Community Profile

This is a place where you can share your favorite poems. New poets, old poets, classic poets, the great poets! Please note: this is a mirror/backup community of the greatpoets community on LiveJournal.

Posting rules:

1. This community is for the sharing of known, published poets. This community is not for posting your own personal work or your friends', even if you have been published -- there are other poetry communities for personal poetry. Items posted to a personal website or blog don't qualify as published.

Please do not post song lyrics. Be sure to name the author of the poems you post. All posts must include a poem.

2. Poems that are longer than thirty lines are welcome; but we ask that the portion beyond thirty lines be placed behind a lj-cut. See the Livejournal FAQ for details on how to cut your posts.

3. Please do not alter the font of your posts from the lj default (size, color, font). Please do not center the text in your post unless that's how the poet originally intended it to be formatted.

4. Before making a request post, please check previous request posts to make sure your request has not already been made. (You can use the 'previous' link on each page to see older entries.) Please include a poem in any request post you make.

5. If the poem contains content involving sexual assault or self-harm, please place it behind a cut with a trigger warning.

6. You can check our archive of previously posted poems to make sure you're not repeating a recent post.

7. Be civil. No personal attacks.

8. No advertising in this community!

We have an archive of previously posted poems, which is grouped by author.

Eating Poetry
Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.


From Selected Poems by Mark Strand. Copyright © 1980 by Mark Strand. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf. All rights reserved.

Please direct all comments, questions, and concerns to the current maintainer, med_cat, via DW private message.