Eleanor Colligan, this week's Poets Respond selection. Read the full poem: Rattle.com/how-can-a-fire-be-political-by-eleanor-colligan #poetry

@poetpatriciasmith.bsky.social from Rattle 32, Winter 2009 Read the full poem: Rattle.com/motown-crown-by-patricia-smith #poetry

Chad Frame from Rattle 92, Summer 2026 Read the full poem: Rattle.com/what-you-remember-from-statistics-by-chad-frams #poetry

Eugenia Leigh from Rattle 37, Summer 2012. Read the full poem: Rattle.com/destination-beautiful-by-eugenia-leigh

Don't forget that the Rattle Poetry Prize deadline is midnight tonight!

Robert Peake from Rattle 30, Winter 2008, Rattle Poetry Prize Honorable Mention Read the full poem here: rattle.com/road-sign-on-interstate-5-by-robert-peake/ #poetry

Tonight's guest is Lisa Baird. Lisa is a spoken word poet, essayist, and community acupuncturist. Her most recent book, When Whales Went Back to the Water, is a collection of hymns to living in wonder through loss and joy. Join us live at 8pm ET!

Jared M. Campbell from Rattle 92, Summer 2026. Read the full poem here: rattle.com/november-in-... #poetry

This week's Poets Respond poem by Ridwan Fisani, "Inverted Telemachia" #poetry

Glenn Morazzini from Rattle 28, Winter 2007, Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist #poetry

Danielle de Corcho from Rattle 92, Summer 2026 #poetry

Alan Shapiro from Rattle 25, Summer 2006 #poetry

Rhina P. Espaillat from Rattle 92, Summer 2026 #poetry

Arthur Russell, Rattle's Prompt Poem of the Month, June 2026 #poetry

Morri Creech from Rattle 92, Summer 2026 #poetry

Samuel A. Betiku, this week's Poets Respond selection #poetry

Brett Garcia Myhren, from "Telemarketer," Rattle 25, Summer 2005. #poetry

Rhina P. Espaillat from Rattle 92, Summer 2026 #poetry

can’t every room ripen with such ease. —Rachel Clemens

but I’ve already disturbed your sleep, if that’s what it was, and you are beautiful there, shimmering in the spring mud. —Robert Wrigley

Tonight's guest on the Rattlecast is Adam Scheffler, whose new book, So This Is What It Feels Like, explores the role of empathy in the poetry of James Wright. It'll be a Wright-filled night! Join us live at 8pm ET: youtube.com/live/50MrsqY...

before I reached for Anna’s face and cried one last time, I was carried by my bones. —Jeffrey Bean

When they really get ahead of it. Go early before it’s absolutely necessary. —John Newton

a thin-bright, only slightly bitter lie, and nothing like real desire, which is more violent: unswerving: rare. —Virginia Smith

The ice-sheet sky above me is broken only by a hole too small for you to pull me through. —David Boose

In our day, we stirred Folgers crystals mixed with real sugar and powdered cream and called it, Coffee, called it, Social Time, called our mothers. —Rebecca Evans

When we go limp and brown, for mercy’s sake leave us alone; don’t mangle our last shoots to press in any book … —Rhina P. Espaillat

The biggest, fairest, friendliest, poetry contest around is offering $25,000 in total prizes to the best individual poems we receive this summer—but the deadline is only a month away! Find past winners and guidelines here: rattle.com/page/poetryp...

i said don’t keep your distance my hot old roof will cover you —Juanita Miller

Let us now praise the Allen Road drive-thru … —Jennifer Blackledge

The internet is an assault, and imitation is fast becoming the sincerest form of battery. —Samuel Todd

whether flustered or in love, whether hawk or mourning dove —Wendy Videlock

but bronze lips never move. —Donald Smyth

Blue stains approve the silence of the room. A sale of chairs, a house, a bankrupt age goes on behind the mouth’s imperfect bloom. —A.Z. Foreman

There is always a man, slight and dark-socketed, standing by a window, gazing at the mute and luminous moon. —Joanna Solfrian

Or salad dressings, ketchups and mayos, or condiments of any kind, though my daughter disagrees, tossing over her shoulder bottles from the fridge the way I used to sort her baby clothes from the hamper for the laundry. —Jen Karetnick

The Rattlecast is back tonight at 8pm ET and our guest will be 2025 American Book Award-winner Amy M. Alvarez. In the second hour, we'll reveal our new Prompt Poem of the Month, and share some pantoums. See you then!

Like the heron, I will be ghostly and misty and largely unnoticed. —George Bilgere

but sad girls write poems about men they used to shower with —River Adams

They are birds because I have heard them hit their wings against the window. —Nancy Kangas

They can kick you, but only when you’re down. —Ace Boggess

She worked at a downscale casino, dealing blackjack to working suckers ... —Edward Hirsch

if he were not dead I would swear I lived next door to Marlon Brando in the later years, but it is just my enormous sonofabitch neighbor pissing while I watch and don’t watch at the same time —Andrew Nurkin

From outside my bedroom window I must’ve looked holy as I moved slowly across the room in my robe —David Hernandez

wearing it with me, we four lift a finger to touch the same brim, greeting the ladies. —Ted Kooser

In platinum wigs they glitter like smashed glass on the street. —Lexi Pelle

I tell my husband that I want to skip to the coda, to what comes after the age of drones —Jane Zwart

leave the dates alone! don’t eat them that’s how they stop drovers —Tomaž Šalamun

So I did. —Pam Ward

And if they could unbury the moment, what would they find? Would they tell us? —Pamela Garvey