Sestina: Mushrooms
Metamorphosis Up from the shadowed forest floor you rise, Grim undertakers in the train of death From whose smashed, stinking remnants...
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By Adam Sedia
- Aug 12
- 23 min
Clarity and Obscurity:The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared
Classical and modern poetry are inarguably different. Indeed, modernism’s chief boast is its break with classicism and tradition more...
By Adam Sedia
- Jul 7
- 5 min
Beyond the Lines: Shelley's "Ozymandias"
In honor of the 200th anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley's death, The Chained Muse is proud to present a month-long celebration of life...
By Adam Sedia
- Apr 2
- 9 min
Why Amanda Gorman Is Not a Poet
Amanda Gorman became something of a phenomenon, fêted as a celebrity from the moment she read her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” amid the...
By Adam Sedia
- Mar 15
- 11 min
The Parable of the Red Sky
After crossing the Great Mountains, I saw before me, to the west, a vast and sprawling plain. Many great rivers crossed its fertile...
By Adam Sedia
- Feb 22
- 1 min
Windmills (Benton County, Indiana)
The thunder departs. Its withdrawing boom Calls to a beam of angling light That strikes the titan towers through the gloom And sets them...
By Adam Sedia
- Dec 31, 2021
- 1 min
The New Year
The fields stretch out, bare, icy: __Wide, blank, yet-unetched slates, Tabulae rasae, waiting __The chisel of the Fates, But deep beneath...
By Adam Sedia
- Dec 12, 2021
- 1 min
Incense
A hundred tongues of smoke— Translucent wisps, lithe specters— Rise, snaking languidly, Curling, grasping like tendrils At the light they...
By Adam Sedia
- Oct 29, 2021
- 23 min
Whitman’s Curse: Contemporary Poetry as Solipsism
Contemporary poetry is plagued by several characteristic vices: obscurity, banality, nihilism—each a topic for examination in its own...
By Adam Sedia
- Oct 1, 2021
- 1 min
Autumn Leaves
Flecks of yellow gold in bright cascades, Less like the hurried rain than lazy snow, Twirl downward, throwing out their warming glow As...
By Adam Sedia
- Sep 17, 2021
- 4 min
Beyond the Lines: Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night"
Robert Frost’s talent radiates best from his shorter poems. His poetic voice, naturally laconic, finds its most expressive mode in his...
By Adam Sedia
- Jun 8, 2021
- 1 min
Two Rains
The Two Rains On Yorkshire’s moors, on Wiltshire’s plain, On Cornwall’s sea-sprayed craggy cliffs, the rain Hangs limp, immobile, from...
By Adam Sedia
- Mar 22, 2021
- 1 min
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...
By Adam Sedia
- Jan 27, 2021
- 6 min
Beyond the Lines: Ode on Melancholy
An ode on melancholy might conjure the worst stereotypes of poetry: restless youth agonizing over imagined existential crises – a...
By Adam Sedia
- Jan 1, 2021
- 1 min
The New Year
The fields stretch out, bare, icy: __Wide, blank, yet-unetched slates, Tabulae rasae, waiting __The chisel of the Fates, But deep beneath...
By Adam Sedia
- Nov 16, 2020
- 1 min
Nebula
When my time has come And helium Weighs down on my exhausted core, Spent from shedding light Through the endless night Until the fuel...
By Adam Sedia
- Sep 15, 2020
- 41 min
Clarity and Obscurity: Eliot's Masks
T.S. Eliot means many things to many different people. Like Yeats he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the academy he numbers among...
By Adam Sedia
- May 25, 2020
- 2 min
Ode to Spring
O life-affirming season, mild and fair Yet bursting with life, rousing long-dulled sense, Whose spark of youth electrifies the air Heavy...
By Adam Sedia
- Mar 30, 2020
- 1 min
Dawn Herald
Night broods heavy, dark, and still – Its darkest, stillest hour, When the damp, dead airs chill And the starlight glows dour. I roam the...