poetry

It starts out easy and gets progressively harder.

The Nobel Prize-winning poet, who escaped the Holocaust, is the subject of today's Google Doodle.

Hajotthu, Wikimedia Commons // Public domain

Hester Pulter broke convention—and the expectations of her gender and class—by writing about science and politics.

By Napoleon Sarony - Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Oscar Wilde, who was famous for his wit, once advised: "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."

It eats visitor-suggested words and spits out poems.

Better late than never.

“The New Colossus" was a later addition, but it's become an essential part of how we think about the statue.

It was awarded 19 years after her death. Bidding begins at $40,000.

Image: London Stereoscopic Company, Getty Images. Background: iStock. Composite: Lucy Quintanilla, Mental Floss

George Eliot is best remembered for writing classic books like 'Middlemarch' and 'Silas Marner,' but she is also connected to Lady Gaga in an unexpected way.

Behind your favorite poem is a nugget of truth that helped make it a classic.

Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish in Bright Star (2009)

Roses are red, violets are blue. Comic books get made into movies—and poems do, too.

Image: Otto Herschan, Getty Images. Background: iStock. Composite: Lucy Quintanilla, Mental Floss

Emerson emerged as one of the preeminent voices of his generation, both in his lifetime and in the annals of history.

Walt Whitman, the famed author of 'Leaves of Grass,' was a bit of a health nut—and really enjoyed hanging out in the nude.

The elusive art of poetry isn’t so hard to master if you know how to set the stage.

Amherst College, Flickr // Public Domain

The poet was also a skilled baker.

When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem that inspired the holiday tune, he definitely had the horrors of the Civil War on his mind.

Aspiring Wordsworths, take note.

The biting work satirizes Jacobean England, public figures, and religious corruption.

Chemistry makes for some great poetic inspiration.

Courtesy The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

Researchers working on a book about the poet stumbled on two of her unpublished poems hidden in a notebook.

By Mathew Brady - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

The 165-year-old novel is "like seeing the workshop of a great writer,” according to one scholar. “We’re discovering the process of Whitman’s own discovery.”

Library of Congress via Wikimedia // Public Domain

There's more to Robert Frost than "The Road Not Taken"—and according to him, we've all been interpreting that poem wrong anyway.

Pablo Blazquez Dominguez // Getty Images

The world-famous playwright and poet was executed by a firing squad during the Spanish Civil War and buried in an unmarked grave.

T.S. Eliot is best known for writing "The Waste Land," but the Nobel Prize winner was also a prankster who coined a perennially popular curse word and created the characters brought to life in the Broadway musical "Cats."

If You Can Correctly Pronounce Every Word in This 1920s Poem, You’re Among the English-Speaking Elite

6 Fast Facts About Nelly Sachs

A 17th-Century Noblewoman's Rare Poems About War-Torn England Can Be Read Online

25 of Oscar Wilde's Wittiest Quotes

London's Trafalgar Square Gets a Poetry-Writing Red Lion

191 Years After His Death, the Poet William Blake Is Getting a New Tombstone

The Story Behind the Poem on the Statue of Liberty

Sylvia Plath's Pulitzer Prize in Poetry Is Up for Auction

15 Intriguing Facts About George Eliot

The Stories Behind 15 Poems We All Learned in School

11 Movies Based on Poems

15 Facts about Ralph Waldo Emerson

10 Things You Might Not Know About Walt Whitman

16 Tips From Famous Authors for Writing Better Poetry

Bake Like a Literary Hero With 3 Recipes From Emily Dickinson

How the Civil War Inspired 'I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day'

Vivid Imagery Makes Poetry More Pleasurable, According to Psychologists

Found: A Long-Lost Copy of John Donne's Fart-Filled Satire

This Interactive Periodic Table Features a Haiku for Each Element

New Poetry by Sylvia Plath Discovered in Her Archives

Lost Walt Whitman Novel Offers an Early Glimpse Into Leaves of Grass

11 Facts About Robert Frost

Archaeologists May Be Closer to Finding Poet Federico García Lorca's Body

12 Surprising Facts About T.S. Eliot