Next Line, Please
Each Tuesday, our readers contribute a new line of verse—or a completed poem—in collaboration with a renowned poet.
Previous posts
- A Job of Work
- In Handbags, Purses, and Wallets
- A Liszt Poem
- After Labor Day
- The Fake Apology
- Young Lycidas
- “Yet Once More, O Ye Laurels ... ”
- Ode to Woody Allen
- Play It, Sam
- A Snifter and a Hoodie
- Good-For-You Chocolate
- Control Panel
- You Choose
- Looking for Line One
- Title Search
- Reasons to Live
- You Must Get Drunk
- Prompting a Poem, Dreaming of a Drink
- The Judgment of Paris
- A Familiar Public Place
- Walt Whitman’s Manly Diet
- The Pen Name Is Mightier than the Word
- Behind the Curtain
- T. S. Eliot: Still Undefeated
- “April Is the Cruelest Month, [Because]”
- Let the Renga Reign
- This Week’s Haiku to Become Next Week’s Tanka
- Spring Forward
- Galloping Ghosts
- Heaven, Hope, or a Ghostly Sight
- Papa Joins Mama
- Blues in the Night
- Ruby Tuesday
- A Break with Tradition
- The Mood of Doom, Where Guns Are Snug
- Erase and Change
- The Unmasking
- A Plot Twist–or Two
- Looking Ahead
- The Rules of Engagement
- Bliss is Momentary in the Mind
- Terms of Interment
- From Bouquet to Wreath
- Are the Words of the Prophets Written on Prison Walls?
- The Key That Confirms the Lock
- Caged But Free ...
- Darkness Visible
- Midnight Champagne
- Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?
- Uniformity
- Let’s Do It Again
- Three-Piece Cento With Extra Pants
- Clothwebs and Cobwebs
- Philosophy of Clothes
- A Hand of Frightening Lies
- Snake-Eye
- Humbling Back
- Beautiful Land
- Legato Dreams
- Appaloosa Sky
- Antipodal Star
- The Trip Begins
- Making Groceries
- Product Placement
- Unfinished Business
- Becoming an Obstructionist
- “Conscience versus Consequence”
- Poems and Secret Messages
- “Homage to Auden”
- “In my end is my beginning”
- Like Dancing Down the Aisle
- Similes Are Like Detours—or Shortcuts
- Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down …
- “Nobody Heard Him”
- Cento, Stanza Two
- Our Crowd-Sourced Cento: Stanza One
- Let’s Assemble a Cento
- Wind and Ice
- The Two-Line Poem
- Complete with “Compline”
- Melodious Song
- Mary’s Tip
- Stanza 5: “Six Options”
- Sestina: Stanza 4
- “Her Winsome Style”
- Chemosabe
- Winning Stanza Refuses to Cave
- Let’s Write a Sestina
- Airport Buoyancy
- When Two Strangers Meet
- Hot Toddy
- Rhyme Sandwich
- Sense of an Ending
- The Last Shall Be First
- Of Ciphers—In the Brain
- Finish What Dickinson Started
- Tara’s Theme
- The Shortest Story Ever Told
- The Winning Couplet Grows (into a Sonnet Ghazal)
- The Couplet
- The Way of All Whim
- Diss All Cumbrances
- Let’s Be Misunderstood
- A Whim of Irony
- Old Acrostic, New Acrostic
- Who’s Waldo?
- The Tanka in Toto
- This Week’s Haiku, Next Week’s Tanka
- The August Haiku
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: The Title
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Fourteen
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Thirteen
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Twelve
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Eleven
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Ten
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Lines Eight and Nine
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Seven
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Six
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Five
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Four
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Three
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line Two
- Help Us Write a Sonnet: Line One
E-newsletter
How to Travel Without Seeing
By Andrés Neuman
This week, read an excerpt from the Argentinian novelist’s dispatches from Latin America
THIS WEEK’S ARCHIVE PICK
Capital of Willows
By Eben Wood
After yet another nuclear test in North Korea—the fifth and largest this year—life behind the Bamboo Curtain seems more inscrutable than ever. Eben Wood’s visit to Pyongyang, the seat of Kim Jong Un’s regime, offers a glimpse of life inside the Hermit Kingdom
WISE TO THE WORDS
EDITORS’ PICKS
14 Novels of Love Gone Wrong
By Our Editors
Relationships doomed, damned, or otherwise disappointing
Ten Tales for Winter
By Our Editors
These stories and a warm blanket will get you through the cold
Winter Classical Music
By Sudip Bose
Ten pieces to warm your ears
A Literary Home for the Holidays
By Our Editors
Twelve books about family
Spooktacular Books
By Our Editors
Tales of the monstrous and bizarre
Thirteen for Halloween
By Michael Dirda
Even more terror-ific stories
Neglected Books Revisited
By Stephanie Bastek
What ever happened to the most neglected books of 1970?
Ten Worst Opening Lines
By Our Editors
Ten Neglected Classics
By Our Editors
Oft-forgotten books worthy of your acquaintance
List, List, O List!
By Sandra M. Gilbert
A Response to David Handlin’s “One Hundred Best American Novels”
One Hundred Best American Novels 1770 to 1985 (a draft)
By David Handlin
A reading enthusiast’s list
The Best of The Bard
By Our Editors
Our favorite passages from Shakespeare
Ten Best Sentences
By Our Editors
