Browse the Best Contemporary Poems
The Ultimate Free Collection of Contemporary Poems
I once read that poetry is like sending a message in a bottle. It is a message that has traveled through time and distance to reach you, the reader.
And in that moment when you release that message from inside, don’t you feel like you are entering the secret places—the intimate places—of another as you read each poem? Rainer Maria Rilke once said, “I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”
This website lives in the spirit of Rilke’s words. Here the best contemporary poems are stored for you to discover. Here is where you will find poets that are also your best friends. Here you will also find the secrets of our modern lives. And while you wander through the intimate haunts of our contemporary poets, you may discover that secrets can be shared without ever being given away.
From Charles Bukowski to William Carlos Williams, you can explore the trappings of your own mind personified through the words of another. With all these poets in one place, imagine the places you will explore. Imagine wandering down the halls of a supermarket in California with Allen Ginsburg, only to find yourself standing by a proverbial red wheelbarrow, “glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens.”
Here is a collection of people with secrets. Let their words unravel before you like a silk tie and find out what messages are in store for you.