About Stanza & Story
Poetry is the language of life. It evokes feeling and (re-)presents life.
Prose is the narrative of life. It explores thought, memory, and experience in detail. Together, they help us see life more clearly.
Stanza & Story is a digital literary journal and media project that curates classic poetry and prose for readers, listeners, and viewers of all ages. The focus is on works—mostly in the public domain—that are worth returning to: poems, short stories, essays, speeches, and letters that still have something to say.
Stanza & Story grew out of an earlier project called GoodPoetry, which began as an online literary journal promoting good poetry for readers, listeners, and viewers of all ages. Over time, that work naturally expanded beyond poems to include prose and historical texts. Stanza & Story is the new, broader home for that vision.
Here, the goal is not just to post texts, but to frame them: to give enough context that you can see who wrote them, when, why, and what they might mean now.
Vision
To increase awareness, appreciation, and understanding of poetry and prose and of the people who create them.
Mission
To increase the general public’s awareness, appreciation, and understanding of poetry and prose and their writers by:
- introducing (and re-introducing) works of all forms and modes to people of all ages and backgrounds,
- focusing on texts that are available in the public domain so they can be read, heard, taught, and shared freely, and
- presenting these works through a mix of text, audio, and video in contemporary digital spaces.
Stanza & Story uses both traditional and digital media—website posts, podcast episodes, and video readings—to make good literature more accessible and less intimidating for everyday readers.
What You’ll Find Here
Poetry
Classic poems from a variety of writers and time periods, presented with brief notes and, often, an audio or video reading.
Prose
Short stories, essays, speeches, letters, and historical documents that belong in conversation with the poems.
Context & Commentary
Short background pieces and reflections that help situate each work in its historical and cultural moment, without turning the experience into a textbook.
Audio & Video
Readings and narrations for listeners who want to hear the words performed, not just seen on the page.
Who It’s For
Stanza & Story is for:
- readers who enjoy classic literature and want curated guidance,
- teachers, tutors, and homeschoolers looking for public-domain texts with built-in context,
- students who benefit from hearing works read aloud, and
- lifelong learners who value depth, clarity, and good writing.
Formerly GoodPoetry / GoodLiterature
If you arrived here looking for GoodPoetry.org or for the planned GoodLiterature.org, you are in the right place. Those projects now live under the Stanza & Story name. The aim is the same as it was at the beginning: to promote good work and make it easier to experience—on the page, through the ear, and in the mind.
Stanza & Story 