2026
THIS TRAIN
“THIS TRAIN” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on music, aging, nature. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Poem archive
Poems
Read poems by Arizona and Southwestern writers, plus classic work preserved in the AZPoetry literary archive.
Search by poem title, poet, or a phrase you remember. Each archive page is designed to lead readers toward more poets and related work.
2026
FAILURE TO LEAVE PHOENIX IN ORDER TO SAVE MY LIFE IN THE SUMMER OF 1968
“FAILURE TO LEAVE PHOENIX IN ORDER TO SAVE MY LIFE IN THE SUMMER OF 1968” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on arizona, place and geography, memory. Its imagery is anchored in Arizona, Tucson. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
INTRUSION IN SUISUN
“INTRUSION IN SUISUN” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, mortality and loss, social justice. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
GROUNDING OUT IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
“GROUNDING OUT IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, memory, family. Its imagery is anchored in Pasadena, California. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
GREYHOUND
“GREYHOUND” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, social justice. Its imagery is anchored in California, Glendale, California. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
I'm Going Through
“I'm Going Through” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on love and relationships, family, identity. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
50 Deep Breaths
“50 Deep Breaths” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on memory, love and relationships, family. Its imagery is anchored in Arctic Ocean. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Time
“Time” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on love and relationships, family, nature. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Uptown World
“Uptown World” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, family. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Yesterday Emotions
“Yesterday Emotions” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on place and geography, memory, nature. Its imagery is anchored in Chicago. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Divided States of OZ
“Divided States of OZ” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on social justice, nature, travel and movement. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Reigning Men
“Reigning Men” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, social justice. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Poems 4 Prince
“Poems 4 Prince” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on memory, love and relationships, music. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
IJS
“IJS” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on place and geography, memory, love and relationships. Its imagery is anchored in Alaska, Lake Michigan. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Prophets in Paradise
“Prophets in Paradise” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on memory, love and relationships, music. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Kitchen Conversations
“Kitchen Conversations” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on memory, love and relationships, family. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
I'm Down
“I'm Down” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on love and relationships, family, music. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Gratitude, For My Griots
“Gratitude, For My Griots” by Jimmie Ware is a poem centered on love and relationships, social justice, aging. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Alzheimer’s Poetry Project
“Alzheimer’s Poetry Project” by Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is a poem centered on memory, love and relationships, music. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Chameleon
“Chameleon” by Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is a poem centered on identity, aging, nature. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Punctuated Lips
“Punctuated Lips” by Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is a poem centered on love and relationships, mortality and loss, aging. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Charlie Brown
“Charlie Brown” by Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is a poem centered on arizona, music, identity. Its imagery is anchored in Phoenix. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Life Boat
“Life Boat” by Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is a poem centered on family, mortality and loss, social justice. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
BEAT
“BEAT” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, music, aging. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
ANOTHER SONG
“ANOTHER SONG” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, music. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
A FEW BARS ON A BAR-ROOM PIANO
“A FEW BARS ON A BAR-ROOM PIANO” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, family. Its imagery is anchored in Los Angeles, California. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
A POEM THAT REFUSES TO BE CALLED DUSK
“A POEM THAT REFUSES TO BE CALLED DUSK” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, identity, nature. Its imagery is anchored in San Diego, California. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
IT’S ONLY A DREAM…………………RIGHT?
“IT’S ONLY A DREAM…………………RIGHT?” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on nature, travel and movement. Its imagery is anchored in Los Angeles. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
INNER BLUES ON THE OUTER DRIVE
“INNER BLUES ON THE OUTER DRIVE” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, memory, family. Its imagery is anchored in Chicago, California. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
SUNRISE HIGHWAY
“SUNRISE HIGHWAY” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, love and relationships, nature. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
BLACK LIGHT
“BLACK LIGHT” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, music, social justice. Its imagery is anchored in San Francisco. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
BLUES BOUTS-RIMES TO BILLIE HOLIDAY
“BLUES BOUTS-RIMES TO BILLIE HOLIDAY” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on love and relationships, music, mortality and loss. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
2026
Big Iron
An Arizona Ranger rides into the town of Agua Fria to confront the outlaw Texas Red. Townspeople expect the Ranger to become the outlaw’s twenty-first victim, but their duel ends almost instantly when the Ranger proves faster.
2026
Pieces of the Night
Driving, drinking, crowds and music blur into fragments of a night spent searching for something that remains just out of reach. What survives afterward is not a complete narrative but scattered “pieces of the night.”
2025
Birdwatcher
Speaking as a bird, the poem recounts an attraction to a thru-hiker who repeatedly observes but never fully understands him. Their relationship develops through birdsong, nests, field guides, migration and binoculars until incompatibility becomes something the speaker must finally fly away from.
2025
And Ain't I An American
Through a recurring question about whether he counts as American, the speaker contrasts his own beliefs and cultural preferences with conventional symbols and assumptions about patriotism, asking whether criticism and difference exclude someone from national belonging.
