October 2026 packs a lot into thirty-one days for poets — first-book prizes, single-poem contests, translation awards, and a few big travel opportunities all close this month. Below is a curated roundup of poetry contests October 2026 and related calls we verified on official contest or publisher pages. Always double-check guidelines (fees, eligibility, and formatting) before … [Read more...] about Poetry Submission Deadlines October 2026
October Remission, By: Andrew Cyr
It was early October. I'd hoped it might be different— cancer returned, cursed a blessing, healed unseen wounds. Disoriented, I lay in warm sheets, fighting again. It would end me— unless I found a reason to believe. The last time I drank rum from a bottle in a brown paper bag, I ended up in rehab. Now, I’d die sober before drinking again. A prayer for Elissa quivered … [Read more...] about October Remission, By: Andrew Cyr
What Is Lenore About?
What is Lenore by Poe about? Edgar Allan Poe's Lenore is an elegy for a young woman who has died, staged as an argument over her coffin. One voice calls for a funeral dirge. Her lover, Guy de Vere, refuses to mourn in the usual way, blames the people who slandered her, and sends her soul to Heaven with a song of triumph instead. Read the full text of Lenore on Poetry … [Read more...] about What Is Lenore About?
Sonnet 73 Summary and Analysis
This Sonnet 73 summary begins with an aging speaker. In William Shakespeare's sonnet, the speaker tells the person he loves to look at him and see three things that are ending: late autumn, the last of twilight, and a fire burning down to ashes. Each image brings him closer to death. The closing couplet turns the sadness outward: knowing he will die soon should make his … [Read more...] about Sonnet 73 Summary and Analysis
The World Is Too Much With Us Summary and Analysis
This The World Is Too Much With Us summary starts with the poem's complaint. William Wordsworth says that people are so busy earning and buying that they have lost their bond with nature. The sea and the wind no longer move them. In frustration, the speaker says he would rather be a pagan who believed in old sea gods, because at least that pagan could feel awe when he looked at … [Read more...] about The World Is Too Much With Us Summary and Analysis
The Young Queen, By: Rudyard Kipling
(THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, INAUGURATED NEW YEAR’S DAY 1901) Her hand was still on her sword-hilt, the spur was still on her heel,She had not cast her harness of grey war-dinted steel;High on her red-splashed charger, beautiful, bold, and browned,Bright-eyed out of the battle, the Young Queen rode to be crowned. She came to the Old Queen’s presence, in the Hall of Our … [Read more...] about The Young Queen, By: Rudyard Kipling