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American Life in Poetry was a free weekly column for newspapers and online publications featuring a poem by a contemporary American poet.

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Important Notice to Subscribers

For near­ly 18 years, the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion has sup­port­ed Amer­i­can Life in Poetry’s vision of bring­ing poet­ry to wider audi­ences by dis­trib­ut­ing con­tem­po­rary poems to news­pa­pers across the US on a week­ly basis. The efforts of this part­ner­ship have pro­vid­ed val­ue to mil­lions of read­ers, poets, and those who love poetry.

The pub­li­ca­tion of Amer­i­can Life in Poetry’s week­ly col­umn and dis­tri­b­u­tion to pub­li­ca­tions sun­set­ted on Decem­ber 31, 2022. How­ev­er, this web­site will remain active with full access to the poem archives for the fore­see­able future. To con­tin­ue receiv­ing poems reg­u­lar­ly, we encour­age you to sub­scribe to the Poet­ry Foundation’s Poem of the Day.

The Poet­ry Foun­da­tion thanks Dr. Kwame Dawes, Ted Koos­er, and the admin­is­tra­tive sup­port staff of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebras­­ka-Lin­­coln Eng­lish Depart­ment for fos­ter­ing a rela­tion­ship that allowed for the ampli­fi­ca­tion of poet­ry and poets.

The Poet­ry Foundation

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