poem

Stories 1 - 20 |  Next >>

Anti-War Poem Brings Seven-Year Sentence

Moscow court sends poet to prison for public performance against Ukraine invasion

(Newser) - A Russian poet was given a 7-year prison sentence Thursday for reciting verses against Russia's war in Ukraine, a punishment imposed during a relentless Kremlin crackdown on dissent. Moscow's Tverskoi District Court convicted Artyom Kamardin on charges of making calls undermining national security and inciting hatred, which related...

He Wasn't Known for Poems, but He Left Behind a Rare One

Novelist Raymond Chandler's 'Requiem' was penned after the loss of his wife from lung disease

(Newser) - Near the end of 1954, the wife of Raymond Chandler died after a long battle with lung disease. The famed crime novelist fell into near-suicidal depression from which he never recovered. He drank heavily and died just five years later, at age 70. Chandler completed no major books after the...

School Library Scraps Inaugural Poem After Parent Complaint

Amanda Gorman says she's 'gutted' that 'The Hill We Climb' was taken out of Fla. elementary library

(Newser) - The young poet who performed her spoken-word piece at President Biden's 2021 inauguration is now at the center of the latest book-banning controversy. Citing documents from the Florida Freedom to Read Project, Politico reports that Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb" has been removed from the...

'Fools!' Spacey Makes Surprise Appearance in Museum

The actor surprises people with reading of Gabriele Tinti's "Boxer at Rest"

(Newser) - Kevin Spacey returned to the public eye Friday for "a bizarre reading" of a poem at an Italian museum, Variety reports. The actor, whose career nosedived in 2017 amid sexual-assault allegations, appeared at the National Roman Museum and read a poem about a wounded boxer who vowed never to...

A 10-Year-Old Girl Just Moved the World

With a special poem called 'Dyslexia'

(Newser) - A 10-year-old girl in England has surprised her teacher—and now the world—with a poem about dyslexia that's structured in a very clever way, Today reports. Jane Broadis, who teaches the girl at Christ Church School near London, tweeted the poem Wednesday: "Please share—I would love...

No One Liked Paul Ryan's St. Paddy's Day Pint
No One Liked
Paul Ryan's
St. Paddy's
Day Pint
THE RUNDOWN

No One Liked Paul Ryan's St. Paddy's Day Pint

And other St. Patrick's Day minutiae from around the internet

(Newser) - Everyone is said to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day, and even though he hails from Scottish roots, President Trump got into the spirit a day early. Per the Washington Post , Trump hosted Irish PM Enda Kenny at the White House Thursday, and the president celebrated the spirit of...

Poet Stumped by Standardized Questions on Her Own Poems
Poet Stumped by Standardized
Test Questions on Own Poems
in case you missed it

Poet Stumped by Standardized Test Questions on Own Poems

Sara Holbrook calls Texas assessment 'big baloney sandwich'

(Newser) - If anyone can answer questions on a standardized test about the poems "The Real Case" and "Midnight," it should be Sara Holbrook—the poet who wrote them. But as the Washington Post reports, Holbrook recently took a stab at a couple of State of Texas Assessments of...

Winning Bid for Anne Frank Poem Stuns Auctioneers

$148K selling price was 3 times the estimate

(Newser) - The Netherlands' Bubb Kuyper auction house expected the eight-line poem on a piece of old paper to sell for thousands. They just didn't expect to go for $148,000. For that price, an anonymous bidder has become the owner of a poem signed by Anne Frank on March 28,...

Nurse Accused of Murdering 8 Patients Wrote Creepy Poem

Elizabeth Wettlaufer accused of killing elderly patients in Canada

(Newser) - A 49-year-old nurse in Canada is accused of murdering eight of her nursing home patients, a crime string that would make her one of the nation's most prolific serial killers, reports the Globe and Mail . And in a decidedly creepy twist, the National Post reports that she once wrote...

