Poetry for the Age of American Decline

Poetry can provide solace. It can also remind people to quit freaking out. Poems selected for Congress, nervous shoppers, Maureen Dowd, and the President of the United States.

Poetry for the Age of American Decline

People read their favorite short poems into an answering machine for a project Verse By Voice.  Make sure to listen to novelist Zadie Smith reading Frank O'Hara's Animals and Laura Demanski reading Gerard Manley Hopkins' Spring and Fall. Note: we didn't include what is surely not Christopher Walken reading EE Cummings, but that's worth a listen too.

"A dragon," unknown illuminator
Franco-Flemish, about 1270
Tempera colors and gold leaf on parchment
Courtesy Getty collection

The Unseen Bestiary is an attempt by artist Lindsey Carr to produce a set of work which depicts Flora & Fauna the artist has never seen.

The Unicorn (English, 12th century)

from the Aberdeen Bestiary,