Poems for Your New Year's Eve

"New eyes each year..."

Dear Friends,

It’s time for “Auld Lang Syne,” an ancient song first recorded by Scots poet Robert Burns in 1788 and beautifully set to music. The phrase is understood to mean “for the sake of old times” or “time gone by.” It makes me weepy. Every. Single. Time.

In preparation for tonight’s festivities—or quiet reflection—here’s a small selection of some of my favorite New Year’s poems. I’m grateful to all of you for your tremendous support and friendship in 2024 and can’t wait to continue writing to/for you this coming year, the second full year of Poetry Today.

If you’ve been considering becoming a Paid Subscriber, please note that the subscription price will increase to $75/year in January. Upgrading gives you access to 10+ hours of courses (a $1200+ value) + an archive of 160+ posts. Remember, if you’re already a paid subscriber, you’re locked in at the rate at which you signed up!

A reminder of some of the courses you can watch at your convenience. All are designed to help you generate your best work and break through your limiting beliefs about your writing:

• Dissolving Our Writing Blocks: A Guided Breakthrough Exercise

• Shopping for Images: Writing Vivid Imagery (via Poems about Supermarkets!)

• Emily Dickinson: On Riddles and Definitions in Poetry

• On the “Nothing”: Absence in John Burnside’s Poetry

• Approaches to Writing Flash Fiction

That’s all for now, friends. As always, let me know your favorite lines below.

See you in 2025, you wonderful readers and writers.

xM

by Lia Purpura

✨ CWC Poetry is currently full. We will re-open in January. Guest teachers in 2025 will include poets Jorie Graham, Jane Hirshfield, Maggie Millner, Chen Chen, Liz Berry, Kimiko Hahn, Sarah Ghazal Ali, among others. Join the waitlist here. ✨

✨ CWC Fiction membership is open. Lidia Yuknavitch is our writer-in-residence—all writers will workshop with her in small groups in January, February, and March. You can join CWC Fiction here. ✨