~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of February 2026 ~
Tag: February
Daffodils in February by Vivienne Popperl
Daffodils in February
Some February days,
breathing in Portland
is like inhaling
champagne bubbles.
The sky is a sheer
innocent blue,
crocuses purple
in the sun, daffodils
coaxed golden,
play the wind.
February in Cleveland
the soil is still so cold.
New life is pressed
deep underground.
The sky spreads so thin,
a fragile skin,
stretched between
indifferent clouds.
My mother breathed
her last breath
in Cleveland
in February.
I was not at her side.
I sent daffodils.
*
Vivienne Popperl lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in Clackamas Literary Review, Timberline Review, Cirque, Rain Magazine, About Place Journal, and other publications. She was poetry co-editor for the Fall 2017 edition of VoiceCatcher. She received both second place and an honorable mention in the 2021 Kay Snow awards poetry category by Willamette Writers and second place in the Oregon Poetry Association’s Spring 2022 contest “Members Only” category. Her first collection, A Nest in the Heart, was published by The Poetry Box in April, 2022.
Two Poems by Laura Goldin
Lake House
Smell of the cold pine.
Sound of the runners walking up from the lake.
Being a daughter means the world began before you.
Sound of the screen door banging.
Sound of the drowned girl’s sandals on the gravel path.
She isn’t thinking yet of water.
*
February
Out for a walk this afternoon
I saw children playing
their uncomplicated games in snow.
Sunset. The cold comes through
that one cracked-open window
where the curtain holds the fading river light.
Up from the street a man’s thin tenor
sings some half-remembered tune.
I think of you, who will not sing again.
*
Laura Goldin is a publishing lawyer in New York. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Right Hand Pointing, Driftwood, Molecule: A Tiny Lit Mag, Club Plum, Blue Heron Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and The Comstock Review.
Three Poems by Claire Taylor
yes, it’s probably because of climate change, but still
I like a garden of tulips
sprung too soon
speckled with ice in February
hoping
*
A Winter Meditation
move slowly
these days linger
in the pause
between seasons
everything breaks
down beneath fallen leaves
a promise: frozen ground
softens the earth
turns over
starts again
*
A Healing
post-storm we find a towering maple
collapsed on its side. the City
comes to clear the way
slices trunk and limbs to restore
the road to normal but
they leave the roots
behind, ripped from the ground
and pointing skyward like
hands in prayer
a year later
I walk through the park
alone
and find the roots
have grown over
moss and vines cover
every inch
a new ecosystem
*
Claire Taylor is a writer in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of a children’s literature collection, Little Thoughts, as well as two micro-chapbooks: A History of Rats (Ghost City Press, 2021) and As Long as We Got Each Other (ELJ Editions, 2022). You can find her online at clairemtaylor.com and Twitter @ClaireM_Taylor.
February, 2021 — by Donna Hilbert
February, 2021
In a fit of hope, I wash and press white shirts
hidden in the hamper since last March.
I order lipstick, and a see-through make-up bag
with hooks to hang on any random perch.
*
Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach, 2018. She is a monthly contributing writer to the on-line journal, Verse-Virtual. She is eager to resume leading in-person workshops and hugging her friends. Learn more at http://www.donnahilbert.com