The Chained Muse

By Drew Keane

Someday, Not Too Long from Now

When someday, not too long from now, the world Is buried under webs of roads unfurled, With layer stacked on layer to the skies — A...

By Caitlin Johnstone

Aspire to Greatness (The Real Kind)

Aspire to greatness, but not the kind they teach you about in school. Not the kind where you can all be astronauts and presidents when...

By Daniel Leach

Dream Time

The clock is ticking in the pallid rays Of ghost-like morning hour’s waning moonlight, And though it orders all my waking days, It has no...

By Adam Sedia

The Gift of Lilies

If angels plucked up blossoms In endless, light-drowned skies, With curved sextuple petals Glowing radiant white, Pearlescent in noon’s...

The Editors

World Poetry Day Podcast

Robert Frost once said, "A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom." We could not agree more. In this World Poetry Day podcast, New...

By Michael R. Burch

Will There Be Starlight?

Will there be starlight tonight while she gathers damask and lilac and sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, or will she...

By Jack Dempster

Autumn Ballad

I. Leaves of crispy gold and red drift softly from the sky, falling down to the frozen ground without a sound, to shrivel up and die –...

The Editors

Modernism, Eugenics, and the Revolt of the Masses

Modernism has many secrets—some might even call it a dark side. This dark side involves a stunningly elitist philosophy, a pro-imperial...

The Editors

200 Years Later: Mapping Keats's Progress with Dr. Kim Blank

Professor Kim Blank, author of Mapping Keats's Progress, joins the New Lyre Podcast to discuss the astounding poetic development of John...

By Gleb Zavlanov

Barbarous Captivity & Truth Seekers

Barbarous Captivity The stone confines the angel’s shape; It grips her hands with awful might; It clutches at her supple nape And hinders...

By Terry Norton

The Monkeys and the Moon

(adapted from a Tibetan folktale) In times long-past, there lived a band Of monkeys in a forestland, And as they rambled roundabout, They...

By Cynthia Chung

On Optimism: A Chant of Darkness

“So my optimism is no mild and unreasoning satisfaction. A poet once said I must be happy because I did not see the bare, cold present,...