The ones you loved

27 december 2013 Over the Christmas holidays, we dug into our website statistics and Facebook insights to figure out which poems kept you coming back for more. While a lot of the new things we published this year were equally popular, there were a few outliers that really hit a chord – some written by well-known poets, some by relative newcomers, in many different languages and styles.

Without further ado, your 13 favourite poems featured in 2013 were: 

‘AN AVIARY OF SMALL BIRDS’ by Karen McCarthy Woolf (UK)
‘UNTITLED (The disasters happened when we didn’t notice)’ by Ayana Erdal (Israel)
‘ALL THIS’ by Knut Ødegård (Norway)
‘UGLY’ by Warsan Shire (Kenya | UK)
‘EUTHANASIA’ by Hassan El Ouazzani (Morocco)
‘OLD GUEST’ by Tin Moe (Myanmar)
‘BRASSICAS’ by Eileen Sheehan (Ireland)
‘THE BED’ by Shuntaro Tanikawa (Japan)
‘THE GYPSY AND THE POET’ by David Morley (UK)
‘BUTTERFLY—BERLIN’ by Yang Lian (China)
‘LOVE FRONT’ by Abdel-ilah Salhi (Morocco)
‘CHINESE’ by Jan Glas (Netherlands)
‘TO A GOLEM’ by Tomaž Šalamun (Slovenia)

In addition to the new poems we publish weekly, we also feature a new audio poem every day on our homepage. These are taken from our ever-growing archive, and are regularly shared on our Facebook page and Twitter feed. Below you can find a list of the 13 audio poetry fan favourites of 2013:

‘EZRA POUND’S PROPOSITION’ by Robert Hass (USA)
‘SOMETIMES YOU MEET SOMEONE’ by Danie Marais (South Africa)
‘THE MOUNTAIN HOLDS ITS BREATH’ by Jon Fosse (Norway)
‘DAYS IN LATE MARCH’ by Henrik Nordbrandt (Denmark)
‘NEVER MAKE FRIENDS WITH A CROW’ by Tua Forsström (Finland)
‘THIS ROOM’ by John Ashbery (USA)
‘STROLL’ by Rutger Kopland (Netherlands)
‘RUMI’ by Ali Alizadeh (Australia)
‘THERE'S NO FORGETTING (SONATA)’ by Pablo Neruda (Chile)
‘UNTITLED (He was the one, I repeat, he, not me)’ by Bakhyt Kenzjejev (Canada)
‘UNTITLED (Learn to look past)’ by Vera Pavlova (Russia)
‘THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY FROM PAIN’ by Charles Mungoshi (Zimbabwe)
‘IN YOUR HONOR’ by Arthur Sze (USA)

Enjoy re-reading and re-listening to these 26 poems, as well as all the other pieces you loved on Poetry International in 2013. We hope you’re ready for a brand new collection of international poetry in 2014!

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