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The Greatest (Short) Poems of All Time

Poetry comes in all shapes, styles and sizes, with no reigning definition of what even constitutes a poem. Even less on what makes a great poem.

Another problem in compiling the Greatest Poems list is that most source material (including anthologies, critiques and reading lists) traditionally focus on English poetry, especially British and American works. Typically only a smattering of poems created in other languages are considered. To overcome this we have endeavoured to consult a wider range of critics, scholars, anthologies, curricula, readers and poets themselves from around the world—to highlight great poetry of diverse eras and origins.

We have also faced the length issue. It seems ludicrous to be comparing everything from single-line verses to book-long epic poetry for the same "greatest poetry" list. To even the field moderately we have separated long and short poems into separate lists, as well as distinguished collections of poems.

Of course, the categories of greatest short poems, long poems and poetry collections often overlap. We have some rules of thumb to determine which group a given work falls into but it sometimes comes down to a subjective judgment.

The short poems listed below can generally be read and appreciated in a single sitting—from a minute to an hour or so—at the leisurely rate required for appreciating poetry. They tend to be under a dozen pages long. They usually present single moods or thoughts, and feature unitary themes with compact, cohesive storylines.

The consensus about what is considered great poetry is always changing of course as new works appear and older works undergo re-evaluation—and this list is accordingly always under revision.

Latest update: March 27, 2024

The 333 greatest short poems
in chronological order

BCE
c.2030
"A Love Song of Shu-Suen"
Anonymous
Sumer
poem
c.600
"Ode to Anactoria"
Sappho
Greece
poem
 
"Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite"
Anonymous
Greece
poem
c.250
"Hymn to Apollo"
Callimachus
Greece
poem
c.60
"Let us live, my Lesbia"
Catullus
Rome
poem
CE
c.740
"Deer Park"
Wang Wei
China
poem
 
"Drifting on the Lake"
Wang Wei
China
poem
 
"A Farewell"
Wang Wei
China
poem
c.750
"Jade Stairs Lament"
Li Bai
China
poem
 
"Quiet Night Thought"
Li Bai
China
poem
 
"Waking From Drunkenness on a Spring Day"
Li Bai
China
poem
c.1130
"A Quatrain in Summer"
Li Qingzhao
China
poem
1290
"Upon a day, came Sorrow into me"
Alighieri Dante
Italy
poem

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c.1535
"They Flee From Me That Sometimes Did Me Seek"
Thomas Wyatt
England
poem
1594
"A Fairy Song"
England
poem
1599
"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"
Christopher Marlowe
England
poem
 
"All the World's a Stage"
England
poem
1600
"Adieu, Farewell Earth's Bliss"
Walter Raleigh
England
poem
 
"The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"
Walter Raleigh
England
poem
c.1600
"Lord Randall"
Anonymous
Scotland
poem
1603
"On My First Son"
Ben Jonson
England
poem
1609
"Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds"
England
poem
 
"My Mistress's Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun"
England
poem
 
"Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"
England
poem
 
"That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold"
England
poem
 
"When, in Disgrace With Fortune and Men's Eyes"
England
poem
 
"When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought"
England
poem
1616
"To Celia"
Ben Jonson
England
poem
1624
"No Man Is an Island"
John Donne
England
poem
1633
"Batter My Heart, Three Personed God"
John Donne
England
poem
 
"Death, Be Not Proud"
John Donne
England
poem
 
"Go and Catch a Falling Star"
John Donne
England
poem
 
"Good-Morrow, The"
John Donne
England
poem
 
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
John Donne
England
poem
 
"Love"
George Herbert
England
poem
1639
"Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?"
John Suckling
England
poem
1645
"Go, Lovely Rose"
Edmund Haller
England
poem
1648
"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"
Richard Lovelace
England
poem
1649
"Upon Julia's Clothes"
Robert Herrick
England
poem
 
