Penny's second (and third and fourth) million

 

It took 16 years, from our 2010 founding to September 2025, for Penny's Poetry Pages to reach 1 million page views. It took 10 months to gain our next million.  

We ended 2025 with almost 1.2 million views. That was up to 1.4 million by March, 1.8 million by May, and 1.95 million by the end of June. On July 12, we received our 2 millionth view. And there was more to come, as total page views continued to climb, first up to 3 million, and then over 4 million before month's end. 

All told, the blog received 2,391,201 page views in July alone – more views in a month than in all of the previous months combined.

For years PPB was trapped in a vicious circle: few visitors led to being ignored by search engines, which led to few visitors in the next month, and so on. Now it appears that the opposite is happening. After we reached 500,000 views, we began appearing in Google search, and viewership began to climb, from under 100 visits a day to more than 1,000. that led to other search engines like bing carrying us as well. As a result the number of visitors kept increasing, with page views as high as 10,000 on some days. 

This increasing availability on search engines has expanded not only our reach, but our range, giving PPP an increasingly international profile. A glance at Google's statistics for this week illustrates that well: While our biggest source of visitors is still the United States (with 238,000 page visits), we also received more than 100,000 visits each from Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and Germany. (Canada is not listed, alas.)

But search engines are just one part of the story; there have been other factors working to boost our viewership.  One that deserves acknowledgement is JLA Forums. 

After Google stopped providing a web portal to Usenet in 2004, JLA Forums stepped into the breach and began building an archive of selected Usenet groups. As per their policy of not allowing some external links, though, JLA omitted most of the promotional posts that were a big part of the Usenet poetry groups in the early days (such as Rick Lupert's "Poetry Super Highway" notices). Originally they wanted to omit the PPB posts to the as well; however, when contacted by some of our readers, they quickly decided on an alternate way of dealing with them. 

Today virtually all past PPB posts appear on JLA Forums, and all new PPB posts are promoted there, complete with links to the blog. However, rather than going to the blog, readers are directed to a mirror site where they can read it right on JLA Forums. In this way they get the "hit" or page view (and so do we). With at least one Usenet group getting as many as 100,000 visits a month (as I've been told), that makes a big difference in the range of our promotions. 

There are other factors in our growth, but let them wait for another day; I expect to be announcing further millions in the future. While this jump in numbers may be temporary, and could always collapse back to whiat it used to be, I am confident that our new mass viewership is here to stay, and has only just begun. 

Penny's Top 20 / July 2026

  

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in July 2026:

  1.  Tired of Waiting, Will Dockery

  2.  In the High Hills, Maxwell Struthers Burt

  3.  March, Edwin Arnold

  4.  Green, Paul Verlaine

  5.  To the Spring, John Davies

  6.  Vowels – Voyelles, Arthur Rimbaud

  7.  Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (IV-V), Ezra Pound

  8.  Poem for Kathy, Will Dockery

  9.  Appeal, John Frederic Herbin

10.  Flying Back in a Dream, JD Shirk

11.  A boat, beneath a sunny sky, Lewis Carroll

12.  To Helen [1848] , Edgar Allan Poe 

13.  Cedros, Jane G. Austin

14.  July, Annette Wynne

15.  The Mower to the Glow-Worms, Andrew Marvell

16.  June, Edgar Guest

17.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

18.  Summer Morn in New Hampshire, Claude Mackay

19.  July in the West, James Newton Matthews

20. The Voice, Theodore Roethke

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

July in the West / James Newton Matthews

July in the West

DAY

A rhythm of reapers; a flashing
Of steels in the meadows; a lashing
Of sheaves in the wheatlands; a glitter
Of grain-builded streets, and a twitter
Of birds in a motionless sky,—
And that is July!

A rustle of corn-leaves; a tinkle
Of bells on the hills; a twinkle
Of sheep in the lowlands; a bevy
Of bees where the clover is heavy;
A butterfly blundering by,—
And that is July!


NIGHT

A moon-flooded prairie; a straying
Of light-hearted lovers; a baying
Of far away watchdogs; a dreaming 

Of brown-fisted farmers; a gleaming
Of fireflies eddying nigh,—
And that is July!

