A ballad has a rhythmic bounce as spoken poems have been for many years sung ... If the first syllable is stressed, as for example in ‘ha-ppy’, but not the second, it is called a trochee.

But love of baseball is not the reason this column celebrates Marianne Moore. She was a Big Leaguer of modernist poetry.

Sonia Sanchez’s poetry is not just to be read—it is to be felt, experienced, and lived. Her work serves as both an artistic triumph and a cultural archive, documenting the beauty, pain, and power of ...