Boy Apologizes for White Privilege in Epic Poem

'I have started life on the top of the ladder'

(Newser) - A 14-year-old stood up in front of his eighth-grade class in May and delivered what is now "being celebrated as the definition of responsible self-analysis by a white American," per Fusion . In a viral video posted two weeks ago, Royce Mann of Atlanta begins his poem "White...

Lost Tolkien Poems Found in School Annual

Christmas poem, love poem from 1936 'overwhelmed' UK principal who found them

(Newser) - In August, a previously unseen JRR Tolkien retelling of a 19th-century Finnish epic was published. Now the world will get to experience two other lost Tolkien gems: a pair of poems the Lord of the Rings author penned for an English student publication in 1936, the New York Times reports....

Obama Recites Love Poem to Michelle on Ellen

'I Obamacare about you more than you even know'

(Newser) - President Barack Obama, who's spending another Valentine's Day apart from wife Michelle, did the next best thing short of celebrating the lovers' holiday with her: On Friday's broadcast of the Ellen DeGeneres Show, the president recited a love poem he says he had planned to deliver to...

White Guy Finally Gets Published— as Yi-Fen Chou

Poem really by Michael Derrick Hudson of Fort Wayne, Ind.

(Newser) - "If there is such a thing as employing yellowface in poetry, this has to be it." That's what Korean-American blogger Phil Yu, known as Angry Asian Man , has to say about Michael Derrick Hudson , a white poet whose poem was chosen for The Best American Poetry 2015...

Meet the Guys Google Pays to Write Poetry

The Haiku Guys get hundreds of dollars per hour to write personalized poems

(Newser) - Waxing lyrical might not seem like to best route to riches, but it turns out poetry is still pretty popular—and "the Haiku Guys" have been able to turn that appeal into cash, Fast Company reports. What they offer is, essentially, a custom poem-writing service. As the guys' site...

Lost Walt Whitman Poem Found in 1842 Newspaper

Professor meticulously proved the poem was indeed a Whitman creation

(Newser) - "If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles"—or perhaps in a 19th-century penny newspaper, if you're Walt Whitman. Library of Congress archives, an eagle eye, and a husband who happens to be a Whitman expert all combined to help a University of Nebraska-Lincoln...

New York Times Turns Its Stories Into Haikus

Happy National Poetry Month!

(Newser) - The New York Times is celebrating National Poetry Month with a quirky new Tumblr: Times Haiku . It's exactly what it sounds like: haiku generated from stories posted to the NYT homepage. But, interestingly, it's all automated. So a computer algorithm came up with gems like these:
  • "His
...

Scholar Finds 50 Lost Rudyard Kipling Poems

Set for publication next month

(Newser) - A literary scholar has unearthed more than 50 unpublished poems by Rudyard Kipling—and soon, the world will get to see them. They're set for release in March in the first complete collection of Kipling's poems, a hefty three-volume set containing more than 1,300 works, the Guardian...

Tom Hanks Performs Slam Poem About ... Full House

On 'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon'

(Newser) - Just when you thought F-bomb-dropping Tom Hanks could not possibly get any cooler, he goes on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and performs a slam poem about … a 1990s sitcom. "Full House, house full of men. Danny, Jesse, Joey, father, uncle, friend," intoned a very serious Hanks...

Rosie O'Donnell Had Secret Heart Attack

Comedian writes poem about scary 'ache in my chest'

(Newser) - Rosie O'Donnell had a life-threatening heart attack last week and didn't even know it, TMZ reports. The comedian describes the incident as a poem on her blog , saying she had chest pains, vomited, and gobbled an aspirin, but never called emergency services. A cardiologist told her the next...

Santorum Slogan Echoes ... Langston Hughes Poem?

Poet's pro-gay, pro-union themes don't seem to mesh

(Newser) - Rick Santorum is taking a ribbing today after Think Progress asked him whether he knew that his campaign slogan of "Fighting to Make America America Again" seems to be borrowed from a "pro-union poem by the gay poet Langston Hughes." (The poem is called Let America Be ...

Stories 1 - 20 |  Next >>
Most Read on Newser