2025
The Vegetarian's Nightmare
A speaker describes preparing a salad as though committing a gruesome massacre, assigning vegetables pain, fear and victimhood before announcing a campaign for plant rights—and then asking for blue cheese.
2025
Desert
Shelton observes moon, wind, stones, mountains and a hidden scorpion as participants in an ancient desert order. By remaining in that landscape, the speaker hopes eventually to exchange language for a deeper form of understanding.
2025
Land Alive
Chorlton imagines the desert landscape as a thinking presence whose roads, rocks, animals, shadows and canyons pose questions that exceed ordinary human answers.
2025
Ridin
A cowboy rejects urban comforts in favor of horseback life across immense desert ranges, finding freedom in sun, mountains, coyotes and open space and imagining that even heaven should consist of riding a winged horse across the stars.
2025
The Mesa Wind Blows Soft
Alone beneath western stars, the speaker asks the gentle mesa wind to carry kisses and memories to an absent woman. The surrounding landscape becomes a messenger for longing that cannot otherwise reach her.
2025
Benedicto
Abbey offers an unconventional blessing: may the reader encounter crooked trails, dangerous journeys, endless rivers, wild forests, red-rock deserts, storms, canyons and ultimately something more wondrous than imagination can predict.
2025
Dissolve
Bitsui moves through a rapidly transforming landscape of mountains, wind, reservation ghosts, uranium water, digital clouds, family, maps and dissolving bodies, creating a world in which environmental, technological and human boundaries continually collapse into one another.
2025
You Are Not What They Speak Of You
The speaker addresses a young person being bullied and urges him not to mistake other people’s cruelty for a truthful description of who he is. Drawing on his own experience, the speaker presents survival as evidence that the victim’s future can exceed the identities imposed on him.
2025
Desert Rain
After a long, smoldering summer, thunder brings rain from the mountains into the gullies and valleys. The speaker experiences the storm as both ecological renewal and personal comfort.
2025
Arizona
Urmy condenses Arizona into four monumental images: mesas and rock spires, canyons and heat, immense open spaces, and a silence that seems to preserve the land’s secrets.
2025
A Frothy Limerick About Gail
Gail takes a long drink of ale, acquires a foamy mustache and then unexpectedly launches into guitar playing powerful enough to make even the gods wail.
2025
Night in Arizona
Moonlight transforms the Arizona desert into a quiet, dreamlike world where the moon resembles a snowflake, cacti become guardians, and night unfolds like a desert lily.
2025
Desert Rain
A desert thunderstorm advances across sunlit mesas, darkens the canyon and erupts into a torrent that floods the canyon floor.
2025
The Song of the Sonoran Desert
Hall presents the Sonoran Desert as a place governed by elemental powers: cactus, yucca, rock, sand, silence, stars, legends, and spirits. The landscape is not merely scenery; it holds memory and mystery.
2025
Satellite TV Sports
Fox mimics the nonstop velocity of satellite sports television, combining multiple sports, announcer language and advertising until athletic competition, consumer products and television spectacle become one continuous broadcast.
2025
Bob Dylan's Love and Theft
Flemons remembers going to sleep on September 10, 2001 anticipating the release of Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft, only to awaken to September 11. The album becomes inseparable from the collision between an ordinary personal anticipation and an event that abruptly changed the surrounding world.
2025
A Human Heart
Missing someone causes the speaker to see a heart in a cloud—but not the polished symbol of greeting cards. Instead, he imagines an actual human heart: messy, vulnerable, compassionate and ultimately impossible for poetry to fully capture.
2025
Stand Your Concession
In six short lines, Orion takes the familiar annoyance of someone texting during a movie and escalates the response into an absurd instruction involving silenced handguns.
2024
December Morning In The Desert
On a cold Arizona morning, the speaker imagines the apparently silent stars as an enormous working machine whose unheard energy continues through birds, insects and other creatures while humans sleepily enter an ordinary Monday.
2024
Goldfish
The speaker compares her grandmother’s dementia with the supposed short memory of a goldfish, moving through repeated introductions, frustration, grief, fear and love as both women become trapped in different kinds of forgetting.
2024
A Cowboy's Prayer
A cowboy prays beneath the stars, finding God more readily in open plains, wind, horses and honest work than inside churches. He asks not for comfort or wealth but for freedom, generosity, integrity and guidance along life’s final trail.
2024
The Giant Cactus of Arizona
Monroe imagines a giant Arizona cactus as an ancient sentinel that has silently witnessed stars, mountains, civilizations and geological time while refusing to reveal what it knows.
2024
Deserted
An empty Southwestern landscape is defined by absence: silent rivers, bare mesas, shadowed peaks, and wind carrying neither footsteps nor names.
2024
In the Arizona Desert
Wortley presents the Arizona desert through contrasts: fierce sunlight and purple shadow, silent mountains and calling mesas, harsh aridity and brilliantly blooming cactus and poppies.
2025
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
"Sonnet 18" by William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease h…
2025
The Tiger by William Blake
"The Tiger" by William Blake Tiger Tiger, burning bright,In the forests of the night;What immortal hand or eye,Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies.Bur…