A babble of brooks that deliver
Their flower-purpled waves to the river;
A moan in the marshes; in thickets
A dolorous droning of crickets,
Attuned to a whippoorwill's cry,—
And that is July!

~~
James Newton Matthews (1852-1910)
from The Lute of Life, 1911

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Stubbs (1724-1806), Reapers, 1785. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

James Newton Matthews biography

The Mower to the Glow-Worms / Andrew Marvell

The Mower to the Glow-Worms

Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late,
And studying all the summer night,
Her matchless songs does meditate;

Ye country comets, that portend
No war nor prince’s funeral,
Shining unto no higher end
Than to presage the grass’s fall;

Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
To wand’ring mowers shows the way,
That in the night have lost their aim,
And after foolish fires do stray;

Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since Juliana here is come,
For she my mind hath so displac’d
That I shall never find my home.

~~
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
from Miscellaneous Poems, 1681

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Andrew Marvell biography

"The Mower to the Glow-Worms" read for Ming Aretê.

The Voice / Theodore Roethke

The Voice

One feather is a bird,
I claim; one tree, a wood;
In her low voice I heard
More than a mortal should;
And so I stood apart,
Hidden in my own heart.

And yet I roamed out where
Those notes went, like the bird,
Whose thin song hung in air,
Diminished, yet still heard:
I lived with open sound,
Aloft, and on the ground.

That ghost was my own choice,
The shy cerulean bird;
It sang with her true voice,
And it was I who heard
A slight voice reply;
I heard; and only I.

Desire exults the ear:
Bird, girl, and ghostly tree,
The earth, the solid air –
Their slow song sang in me;
The long noon pulsed away,
Like any summer day.

~~
Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
from Words for the Wind, 1957

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Theodore Roethke biography

"The Voice" read by Theodore Roethke. Courtesy Theodore Roethke - Topic.

(Poem begins at 1:40)

Summer Morn in New Hampshire / Claude McKay

 

Summer Morn in New Hampshire

All yesterday it poured, and all night long
    I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat
Upon the shingled roof like a weird song,
    Upon the grass like running children’s feet.
And down the mountains by the dark cloud kissed,
    Like a strange shape in filmy veiling dressed,
Slid slowly, silently, the wraith-like mist,
    And nestled soft against the earth’s wet breast.
But lo, there was a miracle at dawn!
    The still air stirred at touch of the faint breeze,
The sun a sheet of gold bequeathed the lawn,
    The songsters twittered in the rustling trees.
And all things were transfigured in the day,
    But me whom radiant beauty could not move;
For you, more wonderful, were far away,
    And I was blind with hunger for your love.

~~
Claude McKay (1889-1948)
from Harlem Shadows, 1922

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada the United States, and the European Union]

Claude McKay biography

"Summer Morn in New Hampshire" read by Narad.

Courtesy The Mother & Sri Aurobindo: E-library.

To Helen [1848] / Edgar Allan Poe

To Helen

I saw thee once — once only — years ago:
I must not say how many — but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe —
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death —
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half-reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturn'd—alas, in sorrow!

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight —
Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and me—(O Heaven!— O God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)—
Save only thee and me. I paused — I looked —
And in an instant all things disappeared.
(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)
The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
The happy flowers and the repining trees,
Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
All — all expired save thee — save less than thou:
Save only the divine light in thine eyes —
Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
I saw but them — they were the world to me.
I saw but them — saw only them for hours —
Saw only them until the moon went down.
What wild heart-histories seemed to lie unwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!
How silently serene a sea of pride!
How daring an ambition! yet how deep —
How fathomless a capacity for love!

But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained.
They would not go — they never yet have gone.
Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since.
They follow me — they lead me through the years.

They are my ministers — yet I their slave.
Their office is to illumine and enkindle —
My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
And purified in their electric fire,
And sanctified in their elysian fire.
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
And are far up in Heaven — the stars I kneel to
In the sad, silent watches of my night;
While even in the meridian glare of day
I see them still — two sweetly scintillant
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

~~
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), 1848
from Works, 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edgar Allan Poe biography

"To Helen" read by Roy Macready.