Famous poet, Brad Leithauser, wrote “A Good List” while lying awake in his bed in Iceland one evening. The poem provides a humorous and lighthearted list of things Leithauser has “never done wrong,” as it describes, among other things, how he has neither stolen gnomes from anyone’s garden nor forged a winning lottery ticket. At…

Michael Dickman’s “From the Lives of My Friends,” published in The New Yorker in 2009, is a coming of age tale that explores the impact of childhood friends on our lives as we grow old with them. Dickman grew up in Portland, Oregon, is the author of three books, The End of the West, Flies,…

Poems have the ability to connect people to the power of the written word in a way that books cannot. Often times, a shorter poem can result in a more thought-provoking the message, as the reader can spin a million interpretations and connections. I chose three very different poems from the 2009 volume of Best…