Updated September 2025
Welcome to my curated list of poems for every month of the year! Click these links to jump to a specific month now: JANUARY / FEBRUARY / MARCH / APRIL / MAY / JUNE / JULY / AUGUST / SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER / NOVEMBER / DECEMBER / **BONUS** POEMS FOR SEASONS
It’s tricky to search the web for poetry about specific months of the year because they aren’t always *named* for that month. Frustrated by this myself, I started curating poems for every month of the year as I encountered them in the world.
Notice the word “curate” there: This isn’t intended to be an exhaustive list of every poem that mentions a month. I’ve included work I enjoy and admire, which means, in most cases, leaving out light verse, children’s poetry or greeting card-style poetry. In other words, these poems are (in my humble opinion) well-crafted poems that capture compelling moods and scenes … and just happen to name the month or date. As a result, I hope it’s a one-of-a-kind list that departs from what’s typically cited and offers you a source for poems you may want for specific occasions or seasons.
Before I share my month-by-month list, I want to shout out Linda Pastan’s “The Months,” as I think it sets the tone for the language that appeals to me. Pastan’s descriptions are stunning and concise and intimate and universal at the same time. Here are some of my favorite lines from her poem (the ocean’s torn hem, wow!):
- January: “mere armatures for ice or snow, / the trees resolve / to endure for now,”
- February: “After endless / hibernation / on the windowsill, / the orchid blooms—”
- March: “the wind / that blows away the tender / fragments of this world—”
- April: “petals / of pink / dogwood / wash down the ditches / in dreamlike / rivers”
- May: “mother’s favorite flower, / sweet breath drifting through / the open windows”
- June: “The June bug / on the screen door / whirs like a small, / ugly machine”
- July: “the ocean drags / its torn hem / over the dark / sand.”
- August: “heaping / my table each night / with nothing / but corn and tomatoes.”
- September: “the strange heat / … as if / this time / there will be / no autumn.”
- October: “overtaken / by color, crowned / with the hammered gold / of leaves.”
- November: “anonymous / leaves, their wet / bodies pressed / against the window”
- December: “the earth / shivers and / turns towards / the solstice.”
With those lines as our guide for how powerful poems about every month can be, let’s get into it! And as always, if you know a poem you’d like me to consider as an addition to these lists, share a recommendation in the comments. (Note that each month’s list is sorted alphabetically by author’s last name.)
JANUARY POEMS
- “Everything is Exactly the Same as it Was the Day Before” by Ina Cariño
- “i am running into a new year” by Lucille Clifton
- “Apologia” by Lauren Delapenha
- “January Thaw” by Rosalie Dunlap Hickler
- “Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me” by Jane Hirshfield
- “Resolution #1,003” by June Jordan
- “Resolutions” by Abbie Kiefer
- “January” by W.S. Merwin
- “Narcissi in January” by January Gill O’Neil
- “January 29” by Meighan Sharp
- “Inventory” by Ron Stottlemyer
- “It Could Be Any Day, Say, January 11” by Anastasia Vassos
- “January” by William Carlos Williams
FEBRUARY POEMS
- “February” by Margaret Atwood
- “February” by Tamiko Beyer
- “Hating the Phoenix is” by Tracy Brimhall
- “Will You?” by Carrie Fountain
- “Our Neighbors, on February 7, with a High of 63°” by Abbie Kiefer
- “Meditation at the End of Winter” by Mollie O’Leary
- “Fresh Snow, February” by Joseph Powell
- “February” by Felicity Sheehy
MARCH POEMS
- “March” by Chelsea B. DesAutels (second poem on the page)
- “Dear March—Come in—(1320)” by Emily Dickinson
- “March” by Louise Glück
- “March” by Jennifer Grotz
APRIL POEMS
- “Pleasure” by Richard Barot
- “More Lies” by Karin Gottshall
