November 2026 is the season's big book-prize month for poets. Yale, BOA, Georgia, Nightboat, Fordham's Poetic Justice prizes and Beloit's Chad Walsh chapbook all close, plus a handful of single-poem contests, broadsides and paying journal calls. Below is a curated roundup of poetry contests November 2026 and related calls we verified on official contest or publisher pages. … [Read more...] about Poetry Submission Deadlines November 2026
Foster Roots, By: Andrew Cyr
I moved into an old cabin last month. At the window, tea in hand— mist curls over evergreens, damp cedar drifting in. Foster roots— no branches within. Growing a spine cost me standing tall. I sleep, wake— request denied. Need no one, but crave Paisley, sifting our future. When we meet, doubt confuses me. Now, her presence ripples shyness up my spine. Red hair … [Read more...] about Foster Roots, By: Andrew Cyr
Where to Start with Emily Dickinson
Where to start with Emily Dickinson? Begin with a handful of her most famous short poems: Because I Could Not Stop for Death, Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, I'm Nobody! Who Are You? and I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died. They take a minute each to read, and together they show everything that makes her unique: hymn rhythms, slant rhyme, sudden images and a fearless way of looking … [Read more...] about Where to Start with Emily Dickinson
When I Have Fears Summary and Analysis
This When I Have Fears summary begins with a young poet's worst fear. John Keats's speaker worries that he will die before he has written all the poems in his head, before he can trace the "high romance" he sees in the night sky, and before he can enjoy love again. Faced with these fears, he stands alone on the shore of the world and thinks until love and fame "to nothingness … [Read more...] about When I Have Fears Summary and Analysis
Success Is Counted Sweetest Summary and Analysis
This Success Is Counted Sweetest summary begins with a paradox. Emily Dickinson argues that the people who value success most are those who never achieve it. Just as only someone desperately thirsty truly understands a sweet drink, only a defeated soldier, dying on the battlefield as he hears the winners celebrate, truly understands what victory means. Read the full text of … [Read more...] about Success Is Counted Sweetest Summary and Analysis
Sonnet (Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe), By: Lord Byron
Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe,And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flushIts rose of whiteness with the brightest blush,My heart would wish away that ruder glow:And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes—but, oh!While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,And into mine my mother's weakness rush,Soft as the last drops round Heaven's airy bow.For, through thy long dark … [Read more...] about Sonnet (Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe), By: Lord Byron