"To Lucasta, Going to the Wars"
Richard Lovelace
England
poem
1650
"Delight in Disorder"
Robert Herrick
England
poem
 
"The Retreat"
Henry Vaughan
Wales
poem
1656
"The Twa Sisters"
Anonymous
England
poem
1673
"On His Blindness"
John Milton
England
poem
1675
"Lord Thomas and Fair Annet"
Anonymous
England
poem
1678
"To My Dear and Loving Husband"
Anne Bradstreet
United States
poem
c.1680
"The Fox and the Crow"
Jean de La Fontaine
France
poem
1681
"Absalom and Achitophel"
John Dryden
England
poem
 
"To His Coy Mistress"
Andrew Marvell
England
poem
1680s
"Foolish Men"
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Mexico
poem
1692
"Dream"
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Mexico
poem
1747
"Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes"
Thomas Gray
England
poem
1749
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
Thomas Gray
England
poem
1765
"Sir Patrick Spens"
Anonymous
Scotland
poem
1773
"Phyllis Wheatley"
On Being Brought from Africa
United States
poem
1782
"Erlkönig"
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Germany
poem
1785
"To a Mouse"
Scotland
poem
1786
"Ode to Joy"
Friedrich Schiller
Germany
poem
1788
"Auld Lang Syne"
Robert Burns
Scotland
poem
1789
"The Lamb"
William Blake
England
poem
1790
"Tam O'Shanter"
Scotland
poem
1791
"Sweet Afton"
Scotland
poem
1794
"London"
William Blake
England
poem
 
"A Poison Tree"
William Blake
England
poem
 
"The Tyger"
William Blake
England
poem
 
"A Red, Red Rose"
Scotland
Song
1795
"A Man's a Man for a' That"
Scotland
poem
1798
"Frost at Midnight"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Scotland
poem

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1800
"Michael"
William Wordsworth
England
poem
 
"A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal"
William Wordsworth
England
poem
 
"The Life Path"
Friedrich Hölderlin
Germany
poem
1805
"The Last Rose of Summer"
Thomas More
Ireland
poem
1805
"The Palace of Pleasure"
Leigh Hunt
England
poem
1807
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802"
William Wordsworth
England
poem
 
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
William Wordsworth
England
poem
 
"Ode: Intimations of Mortality"
William Wordsworth
England
poem
 
"Character of the Happy Warrior"
William Wordsworth
England
poem
 
"The World Is Too Much With Us"
William Wordsworth
England
poem
1808
"And did those feet in ancient time"
William Blake
England
poem
1814
"She Walks in Beauty"
George Gordon Byron
England
poem
1816
"Kubla Khan"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
England
poem
 
"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
John Keats
England
poem
 
"To a Waterfowl"
William Cullen Bryant
United States
poem
1817
"Thanatopsis"
William Cullen Bryant
United States
poem
1818
"Ozymandias"
Percy Byssche Shelley
England
poem
1819
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
John Keats
England
poem
 
"Ode to a Nightingale"
John Keats
England
poem
 
"Love's Philosophy"
Percy Bysshe Shelley
England
poem
 
"The Infinite"
Giacomo Leopardi
Italy
poem
1820
"To Autumn"
John Keats
England
poem
 
"The Cloud"
Percy Byssche Shelley
England
poem
 
"Ode to the West Wind"
Percy Byssche Shelley
England
poem
 
"To a Skylark"
Percy Byssche Shelley
England
poem
 
"La Belle Dame Sans Mercie"
John Keats
England
poem
 
"The Lake"
Alphonse de Lamartine
France
poem
1825
"To ***"
Alexander Pushkin
Russia
poem
1829
"The Spider and the Fly"
Mary Howitt
England
poem
1830
"So, we'll go no more a-roving"
George Gordon Byron
England
poem
 
"Old Ironsides"
Oliver Wendell Holmes
United States
poem
1834
"Abou Ben Adhem"
Leigh Hunt
England
poem
 
