The Best Time

Wumen Huikai

Spring brings hundreds of blossoms,
Autumn glows with moonlight.
Summer carries cooling breezes,
Winter cloaks the earth in snow.

If no idle thoughts cloud your mind,
Every season is a perfect time.

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A note from the editor

Dead Poets Daily now has 10,000 subscribers. To everyone reading this, thank you for your interest. I hope that, like me, you’re enjoying having more poetry in your life.

To celebrate this milestone, I thought I’d share some key metrics. If you’re curious, please find details below.

There’s also a small announcement at the bottom of this page.

Kind regards,
Ario Smith
Editor, Dead Poets Daily

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Most-read poems

To avoid a recency bias, here are the most-read poems sent to subscribers last year:

1. On the Departure of the Nightingale by Charlotte Smith

2. The Two Boys by Mary Lamb

3. The Poet by Yone Noguchi

4. The Cut by Ann Taylor

5. New Year’s Morning by Kobayashi Issa

6. I Live, I Die, I Burn, I Drown by Louise Labe

7. The Fox by Kahlil Gibran

8. She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

9. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

10. To a Rose by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

And from 2022 (Dead Poets Daily was on hiatus in 2023):

1. Lavender by Constance Enslow

2. Evening Solace by Charlotte Brontë

3. The End of the Year by Shirō

4. The Fieldmouse by Cecil Frances Alexander

5. An Evening Meeting by Li Hai-ku

6. One Goes a Journey by Liu Shih-an

7. The House Was Just Twinkling in the Moon Light by Gertrude Stein

8. All My Thoughts by Dante Alighieri

9. Winter-Time by Robert Louis Stevenson

10. The Caged Skylark by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The following poems brought in the most readers via search engines:

1. To a Rose by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

2. Tomorrow at Dawn by Victor Hugo

3. Mockery by Katharine Riggs

4. Pounding the Clothes by Du Fu

5. Twilight in Delhi by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

6. Waiting by Richard Church

7. Listener by Bernard Raymund

8. The Golden Orchids by Vachel Lindsay

9. Dunedin from the Bay by Thomas Bracken

10. The Pelican by Alice Louise

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Century of first publication

All poems on Dead Poets Daily are in the public domain; half were published in the twentieth century:

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Region of first publication

The poems were first published in approximately 30 different regions. These are the top 10:

1. United States (48%)

2. United Kingdom (32%)

3. Japan (4%)

4. China (2%)

5. Australia (2%)

6. India (2%)

7. France (1%)

8. New Zealand (1%)

9. Ireland (1%)

10. Germany (1%)

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Gender of author

Most public domain poetry is from more than 70 years ago, when fewer women than men were widely published. I try to find sources of poetry with a relatively less unequal gender split:

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Reader geography

Dead Poets Daily has readers in 162 countries. These are the top 10:

1. United States (30%)

2. India (8%)

3. United Kingdom (7%)

4. Philippines (5%)

5. Canada (3%)

6. Australia (3%)

7. Brazil (2%)

8. Türkiye (2%)

9. Indonesia (2%)

10. South Africa (2%)

Relative distribution of readers by country.

Within the United States, there are readers in D.C., Puerto Rico, and every state except North Dakota:

Relative distribution of readers by state.

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Finally, a small announcement

I’m considering publishing a Dead Poets Daily ebook later this year. Sales would help cover the (very low) cost of running this free email service.

If you have a moment, please help me decide if this is a good idea by taking a 1-minute survey. I’ll use your responses to guide my decision-making.

I will not use your data for advertising, marketing, or any other purpose.

Thanks for helping me out!