By force of her imagination and skill, Emily Dickinson could take the measure of solitude, opprobrium and even damnation.

Yet for all the scorn heaped upon it, purity culture is not the most pressing threat today. Even if it proved counterproductive, it is not nearly as dehumanizing as its successor.

“The churning, burning world needs poets,” Wharton said. “Poets express the human experience in lyrical words. Metaphor in ...

A survey of the Polish poet’s work in the late 1940s and early 1950s highlights Miłosz’s attempt to grapple with the ...