New in PIOnline
FEATURED: A forum from our archive, east European poets on poetry & war, poetry from Ukrainian poets Vasyl Stus and Lyuba Yakimchuk
INTERVIEWS: Neil Philip talks to Joseph Thomas about myth, folklore, storytelling, and children’s poetry
REVIEWS: Alexander Long reviews A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke
POETRY: New poems from Jenni Grassl and Daniel Lawless
and more…

Featured
- Died of Old Age“Olha was pregnant/ Serhiy was drunk/ and Sonya was only three/ they all perished, too/ and people said, they died of old age” | by Lyuba Yakimchuk
- Eastern-European Poets on Poetry & WarIn this forum from our archives poets from Ukraine, Poland, and other east European countries consider poetry’s power in the face of war and how the 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea affected their lives and work
- A Stranger Lives My Life And Wears My Body“a speck of hell, the Universe’s scream— laconic and intense, devoid of exits…| by Vasyl Stus
Dispatches
- Dunya Mikhail on “The War Works Hard”“In mind was the war I lived since my teenage time in Baghdad. However, it’s not about a specific war but about war itself. Every time, the war came with a different name…” | by Dunya Mikhail
- Ukrainian Feature: Words for War“For many of the poets, the war is not some distant event one hears about in the papers. It is part of their personal history”| poems from Ukraine, edited by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky
- In Praise of Adam Zagajewski (1945-2021)“For years now, as my plane begins its descent toward the airport outside of Kraków, the city where I was born and raised but left years ago, I recite them quietly” | by Piotr Florczyk
- Yulya Tsimafeyeva’s Poetry of One-Legged Wonder“Between these poets of cultural affirmation and the poets of silence… comes a voice of a woman—and a woman in a patriarchal world is always somewhat of an immigrant” | by Valzynha Mort
Interviews
- Of Things Never Told BeforeOn myths and muses, radical artifice, genre switching, and the love of children’s poetry | Joseph Thomas talks to Neil Philip
- Other People’s VoicesHow sound can bridge the past and present and what books of poetry have in common with websites | Zach Bernstein and Paisley Rekdal talk about her digital project West: A Translation
- Poetry UnboundOn the other 99% of poetry, how it actually exists in the world | Jessica Pressman talks to poet and scholar Mike Chasar
- Celebrating the Natural WorldThe human, the nonhuman, a love of revising, and the sorrow necessary in celebrating the natural world | Tami Haaland talks to Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Reviews
- A Poet of Love, A Poet of PraiseA Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke edited by William Barillas | by Alexander Long
- Broken Hearts and A Broken EarthThe Book of Fools by Sam Taylor | Reviewed by Catherine Imbriglio
- Unearthed GemsCarbon: Song of Crafts by Svetlana Lavochkina | Reviewed by Marina Brown
- Museum of MirrorsWe The Jury by Wayne Miller | Reviewed by D.S. Waldman
Poetry
- Nasturtiums“feel the pod-throb/like your own pulse and the vine bluing in your wrist” | by Jenni Grassl
- My Brother, Solar Eclipse, 1965“But for now, your half-smile says, relief — to be eleven” | by Daniel Lawless
- Cheatsheet“In my all-boys school they’re all dumber than me./ I sit in the back and read André Gide” | by Armen Davoudian, co-winner 2021 PI Prize
- Woolf’s Hair“…she’s gone—/ like the hairpin Virginia Woolf stuck into her unruly bun” | by Eva Heisler, co-winner 2021 PI Prize
From the Archives
- Kings“Those were days when I walked around a little hungry” | by Adam Zagajewski
- The War Works Hard“The war works hard, day and night. / It is a muse for the tyrant’s / long speeches, / it hangs medals around generals, / it blesses poets with themes, / it makes the makers busy—” | by Dunya Mikhail
- 128“In this huge town of mine—night. / the sleepy home I leave—behind. / And people think: wife, daughter— / But I’m aware of just this—night.” | by Marina Tsvetaeva
- Decked Out at Night“They stand apart in this world, / each one with his night, / each one with his death, / morose, bareheaded, hoarfrost-covered” | by Paul Celan
- We Have No Sleep “We think of tomorrow, / as we feed the swans / with yesterday’s bread.” | by Nikola Madzirov
- You and I and the World“Place the scale on the kitchen table / and let reality weigh itself. / Put your coat on. / Turn the light off in the hallway. / Close the door.” | by Werner Aspenström