Dan Fox: “What Happened When I Began to Speak Welsh” Dan Fox on learning his family’s many-layered language and picking up a portable inheritance.

"I heard myself embedded in the chorus, but outside the language." Dan Fox on learning his family's language.

Maggie Millner: “Sara Teasdale in The Yale Review” Maggie Millner on the seventeen poems that Sara Teasdale published in TYR between 1916 and 1926

Sara Teasdale published seventeen poems in The Yale Review between 1916 and 1926, more than almost any other poet in our archive. Maggie Millner revisits them for National Poetry Month.

"The chickens are in a lather. I chase the roosters
into the trees. It’s then I hear what disturbs them,

a knock at our wooden gate."

From "Return to Qiang Village" by Du Fu, translated by Scott Dalgarno, TYR's Poem of the Week:

Meghan O'Rourke: "Cathy Park Hong" An interview with the author of Minor Feelings

"Minor feelings occur when American optimism is forced upon you, which contradicts your own racialized reality, thereby creating a static of cognitive dissonance." —Cathy Park Hong

Elisa Gonzalez: “Searching for Seamus Heaney" What I found when I resolved to read the poet's work.

"A writer's canonization is a slow slaughter of the real, the wax of the replica hardening until all that shows is mask or mascot." Elisa Gonzalez reads Seamus Heaney.

Jean Garnett: "There I Almost Am" An essay by Jean Garnett: "Recently, I walked into a small grocery store near my house and the owner, a shy but sociable man, looked up at me and said,…

"I can be a very generous sister—maternal, even—as long as I am winning." Jean Garnett on the strange arithmetic of being an identical twin.

Sara Teasdale in The Yale Review Join a conversation 200 years in the making. We believe in the power of connecting great minds across disciplines, backgrounds, and generations.

"I shall gather myself into myself again, / I shall take my scattered selves and make them one." —Sara Teasdale, "The Crystal Gazer" (TYR, October 1921). Read the Teasdale poems in our archive:

Maggie Millner: “Sara Teasdale in The Yale Review” Maggie Millner on the seventeen poems that Sara Teasdale published in TYR between 1916 and 1926

"Teasdale was also a major influence on writers of the next generation, from Ray Bradbury to Sylvia Plath." Maggie Millner revisits her Yale Review poems for National Poetry Month.

Newsletters Join a conversation 200 years in the making. We believe in the power of connecting great minds across disciplines, backgrounds, and generations.

A new poem in your inbox every Wednesday. Sign up for The Yale Review's Poem of the Week:

Vivian Gornick: A Pioneer of Personal Journalism The essayist and critic in conversation with Meghan O'Rourke

"I had found a joy in arranging my thoughts on the subject that I'd not known before; a joy I feel to this day." Vivian Gornick on the moment she knew she was a critic.

Hernan Diaz: "The Heart of Fiction" An essay by Hernan Diaz: "Fiction writers are a famously neurotic bunch, haunted by self-doubt. From time to time this unease spreads and swells into a…

"The opposite of truth is not fiction but falsehood. And not all fictions are false." —Hernan Diaz

Anahid Nersessian: “When Does a Divorce Begin?” Most people think of it as failure. For me it was an achievement.

"Divorce is a writer's business. You can paint a wedding but not a divorce." —Anahid Nersessian

Maggie Millner: “Sara Teasdale in The Yale Review” Maggie Millner on the seventeen poems that Sara Teasdale published in TYR between 1916 and 1926

Sara Teasdale is one of the most-published poets in our archive. She won the first Pulitzer for poetry and inspired Sylvia Plath. Yet she isn't read much today. Maggie Millner revisits a "major minor" poet.

Maggie Millner: “Sara Teasdale in The Yale Review” Maggie Millner on the seventeen poems that Sara Teasdale published in TYR between 1916 and 1926

Sara Teasdale was a bestseller in her day and a major influence on Sylvia Plath. Today she’s rarely read. This National Poetry Month, we’ve digitized the eighteen poems she published in TYR, with an essay by Maggie Millner.

Merve Emre: "The Critic as Friend" Merve Emre argues for a more generous model for the critic.

"One should not expect mutuality from a text. It owes us nothing. We can demand nothing in particular of it." Merve Emre on the critic as friend.

