Welcome to The Penny Blog. Whether you're a regular reader or a first-time visitor, Penny and I are glad to have you here. We encourage you to stay for a while and have a look around, and we hope that you enjoy what you see. This note is meant to serve as a quick introduction to what our blog has to offer.
The blog is constructed as a monthly anthology or magazine of poetry about the seasons. Each month's archive is designed as a separate issue of 8-12 poems on that month. One aim in each issue is to try to cover the gamut, showing the incredible diversity, of English-language poetry over its 500 years.
A unique feature of The Penny Blog is that, and how, we carry long poems. These are each posted over the course of a month, so that each is an entire month's archive. A reader can read either the whole poem as one continuous work (by reading that month's archive), or its constituent parts or cantos as discrete works.
To date we have published five long poems this way. The first was Penny (or Penny's Hat): a 3,000-line work by yours truly, most notable for the 6,000 colors it mentions. Written in December 2009, it became the raison d'etre for creating The Penny Blog in the first place, and gave our blog its name. It was conceived as only the first of a series of pennypoems. A second pennypoem, Penny's OS (a 1,000-line piece incorporating the names of more than 2,000 computer operating systems), was posted here in June 2010.
In February 2010, we took advantage of the copyright status of noted modernist poet Wallace Stevens – most of his work is under copyright in the U.S.A. and the European Union, but has been in the public domain in Canada since 2006 – to post his 30-part magnum opus, Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction – perhaps the only place where Notes appears on the web. This poem is still finding its audience, being discovered by more new readers every month, but quickly become our most-read feature.
Two other, complementary Stevens poems have also been published: the 15-part Esthetique du Mal, that October, and the 33-part Man with the Blue Guitar in July 2011. The former (after a link on Andrew Sullivan's blog) overtook Notes in 2011 to become the most-read feature on the blog.
The above are just two of the 100 George J, Dance poems and translations, and three of the more than 25 Wallace Stevens poems, that we have posted on The Penny Blog to date. Those in turn are just a fraction of the more than 2,000 poems we now carry. From centuries-old classics like Tichborne's Elegy, A Sonnet of the Moon, and To Daffodils, to the cutting-edge contemporary writing found in April magazine, we aim to bring you a representative sample of all the best in poetry – without duplicating what you could already find in any reputed anthology or major website.
We urge you to look for all your favorite poems and poets, You can also use the indexes to browse, either by by poet (here, here, and here) or by title. To browse by title, you can either use the Title Index or read our newest pennypoem, Penny's Blog 2.0, which is linked to all the poems published on the blog through the end of 2024.
In February 2010, we took advantage of the copyright status of noted modernist poet Wallace Stevens – most of his work is under copyright in the U.S.A. and the European Union, but has been in the public domain in Canada since 2006 – to post his 30-part magnum opus, Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction – perhaps the only place where Notes appears on the web. This poem is still finding its audience, being discovered by more new readers every month, but quickly become our most-read feature.
Two other, complementary Stevens poems have also been published: the 15-part Esthetique du Mal, that October, and the 33-part Man with the Blue Guitar in July 2011. The former (after a link on Andrew Sullivan's blog) overtook Notes in 2011 to become the most-read feature on the blog.
The above are just two of the 100 George J, Dance poems and translations, and three of the more than 25 Wallace Stevens poems, that we have posted on The Penny Blog to date. Those in turn are just a fraction of the more than 2,000 poems we now carry. From centuries-old classics like Tichborne's Elegy, A Sonnet of the Moon, and To Daffodils, to the cutting-edge contemporary writing found in April magazine, we aim to bring you a representative sample of all the best in poetry – without duplicating what you could already find in any reputed anthology or major website.
We urge you to look for all your favorite poems and poets, You can also use the indexes to browse, either by by poet (here, here, and here) or by title. To browse by title, you can either use the Title Index or read our newest pennypoem, Penny's Blog 2.0, which is linked to all the poems published on the blog through the end of 2024.