"The Rhodora"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
United States
poem
1835
"The Hermit"
Joseph von Eichendorff
Germany
poem
1837
"Borodino"
Mikhail Lermontov
Russia
poem
 
"Death of the Poet"
Mikhail Lermontov
Russia
poem
1838
"Jenny Kiss'd Me"
Leigh Hunt
England
poem
 
"A Psalm of Life"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
United States
poem
 
"Concord Hymn"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
United States
poem
1842
"My Last Duchess"
Robert Browning
England
poem
 
" Break, Break, Breakl"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
England
poem
 
"Locksley Hall"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
England
poem
 
"The Lady of Shalott"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
England
poem
 
"Ulysses"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
England
poem
1844
"Night Thoughts"
Heinrich Heine
Germany
poem
1845
"Meeting at Night"
Robert Browing
England
poem
 
"Sweetheart, let’s see if the rose"
Pierre de Ronsard
France
poem
 
"The Raven"
United States
poem
1847
"The First Snowfall"
James Russell Lowell
United States
poem
1848
"Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth"
Arthur Hugh Clough
England
poem
 
"When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be"
John Keats
England
poem
1849
"A Dream Within a Dream"
United States
poem
 
"Annabel Lee"
United States
poem
1850
"How Do I Love Thee?"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
England
poem
 
"The Blessed Damozel"
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
England
poem
1851
"O Soul, Remember"
Eduard Mörike
Germany
poem
1853
"The Scholar Gipsy"
Matthew Arnold
England
poem
1854
"Charge of the Light Brigade"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
England
poem
1855
"Evelyn Hope"
Robert Browning
England
poem
 
"I Sing the Body Electric"
Walt Whitman
United States
poem
 
"Song of Myself"
Walt Whitman
United States
poem
1856
"Tomorrow, at Dawn"
Victor-Marie Hugo
France
poem
 
"Poet and Citizen"
Nikolai Nekrasov
Russia
poem
 
"The Snow-Storm"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
United States
poem
 
"Maud Muller"
John Greenleaf Whittier
United States
poem
1857
"The Song of Exile"
Gonçalves Dias
Brazil
poem
1858
"The Chambered Nautilus"
Oliver Wendell Holmes
United States
poem
 
"The Deacon's Masterpiece"
Oliver Wendell Holmes
United States
poem
1860
"Paul Revere's Ride"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
United States
poem
 
"The Children's Hour"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
United States
poem
1861
"The Albatross"
Charles Baudelaire
France
poem
1862
"Remember"
Christina Rossetti
England
poem
1863
"Auguries of Innocence"
William Blake
England
poem
 
"Sudden Light"
Christina Rossetti
England
poem
1864
"Success is counted sweetest"
Emily Dickinson
United States
poem
1865
"O Captain! My Captain!"
Walt Whitman
United States
poem
1866
"You Will Not Grasp Her With Your Mind"
Fyodor Tyutchev
Russia
poem
1867
"Dover Beach"
Matthew Arnold
England
poem
 
"Neutral Tones"
England
poem
1869
"Clair de Lune"
Paul Verlaine
France
poem
 
"A Noiseless Patient Spider"
Walt Whitman
United States
poem
1870
"The Sleeper in the Valley"
Arthur Rimbaud
France
poem
1871
"Jabberwocky"
Lewis Carroll
England
poem
 
"The Drunken Boat"
Arthur Rimbaud
France
poem
1873
"Red Cotton Night-Cap Country "
Robert Browning
England
poem
1874
"The Afternoon of a Faun"
Stéphane Mallarmé
France
poem
1881
"Requiescat"
Oscar Wilde
Ireland
poem
1883
"The New Colossus"
Emma Lazarus
United States
poem
 
"Solitude"
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
United States
poem
1887
"To Be Born a Man"
Adela Zamudio
Bolivia
poem
 