Jonathan Griffin: "How Mike Kelley Became Himself" How class and the counterculture shaped the art of Mike Kelley.

Mike Kelley was "consumed by a search for materials and activities that were both unacceptable to the artistic avant-garde and incommensurable with mainstream American society." Jonathan Griffin on the enigmatic artist.

Robert Frost in The Yale Review The entire collection of poems by Robert Frost originally published in The Yale Review .

From the Archives: Robert Frost published twenty-eight poems in The Yale Review between 1916 and 1949. Revisit them alongside an essay by Kamran Javadizadeh.

Jen Silverman: “Antarctica” A short story by Jen Silverman: “‘One summer, many decades ago’—the poet said—‘I had an affair with two scientists, a father and son, at an Antarctic…

"With my nose to the window, each snowflake creating a screen of visible static, I imagined that I was at a science station in Antarctica, the rest of the planet a whisper at the back of the mind." —Jen Silverman

Namwali Serpell: "Critical Navel-Gazing" If criticism is in crisis, it’s not the critic’s problem, argues Namwali Serpell.

"Our tendency to reflect on our work has devolved into a strained bleating about our 'relevance' and 'value.'" —Namwali Serpell on criticism as "crisis-ism"

Barbara Hamby: “Daphne Hitchhikes Across Montana and Death Stops for… A poem by Barbara Hamby: “He wasn’t really Death, but he could have been.”

“Ernest has a little cat who rides shotgun
on the dashboard. Her name is Penny. What does she
think about the road she’s on”

—Barbara Hamby, “Daphne Hitchhikes Across Montana and Death Stops for Her”

Becca Rothfeld: "Stalking" An essay by Becca Rothfeld: "Other people's loves are like other people’s dreams—boring and incomprehensible to observers."

"There is a special thrill involved in speaking to someone who cannot hear you." —Becca Rothfeld

Chris Ware on Richard Scarry and the Art of Children's Literature The illustrator Chris Ware surveys the work of Richard Scarry.

"Freed from the precision of painting, the linework of these sketches — dare I say, cartoons? — came alive on the page like nothing he'd drawn before." Chris Ware on Richard Scarry.

Lydia Davis's Object of Desire The writer yearns for a reality where absolute darkness may still be possible.

"Absolute, unbroken darkness feels like one massive, enveloping substance, though it is not a substance and is not palpable." Lydia Davis for our Objects of Desire column.

Anna Hartford: "Unfathomable Life" With advances in genetics, navigating risk in pregnancy is more complicated than ever.

"From the moment we recognized heredity, we began trying to control it." Anna Hartford navigates pregnancy in an age of risk.

Garth Greenwell: "A Moral Education" How Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater can make us more generous readers.

Garth Greenwell on art, morality, and God in an unexpected reading of Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater.

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Join us on Substack for behind-the-scenes conversations with our writers.

Emily LaBarge: "Chantal Akerman’s Elusive Interiors" Emily LaBarge examines a major theme of Chantal Akerman's film.

"One of the most astonishingly feminist characteristics of Akerman's work is, in fact, the privacy of her characters, who divulge so little." Emily LaBarge on Chantal Akerman.

Barbara Hamby: “Daphne Hitchhikes Across Montana and Death Stops for… A poem by Barbara Hamby: “He wasn’t really Death, but he could have been.”

“He asked me about myself,
but what could I say—I’m a Greek girl who ran away
from the God of Poetry because I wanted to be free”

—Barbara Hamby, “Daphne Hitchhikes Across Montana and Death Stops for Her”

Percival Everett: "Abstraction and Nonsense" "My search for the abstract novel has, of course, forced me to consider, appreciate, be seduced by, and employ nonsense."

"My search for the abstract novel has, of course, forced me to consider, appreciate, be seduced by, and employ nonsense." —Percival Everett

Barbara Hamby: “Daphne Hitchhikes Across Montana and Death Stops for… A poem by Barbara Hamby: “He wasn’t really Death, but he could have been.”

“Ernest has a little cat who rides shotgun
on the dashboard. Her name is Penny. What does she
think about the road she’s on”

—Barbara Hamby, “Daphne Hitchhikes Across Montana and Death Stops for Her”