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2025-04-24 14:28:40Painting by Early Fern, shared by Marine Eyes
It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.—William Carlos Williams
April, the month Eliot famously deemed the cruelest, is kindest to poetry. It’s when we nationally awaken to poetry’s efforts to capture the human experience in all its messy contradictions, leaning into uncertainty and wonder and bringing readers along for the ride.
Williams’s adage pairs beautifully with Ezra Pound’s assertion that “Poetry is news that stays news.” Poetry* gives readers the most immediate and urgent hotline to feeling. Big emotions turn us instinctively, like human sunflowers, toward poems, which are singularly compact vehicles for thinking and feeling. They have a knack for distilling our existential questions and putting all that wondering to music—after all, the term lyric poetry comes from the lyre,* which accompanied the recitation of poetry in antiquity.
On Substack, poets shed the constraints of traditional publishing timelines, sharing works in progress and experimenting in real time. What arises isn’t just a collection of newsletters but a living anthology of established voices and emerging talents in conversation with one another and their readers. If you’re still not convinced that poetry is for you (it is!), I created a primer of Poems for Those Who Don’t “Get” Poetry. But beyond that gateway, Substack presents countless paths to discover the poems that will speak directly to you—from translation projects that breathe new life into ancient verse to craft discussions that demystify the process. Allow me to introduce you to a few of my favorites.
Poetry in progress
Quiddity: a word I love. It means “the inherent nature or essence of someone or something.” The you-ness of you. That is what the best poets translate through their writing—formal or free verse, ruminative or praising, expansive or brief. It’s the way one listens to the singular voice channeled through them** and delivers that voice alive on the page.
This is the foundation for the widest category of poetry on Substack. No two posts are alike: you might get the intimacy of seeing work that could later make its way into books, hearing poets muse about their writing lives, or watching notes and fragments coalesce into longer lyric explorations.
is one of the best-known poets on Substack, offering devoted readers a mix of never-before-seen work and poems from past collections. And his commitment to Substack’s potential as a propagator of new writing is especially inspiring to emerging writers.
Being witness to commitment and experimentation, that magical balance between discipline and freedom to explore, is riveting. I so admire , translator and former Random House editor ’s long-standing project to chronicle daily life:
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published4.11.25
what I so desired I can’t have
thank you blessed stars
Andrea Gibson’s gorgeously smart features videos of the poet reciting their work and contemplating illness, resilience, and the role that poetry plays in capturing duress, heartbreak, and hope. Here they are reading their poem “What Love Is”:
I was thrilled to see former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith join Substack recently. She’s already sharing poems, works in progress, and essays. Hear her reading a new poem, “I Don’t Believe in Doom,” here:
Then there’s , an ambitious translation project by , a writer dedicated to bringing these ancient poems from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to a contemporary audience. Hyun Woo translates one poem from the collection every week. Here’s one of my favorites, number 55:
The Farewell to Those Who Will Stay at a Tavern of JinlingThe wind blows the willow flowers, filling the inn with fragrance;The ladies of Wu press the liquor, calling to the guests to try.The young men of Jinling come and see each other off;Those who will go, those who will not, each empty his goblet.I invite you to ask the water flowing east, to test it:Which is short and which is long, the thoughts of farewell or itself?
Curators and craft
The poet-as-curator offers us an assortment of poems organized by their own idiosyncratic logic. It’s like receiving the perfect mixtape: songs you’ve known and loved for years, and others you’re grateful to discover for the first time. Chances are good that within any given roundup, at least one poem will speak to you, introducing you to a new voice.
’s is one of my go-tos. He has a phenomenal reader’s eye for juxtapositions that span ages, styles, and modes, creating unexpected—and delightful—tensions and correspondences. His thematic roundups extend far beyond expected subjects like love and death to more nuanced territories like therapy (“This is progress”) and mood (“Puff out the hot-air balloon now”). Through Sean, I was reminded to revisit one of my favorite Audre Lorde poems:
Shared in “This is progress” by Sean Singer
In my own newsletter, , I do something similar: curating Poems for Your Weekend around themes that serve as a prescription for your mind or soul, while exploring how neuroscience and mindset can help us live more sustainable and enriching artistic lives. Through it all, I write about the role of wonder in poetry, the subject of my PhD.
For subtle close readings of poems through the lens of life rather than the ivory tower, I turn to ’s , with its deeply thoughtful essays on the poems he selects each week. His recent post on the poems of Linda Pastan includes this gorgeous poem from Insomnia:
Imaginary ConversationText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedYou tell me to live each day as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen where before coffee I complain of the day ahead—that obstacle race of minutes and hours, grocery stores and doctors.
But why the last? I ask. Why not live each day as if it were the first— all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing her eyes awake that first morning, the sun coming up like an ingénue in the east?
You grind the coffee with the small roar of a mind trying to clear itself. I set the table, glance out the window where dew has baptized every living surface.
I love Devin’s remarks: “why the last is the kind of question I adore, a question that does not assume it knows what we are supposedly supposed to know, a question that mirthfully pushes back against the world, and wonders aloud about astonishment in the face of certainty.”
For those interested in craft, literary powerhouse recently joined Substack and is already offering excellent writing exercises, as helpful for readers hoping to understand poetry as for poets creating their own. His Exercise 036: Begin with the End introduced even this poetry veteran to a new term: anadiplosis! is a resource-rich space, featuring interviews, classes, craft essays, and more. A large group of poets and readers has gathered to take advantage, creating a vibrant community. And a special shoutout in this section to , a poet whose candid essays on navigating both the publishing and dating world as a woman are their own kind of education on living more bravely and authentically.
Final thoughts
Whether encountered in an anthology or a newsletter, poems remind us of what Williams knew: that vital truths exist within their lines that we can find nowhere else. And there’s a special joy in reading them on Substack, where poets find renewed pleasure in publishing on their own terms, and where readers can witness the process and join the discussion. The digital format extends poetry’s reach, bringing these voices to new audiences who might not normally encounter them. Here, poets and readers are participating in poetry’s oldest tradition: the passing of essential truths from one human heart to another. I hope you’ll join us. https://connect-test.layer3.press/articles/4e5d2cee-8bd4-4fb0-9331-48bbeded3a47