- “What My Father Did Not Have to Say” by Peter Markus
- “Filing Joint Taxes Is Another Way of Saying I Love You” by Remi Recchia
- “Happy Easter, You Sonofabitch” by Han VanderHart
- “Faith Is Believing What You Cannot” by Donna Vorreyer
- “10 April 2024, 20:32” by Kathleen Winter
- “After a Dark Time” by Wendy Wisner
MAY POEMS
- “Vancouver Postcard (Mother’s Day)” by Irma K
- “Cultivated” by Iris Rosenberg
- “Memorial Day” by Matthew Thorburn
- “Gardening with the Reaper” by Donna Vorreyer
JUNE POEMS
- “june 20” by Lucille Clifton
- “Levitation” by Robert Hass
- “June” by Aiyana Masla
- “June” by Katherine Smith
- “Summer Solstice” by Whitney Waters
- “Solstice in Truro” by Joshua Weiner
- “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski
JULY POEMS
- “Split/Screen” by Petra Kuppers
- “[In July the whole city]” by Natalie Eleanor Patterson
- “Poppies in July” by Sylvia Plath
- “Letter to Sycamore Canyon” by Brooke Sahni
AUGUST POEMS
- “August is” by Lana Crossman
- “By Late August” by Jillian Hanson
- “Mowing” by Justin Hunt
- “August” by Abbie Kiefer
- “August” by Michelle Ott
- “Gratitude List on an August Evening” by Martha Silano
- “August” by Aoife Smith
- “Green Apples” by Ruth Stone
SEPTEMBER POEMS
- “Incomplete Abecedarian of Autumn Equinox with Body” by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza
- “September Firefly” by Christina Kallery
- “Apostrophe With Jbrekkie and Mom’s Spaghetti (September in Brooklyn)” by Jingyu Li
- “September” by Linda Pastan
- “Three Days Before the Equinox, I Drive” by Angela Sucich
OCTOBER POEMS
- “Moon Raking” by Jen Feroze
- “October Morning” by Reyzl Grace
- “Wind Season in Los Angeles” by Victoria Melekian
- “Field Notes: Worcester County, October” by Carolyn Oliver
NOVEMBER POEMS
- “Elegy of the Jack-O-Lantern” by Daniel Brennan (2nd poem on the page)
- “Lines Written On the Third Thursday of November” by William G. Gillespie
- “November in Vermont” by Brooke James
- “November Night” by Emily Ransdell
- “Veterans Day Assembly” by Dujie Tahat
- “November” by Preeti Vangani
DECEMBER POEMS
- “December” by Antonella Anedda (translated from the Italian by Patrizio Ceccagnoli & Susan Stewart)
- “Getting Into Bed On A December Night” by Ellen Bass
- “The First of December” by Jesse Curran
- “In the Afterlife of a Text, Textuality is Not Fixed at a Single Moment in Time” by Chelsea Dingman
- “December” by Sarah Freligh
- “New Year’s Eve in Dresher, Pennsylvania” by Matthew Gellman
- “Winter Solstice” by Charlie Hensler
- “December 31st” by Richard Hoffman
- “Taking Down the Tree” by Jane Kenyon
- “Solstice, Once” by Travis Chi Wing Lau
- “Silence as a Winter Lullaby” by Inkyoo Lee
- “The Uphill Side of the Story” by Melanie McCabe
- “Sharing the Kale” by Katherine Norton
- “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye
- “Solstice” by Megan Pinto
- “December Morning in the Desert” by Alberto Ríos
- “Double Effect: December 31” by Martha Serpas
- “First of December” by Natalie Shapero
- “ode to that little ceramic reindeer my mother painted green & red” by Millie Tullis
- “In December” by Han VanderHart
POEMS FOR SEASONS
- “Spring Planting” by Victoria Chang
- “What Had Been” by Allison Funk
- “Fall Walk in Which Not Everything is Terrible” by Violeta Garcia-Mendoza
- “Spring Crush” by Jared Harél
- “First Blossom” by Rage Hezekiah
- “Here Together” by W. S. Merwin
- “Boys of Summer” by Weston Morrow
- “Lines written in the days of growing darkness” by Mary Oliver
- “On the Hottest Day of the Summer I Watch a Heron Fly Overhead” by Catherine Pierce
- “Probably It Will Be Summer Again” by Catherine Pierce
- “Demeter in Winter” by Diana Whitney
I’m happy to continue adding to this collection of poems. Got a fave that I’ve missed? Let me know, and I’ll take a look. Also, be sure to check out other popular lists published at this blog:
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