"Low Tide on Grand Pré"
Bliss Carmen
Canada
poem
 
"Requiem"
Robert Louis Stevenson
Scotland
poem
1888
"Invictus"
William Ernest Henley
England
poem
1889
"Crossing the Bar"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
England
poem
1890
"London Snow"
Robert Bridges
England
poem
 
"Gunga Din"
Rudyard Kipling
England
poem
 
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
W.B. Yeats
Ireland
poem
 
"Because I could not stop for Death"
Emily Dickinson
United States
poem
1891
"A Sincere Man Am I"
José Marti
Cuba
poem
 
"'Hope' Is the Thing With Feathers"
Emily Dickinson
United States
poem
 
"I'm Nobody! Who Are You?"
Emily Dickinson
United States
poem
 
"A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"
Emily Dickinson
United States
poem
1892
"Vitai Lampada"
Henry Newbolt
England
poem
1896
"Vitae Summa Brevis"
Ernest Dowson
England
poem
 
"Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae"
Ernest Dowson
England
poem
 
A.E. Housman
England
poem
 
"I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died"
Emily Dickinson
United States
poem
 
"We Wear the Mask"
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
United States
poem
1897
"Recessional"
Rudyard Kipling
England
poem
 
"Richard Cory"
Edwin Arlington Robinson
United States
poem
1899
"Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"
W.B. Yeats
Ireland
poem
 
"The Man With the Hoe"
Edwin Markham
United States
poem
1900
"The Darkling Thrush"
England
poem

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1902
"The Man He Killed"
England
poem
1904
"Waiting for the Babarians"
Constantine Cavafy
Greece
poem
1905
"The Girl Was Singing In a Church Choir"
Alexander Blok
Russia
poem
1906
"The Highwayman"
Alfred de Noyes
poem
1907
"The Cremation of Sam McGee"
Robert W. Service
Canada
poem
 
"The Shooting of Dan McGrew"
Robert W. Service
Canada
poem
1908
"Torso of an Archaic Apollo"
Rainer Maria Rilke
Germany
poem
1909
"My Country"
Ricardo Miro
Panama
poem
1910
"If"
Rudyard Kipling
England
poem
 
"Miniver Cheevy"
Edwin Arlington Robinson
United States
poem
1911
"The Little Car"
Guillaume Apollinaire
France
poem
1911
"Dusky Veil Shades Her Hands Clenching"
Anna Akhmatova
Russia
poem
1912
"The Listeners"
Walter de la Mare
England
poem
 
"Renascence"
Edna St. Vincent Millay
United States
poem
1913
"Zone"
Guillaume Apollinaire
France
poem
 
"These My Poems, Written So Early"
Marina Tsvetaeva
Russia
poem
 
"Trees"
Joyce Kilmer
United States
poem
 
"Sacred Emily"
Gertrude Stein
United States
poem
1914
"Grodek"
Georg Trakl
Austria
poem
 
"For the Fallen"
Laurence Binyon
England
poem
 
"Listen"
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Russia
poem
 
"Mending Wall"
Robert Frost
United States
poem
 
"The Death of the Hired Man"
Robert Frost
United States
poem
 
"Chicago"
Carl Sandburg
United States
poem
1915
"In Flanders Fields"
John McCrae
Canada
poem
 
"The Soldier"
Rupert Brooke
England
poem
 
"The Dead"
Rupert Brooke
England
poem
 
"The Pool"
Hilda Doolittle
United States
poem
 
"The Road Not Taken"
Robert Frost
United States
poem
 
"Ann Rutledge"
Edgar Lee Masters
United States
poem
 
"The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter"
Ezra Pound
United States
poem
1916
"Sea-Fever"
John Masefield
England
poem
 
"Cargoes"
John Masefield
England
poem
 
"Fog"
Carl Sandburg
United States
poem
 
"I Have a Rendezvous with Death"
Alan Seeger
United States
poem
1917
"Preludes"
England
poem
 
"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
Wallace Stevens
United States
poem
1918
"Suicide in the Trenches"
Siegfried Sassoon
England
poem
 
