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Glossary Terms
A figurative compound word that takes the place of an ordinary noun. Many kennings rely on myths or legends to make meaning and are found in Old Germanic, Norse, and English poetry, including The Seafarer, in which the ocean is called a “whale-path.” (See Ezra Pound’s translation). “The Oven Bird” by Robert Frost also includes examples such as “mid-wood” and “petal-fall.” The speaker in Frank Bidart’s poem, “The Third Hour of the Night,” mentions a creature referred to as the “wound-dresser.”  See…

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From the Poetry Magazine Archive

  • Poem
    By Kimiko Hahn
    Without the sun filtered through closed eyelids,
    without the siren along the service road,

    without Grandpa’s ginger-colored hair,
    Mother’s lipstick, Daughter’s manicure,

    firecrackers, a monkey’s ass, a cherry, Rei’s lost elephant,
    without communist or past tense,

    or a character seeing her own chopped-off feet dancing...
  • Poem
    By Elizabeth Acevedo
    it’s the being alone, i think, the emails but not voices. dominicans be funny, the way we love to touch — every greeting a cheek kiss, a shoulder clap, a loud.

    it gots to be my period, the bloating, the insurance commercial where...
  • Poem
    By Cortney Lamar Charleston
    By way of my mother, the deacon with the slick gray hair and money
    clip in his pocket can claim a percentage of my body like tithe rights.
    And on this Sunday, as with every other Sunday, he is a slender
    ebony panel...

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