I can trace my love of poetry back to my 7th grade English teacher. For reasons lost to the fog of time, one day Natalie Fine handed me a book of poems by Langston Hughes and simply said, “I think you will get these.” I did, and I still do.

Recently, I found the wonderful website Read A Little Poetry which is a labor of love by the Manila based writer and poet T. De Los Reyes. The selection of poems are always intriguing, as is the marginalia that accompanies them. The newsletter is ad-hoc – so it’s like having random treats delivered to your inbox – but the website has a meticulous archive sorted by poets and themes, alongside a tab for generating random poems.

A Dream Deferred
Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Bluebird
Charles Bukowski

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be sad.

then I put him back,
but he’s still singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?