"God's Grandeur"
Gerard Manley Hopkins
England
poem
 
"Pied Beauty"
Gerard Manley Hopkins
England
poem
 
"Spring and Fall"
Gerard Manley Hopkins
England
poem
 
"The Windhover"
Gerard Manley Hopkins
England
poem
 
"The Fish"
Marianne Moore
United States
poem
 
"There Will Come Soft Rains"
Sara Teasdale
United States
poem
1919
"An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"
W.B. Yeats
Ireland
poem
 
"Black Messengers"
César Vallejo
Peru
poem
 
"If We Must Die"
Claude McKay
United States
poem
1920
"Anthem for Doomed Youth"
Wilfred Owen
England
poem
 
"Dulce et Decorum Est"
Wilfred Owen
England
poem
 
"The Second Coming"
W.B. Yeats
Ireland
poem
 
"Mr. Flood's Party"
Edwin Arlington Robinson
United States
poem
1922
"Mother to Son"
Langston Hughes
United States
poem
 
"The Emperor of Ice Cream"
Wallace Stevens
United States
poem
1923
"Snake"
D.H. Lawrence
England
poem
 
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
Robert Frost
United States
poem
 
"Fire and Ice"
Robert Frost
United States
poem
 
"The Red Wheelbarrow"
William Carlos Williams
United States
poem
1924
"Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines"
Pablo Neruda
Chile
poem
 
"Letter to a Woman"
Sergei Esenin
Russia
poem
1925
England
poem
 
"The Weary Blues"
Langston Hughes
United States
poem
1928
"Sailing to Byzantium"
W.B. Yeats
United States
poem
1930
"In the Middle of the Road"
Carlos Drummond De Andrade
Brazil
poem
1931
"Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink"
Edna St. Vincent Millay
United States
poem
1932
"Bavarian Gentians"
D.H. Lawrence
England
poem
1934
"Immortality"
Clare Harner
United States
poem
 
"This Is Just to Say"
William Carlos Williams
United States
poem
 
"The Idea of Order at Key West"
Wallace Stevens
United States
poem
1935
"Words From Confinement"
Cesare Pavese
Italy
poem
 
"Proletarian Portrait"
William Carlos Williams
United States
poem
 
"To a Poor Old Woman"
William Carlos Williams
United States
poem
1936
"Funeral Blues"
W.H. Auden
England
poem
1938
"To Those Born After"
Bertolt Brecht
Germany
poem
1939
"Musée des Beaux Arts"
W.H. Auden
England
poem
1940
"David"
Earle Birney
Canada
poem
 
"Song of Negroes in Cuba"
Federico García Lorca
Cuba
poem
 
"The Unknown Citizen"
W.H. Auden
England
poem
1942
"Liberty"
Paul Eluard
France
poem
1944
"Day and Night"
Dorothy Livesay
Canada
poem
1945
"Family Portrait"
Carlos Drummond De Andrade
Brazil
poem
 
"Autumn Leaves"
Jacques Prévert
France
poem
 
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
Randall Jarrell
United States
poem
 
"Elegy Just in Case"
John Ciardi
United States
poem
1945–1962
"Middle Passage"
Robert Hayden
United States
poem
1946
"Fern Hill"
Dylan Thomas
Wales
poem
1947
"The Key of Water"
Octavio Paz
Mexico
poem
 
"Directive"
Robert Frost
United States
poem
1948
"If You Forget Me"
Pablo Neruda
Chile
poem
 
"Death Fugue"
Paul Celan
Romania
poem
1950
"Death will come and will have your eyes"
Cesare Pavese
Italy
poem
1951
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"
Dylan Thomas
Wales
poem
1952
"I carry your heart with me"
e.e. cummings
United States
poem
1953
"Deferred Time"
Ingeborg Bachmann
Austria
poem
 
