 2018)
Donna Masini, Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? (Norton, 2026)

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

Subscribe now

José Garcia Villa:

Frank Bidart:

Langston Hughes:

Kay Ryan:

Stefanie Marlis:

Charlie Parker, “Stardust,” rec. September 26, 1952:

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

Subscribe now

Emily Dickinson:

Springs - shake the Sills - / But - the Echoes - stiffen - / Hoar - is the Window - and /
numb - the Door - / Tribes of Eclipse - in Tents / of Marble - / Staples of Ages - have
buckled - there -

Linda Gregg:

Kathleen Fraser:

Matthew Zapruder:

Paul Muldoon:

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Lang grew up in a patrician Boston family and was the youngest of six sisters. She went to the University of Chicago, but left in 1942 to join the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, then returned and became editor of the Chicago Review. However, she dropped out before graduating and instead did a variety of work as a bridal

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Sean Singer Poetry

Sean Singer Editorial Services

Subscribe to The Sharpener

The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes weekly installments of craft pieces, approaches to writing problems, topics in contemporary publishing for writers, and biographical features on poets I consider important.

Subscribe now

George Seferis (tr. from Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard):

Luís García Montero (tr. from Spanish by Katherine M. Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez):

John Donne:

Lucille Clifton:

Brane Mozetič (tr. from Slovenian by Elizabeta Žargi and Timothy Liu):

The Cure, “Friday I’m in Love,” rec. 1992:

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