GOOD UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR

JUMP DIRECTLY TO APOCALYPSE POEMS (updated September 2026)

I’ve always been drawn to novels, movies and TV series about end times, apocalypse and dystopia. For entertainment purposes, I’m not especially picky about the cause; zombies, climate, capitalism, viruses or patriarchy all interest me as the kinds of devastating forces capable of bringing civilization to its knees.

But how do poets handle these themes?

Poets are sensitive creatures who observe, among other things, the signs and signals of individual and collective despair. We process what it means to be in a world that fails so many. We write poetry of witness, eco poetry, political poetry and confessional poetry — modes of writing that lend themselves to stark, meaningful interpretations of what it means to be on the precipice.

Poets know there are plenty of ways for the world (or the world as we know it) to end. We also know that Frost’s “Fire and Ice” doesn’t quite cut it, though it’s on this list.

To answer my question about how poets write about literal and existential risks to life on Earth, I started collecting “apocalypse poems,” a term I used broadly. My list is below. Many of its poems address end times head on. Others are less explicit but have (in my assessment) apocalypse vibes. They are “end-of-the-world adjacent,” using apocalyptic or dystopian settings as a backdrop or simply gesturing at demise and so I’ve allowed their metaphors to work within this list of apocalypse poems.

In these poems, poets speak to what may be coming and flirt with a kind of inevitability fueled by our complicity and impotence. They issue warnings that beg questions: Can we be saved? Do we want to be saved? Who’s driving the bus? What’s worth saving? Are we willing? What does it mean to survive?

As I gathered examples, I learned it isn’t all doom and gloom. Some apocalypse poems (or poems about our survival) include a measure of light and tenderness. I decided to share these, as well, and you can jump to the “sidecar of hope” (my term of endearment for this second list) here.

Apocalypse Poems List

1. “Exciting the Canvas” by Kaveh Akbar
2. “apocalypse (22.a)” by Anastacia-Renee
3. “The New Zombie” by Rae Armantrout
4. “Poem Featuring an Apocalypse” by Rebecca Aronson
5. “Poem I Would Send Into Space” by Rebecca Aronson
6. “when we thought the world would end, I didn’t think it would be like this” by Fatimah Asghar
7. “Mars Rover Appears to Catch ‘Dark Beast’ Roaming the Surface” by Sarah Audsley
8. “Bonneville” by Jacqueline Balderrama
9. “Zombie” by Hadara Bar-Nadav
10. “#9 Dream: The Zombie Apocalypse” by Rusty Barnes
11. “Self-portrait of the artist as a Zombie” by Bryan Byrdlong
12. “Become the Lion” by Traci Brimhall in Our Lady of Ruins
13. “Prelude to a Revolution” by Traci Brimhall (also from Our Lady of Ruins)
14. “Shelter in Place” by Traci Brimhall
15. “You’ve heard this before, the only way out is through” by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
16. “It could be worse. Consider this:” by Jane-Rebecca Cannarella
17. “Anthropocene” by DeeSoul Carson
18. “Birthday Poem” by Paul Hlava Ceballos
19. “Zombie Apocalypse Now: The Making Of” by Cathy Linh Che
20. “Chernobyl Necklace” by Teresa Mei Chuc (2nd poem on the page)
21. “Future Ruins” by Andrew Collard
22. “Why Have Children When the World Is Ending” by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
23. “Revolutionary Letter #3” by Diane di Prima
24. “My Eighteen-Month-Old Daughter Talks to the Rain as the Amazon Burns” by Dante Di Stefano
25. “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” by Chelsea Dingman
26. “T-Rex” by Lynne Ellis
27. “The Dream Won’t Come True” by Kathy Fagan
28. “In Plague Season I Think of Jonah” by Leah Falk
29. “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost
30. “Things I Forgot to Tell You About the End of the World” by Jeanine Hall Gailey
31. “Galactic Lament” by Natalie Giarratano
32. “Whirlwind” by Beth Gordon
33. “Survivalism” by Karin Gottshall
34. “For the Red-Brown Cow Whose Eyes I Caught from the Backseat of My Mother’s Chevy Nova, 1993” by Mara Lee Grayson
35. “The Apocalypse Is Almost Here, So We Do the Dishes” by Kyla Guimaraes
36. “On NPR This Afternoon” by Jillian Hanson (2nd poem on the page)
37. “Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo
38. “Wetland” by francine j. harris
39. “tell the truth, even as” by Ambalila Hemsell
40. “Let Them Not Say” by Jane Hirshfield
41. “End of Days Advice from an Ex-zombie” by Michael Derrick Hudson
42. “Zombies in Paradise” by A.M. Juster & Deborah Warren
43. “In the Beginning There Were Fires” by Saba Keramati
44. “Writing Poems in the Middle of a Catastrophe” by Özge Lena
45. “The Apocalypse Tapestry” by Esther Lin
46. “Mastodon” by Claire Jean Kim
47. “It Was the Year Without” by Jory Mickelson
48. “A Gender Reveal Party Starts a California Wildfire and, a Week Later, the Smoke Finally Reaches the Foothills of Northeast Ohio on the Day We Get to See the Sonogram of Our Son for the First Time” by Matt Mitchell
49. “Plague Song” by Nicholas Montemarano
50. “Plague Choreography” by Nicholas Montemarano (2nd poem on the page)
51. “News of the World” by Christopher Brean Murray
52. “Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now” by Matthew Olzmann
53. “Self-Portrait in the Time of Disaster” by Deborah Paredez
54. “Becoming at sea” by Alycia Pirmohamed
55. “Future Food” by Robin LaMer Rahija
56. “The Summer After the Spring All the American Apparels Closed” by Thomas Renjilian
57. “Among the Wreckage” by Laura Ruby
58. “the universe will end & kali will still be here,” by Raena Shirali
59. “The Point of Articulation” by Car Simione
60. “Birding Through the Aftermath” by Katelyn Sweeney
61. “It was All Fucked to Hell Before it Even Fucking Started” by Anthony Sutton (2nd poem on the page)
62. “To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse” by Burlee Vang
63. “Planned Obsolescence” by Ashley Wang
64. “Cassandra” by Sasha West
65. “Zombie Thanksgiving” by Lesley Wheeler
66. “Field Notes on Living, Perpetually, on the Brink of Tragedy” by Rachael Lin Wheeler
67. “Future History of Earth’s Birds” by Amie Whittemore
68. Nuclear War Simulation by Patrick Wilcox
69. “Foreclosure” by Joe Wilkins (3rd poem on the page)
70. “The last day on earth” by Rewa Zeinati

Poems of Hope & Tenderness Amid Devastation (or How It May Be Possible to Survive)

1. “The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass
2. “Fledgling” by Traci Brimhall
3. “Vive, Vive” by Traci Brimhall
4. “Poem with an Embedded Line by Susan Cohen” by Barbara Crooker
5. “testify” by Eve L. Ewing
6. “After Wildfires” by Yvonne Higgins
7. “Trying” by Ada Limon
8. “Aquarium” by Katharine Ogle
9. “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski

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I’m happy to continue adding to this collection of apocalypse poems. Got a fave that I’ve missed? Let me know!

Also, be sure to check out other popular lists published at this blog:

• List Poems for Writing Inspiration
• Wild, Innovative Poetry Forms for Inspiration
• Where to Find Barbie in the Poetry World