"The Waking"
Theodore Roethke
United States
poem
1954
"The Birth of Tragedy"
Irving Layton
Canada
poem
 
"Meditations in an Emergency"
Frank O'Hara
United States
poem
1956
"A Ballad of Going Down to the Store"
Miron Białoszewski
Poland
poem
1957
"Elegy of Fortinbras"
Zbigniew Herberti
Poland
poem
1958
"I Am Waiting"
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
United States
poem
 
"Junkman's Obbligato"
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
United States
poem
1959
"I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You"
Pablo Neruda
Chile
poem
 
"We Real Cool"
Gwendolyn Brooks
United States
poem
 
"Memories of West Street and Lepke"
Robert Lowell
United States
poem
1961
"Babi Yar"
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Russia
poem
1962
"Warning"
Jenny Joseph
England
poem
 
"Those Winter Sundays"
Robert Hayden
United States
poem
1963
"Sylvia's Death"
Anne Sexton
United States
poem
1965
"Daddy"
Sylvia Plath
United States
poem
 
"Lady Lazarus"
Sylvia Plath
United States
poem
1966
"Digging"
Seamus Heaney
Northern Ireland
poem
 
"The Express"
Stephen Spender
England
poem
 
"Tracks"
Tomas Tranströmer
Sweden
poem
1967
"Pièta"
Wisława Szymborska
Poland
poem
 
"Face the Animal"
Jean Follain
France
poem
1968
"The Poor"
Roberto Sosa
Honduras
poem
1969
"Draft of a Modern Love Poem"
Tadeusz Różewicz
Poland
poem
1970
"Don’t Leave the Room"
Joseph Brodsky
Russia
poem
1972
"Under a Certain Little Star"
Wisława Szymborska
Poland
poem
1973
"Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)"
Nikki Giovanni
United States
poem
 
"Diving Into the Wreck"
Adrienne Rich
United States
poem
1974
"This Be the Verse"
Philip Larkin
England
poem
1975
"Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror"
John Ashbery
United States
poem
1976
"In Praise of My Sister"
Wisława Szymborska
Poland
poem
 
"One Art"
Elizabeth Bishop
United States
poem
1977
"Calderoniana"
Efraín Huerta
Mexico
poem
 
"And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name"
John Ashbery
United States
poem
1978
"Death of a Lady's Man"
Canada
poem
 
"Still I Rise"
Maya Angelou
United States
poem
 
"Power"
Audre Lorde
United States
poem
1980
"Homage to My Hips"
Lucille Clifton
United States
poem
1981
"The Colonel"
Carolyn Forché
United States
poem
1982
"Heroics"
Julia Alvarez
United States
poem
1983
"A Smile to Remember"
Charles Bukowski
United States
poem
1984
"Hallelujah"
Canada
poem
1985
"Mock Orange"
Louise Glück
United States
poem
1986
"Love After Love"
Derek Walcott
St. Lucia
poem
1987
"To Live in the Borderlands"
Gloria Anzaldua
United States
poem
 
"Ancestor"
Jimmy Santiago Baco
United States
poem
1989
"From the Bridge"
Claribel Alegría
Nicaragua
poem
1992
"The Man With the Night Sweats"
Thom Gunn
United States
poem
1994
"Blood"
Carmen Boullosa
Mexico
poem
1995
"In the Secular Night"
Margaret Atwood
Canada
poem
2003
"Rain"
Claribel Alegria
Nicaragua
poem
 
"Errata"
Kevin Young
United States
poem
2005
"Text"
Carol Ann Duffy
England
poem
2008
"Rain"
Don Paterson
Scotland
poem
2010
"The Golden Shovel"
Terrance Hayes
United States
poem
2011
"Moving"
Luis Chaves
Costa Rica
poem
 
"Home"
Warsan Shire
Costa England
poem
2012
"Balas Chonas"
Cherríe Morago
United States
poem
2013
"Rape Joke"
Patricia Lockwood
United States
poem

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