You can also read all the poems by an author, on a subject, or in a verse form by clicking the topic guide at the bottom of a post.
Yet another way to read the blog, which I enjoy, is to click a random month of the archives, which will give you an assortment of 10 or so related poems, ranging from old favorites to ones you've never read.
If you'd rather see what others are reading, you can find the blog's most-visited poetry on Penny's Top 100. Or you may prefer to see what's been read recently, by checking out our monthly feature, Penny's Top 20.
(Please note: If you read a poem here, and like it, then click on the subject header; that will give the poem a vote in that month's Top 20 and year's Top 100. And if you really like the poem, and want to share it, use the social media links at the bottom of each poem's page.)
Besides all that poetry to read, there are a few other things to do here. The Penny Blog publishes occasional prose articles, perhaps the most interesting being an occasional series on copyright law. Prose biographies of the poets posted here is another feature we carry – not on the blog, though, but on our companion wiki, Penny's Poetry Pages. In most cases, reading a poet's bio is as easy as clicking a link beneath her or his poem.
Yet another way to read the blog, which I enjoy, is to click a random month of the archives, which will give you an assortment of 10 or so related poems, ranging from old favorites to ones you've never read.
If you'd rather see what others are reading, you can find the blog's most-visited poetry on Penny's Top 100. Or you may prefer to see what's been read recently, by checking out our monthly feature, Penny's Top 20.
(Please note: If you read a poem here, and like it, then click on the subject header; that will give the poem a vote in that month's Top 20 and year's Top 100. And if you really like the poem, and want to share it, use the social media links at the bottom of each poem's page.)
Besides all that poetry to read, there are a few other things to do here. The Penny Blog publishes occasional prose articles, perhaps the most interesting being an occasional series on copyright law. Prose biographies of the poets posted here is another feature we carry – not on the blog, though, but on our companion wiki, Penny's Poetry Pages. In most cases, reading a poet's bio is as easy as clicking a link beneath her or his poem.
For those who prefer to listen to poetry, we have been embedding audio and video versions of poems from Blogger's sister site, YouTube, since 2020. Not all poems are available that way, but in five years we have managed to add more than 200 videos. You can find a list of them in out Audio/video index.
As well, there are the planned enhanced editions of the pennypoems. We blogged the first of those, Penny's OS 2.0, in August 2010. The 'enhancement' in that case was that every software name is a live link to a description (which can be anything from a line to a long monograph) of the software; turning the work into what may be the most comprehensive encyclopedia of operating systems online. A second enhanced pennypoem, Penny's Blog 2.0, was added in January 2025.
Finally, if like me you're someone who not only likes to read poetry, but also tries to write it, you can discover how to have your own poetry published on our blog, by clicking the Submit a Poem link.
As always, though, the emphasis on The Penny Blog is, and always will be, on reading poetry. As publisher, I've designed the blog to cater to my own tastes as someone who likes to read good poetry. I hope your tastes are similar enough that you will enjoy our varied menu as a means of satisfying them.
Sincerely
As well, there are the planned enhanced editions of the pennypoems. We blogged the first of those, Penny's OS 2.0, in August 2010. The 'enhancement' in that case was that every software name is a live link to a description (which can be anything from a line to a long monograph) of the software; turning the work into what may be the most comprehensive encyclopedia of operating systems online. A second enhanced pennypoem, Penny's Blog 2.0, was added in January 2025.
Finally, if like me you're someone who not only likes to read poetry, but also tries to write it, you can discover how to have your own poetry published on our blog, by clicking the Submit a Poem link.
As always, though, the emphasis on The Penny Blog is, and always will be, on reading poetry. As publisher, I've designed the blog to cater to my own tastes as someone who likes to read good poetry. I hope your tastes are similar enough that you will enjoy our varied menu as a means of satisfying them.
Sincerely
George J. Dance
