Poems Ancient and Modern

ABOUT

Poems Ancient and Modern is a daily poetry newsletter on Substack run by Joseph Bottum and Sally Thomas, launched in 2024. Each post, titled "Today's Poem," presents a single classic or canonical poem — ranging from Shakespeare and Herrick to Wallace Stevens and Langston Hughes — accompanied by a short critical essay situating the poem historically and making a case for why it still works. The project draws on Bottum's and Thomas's backgrounds as literary critics and poets, and occasional guest contributors (such as Katie Hartsock) write entries as well. It has built a following of over 9,000 subscribers, making it one of the more widely read poetry-commentary newsletters on the platform.