: Camille T. Dungy's "Characteristics of Life," Danusha Laméris' "Small Kindnesses," Raymond Carver's "Rain," NC Poet Laureate Jackie Shelton Green's "for grandma," and Vasyl Holoborodko's "I Pick Up My Footprints" (translated from Ukrainian by Svetlana Lavochkina)

: Joy Harjo's “Ah, Ah,” Danez Smith's “little prayer,” Kay Ryan's “Sharks’ Teeth,” Stanley Kunitz's “Halley’s Comet,” and Rita Dove's “My Mother Enters the Work Force”

: Karl Shapiro's “The Living Rooms of My Neighbors,” an excerpt from Amanda Gorman's "In This Place (An American Lyric),” Ellen Bass's “The Thing Is,” Terrance Hayes's “[Seven of the ten things I love in the face of James Baldwin],” and David Whyte's “Horses Moving on the Snow.”

: "Hummingbirds" by Mary Oliver, "We Were All Odysseus in those Days" by Amorak Huey, "The Good Life" Tracy K. Smith, "For a Coming Extinction" by W.S. Merwin, and "Ode to My Shoes" by Francisco X. Alarcon

: "Anecdote of Men by the Thousand" by Wallace Stevens, "The Dogs at Live Oak Beach, Santa Cruz" by Alicia Ostriker, "Cotton Candy" by Edward Hirsch, and "My Madonna" by Robert W. Service

: "Sea Grapes" by Derrek Walcott, "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" by e.e. cummings, [a haiku rumination on sushi] by Yosa Buson, and "Exit" by Rita Dove

: "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, "Next Time Ask More Questions" by Naomi Shihab Nye, "The Tyger" by William Blake, and "El Poema" by Homero Aridjis (translated by Eliot Weinberger)