Guest columnist Beth Ann Fennelly analyzes Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 for its enduring relevance. The sonnet describes a speaker's journey from self-pity and envy to finding joy through love. Shakespeare ...

Recently we challenged listeners to write an American Sonnet: A non-rhyming, free verse, 14 line poem. We got a number of contributions, but it also ignited a debate over whether sonnets without a ...

Oliver de la Paz’s poem is part of a series of “diaspora sonnets,” in which this one, along with others, create a whole, while each sonnet can still operate on its own. These sonnets don’t have all ...

Sonnets are a form of poem that was much loved by William Shakespeare. This one might be his most famous: Sonnet 18. 'Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?' asks Shakespeare. A sonnet is usually ...

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson (1875–1935) figured significantly in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s. Though prominent as a diarist, journalist, and activist for ...

This most famous of the one hundred fifty-four sonnets of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) evokes, as we all know, both the sweet sadness of the year’s waning and the less-sweet sadness of our own ...