The Catholic Poetry Room began in 2019 as a feature on the Integrated Catholic Life website. Tim Bete, the founding editor, felt that people didn’t “bump into poetry often enough,” and began to publish a new poem each week. The Catholic Poetry Room became one of Integrated Catholic Life’s most popular features.
When other commitments kept Tim from continuing as editor, he turned over the reins to Catholic Poetry Room contributor (and award-winning poet) Jeffrey Essmann. Jeffrey continued to solicit poems from around the world. The Catholic Poetry Room has been blessed to publish poems from Sally Read; James Matthew Wilson; Dana Gioia; Marjorie Maddox; Father Gerard Garrigan, OSB; Sr. Johanna Caton, OSB; Laura Reece Hogan; Ruth Asch; Philip Kolin; Sr. Mary Grace Melcher, OCD; Angela Alaimo O’Donnell; Fr. Bonaventure Sauer, OCD; and A.M. Juster, among others. For some contributors, it was the first time their poetry had been published.
When Integrated Catholic Life shut down in 2025, Tim and Jeffrey didn’t want to see the Catholic Poetry Room end, and created this stand-alone website. More than 300 poems had been published in the Catholic Poetry Room, and they were able to bring most of them here.
The Catholic Poetry Room is a labor of love for the role poetry can play in our daily lives. The poetic lens often allows us to see things in a different and enlightening way. Jeffrey and Tim hope that’s your experience in the Catholic Poetry Room.
The Catholic Poetry Room doesn’t have a primary goal to sell merchandise or send you a lot of e-mail. If you’d like to be notified each week when a new poem is published, you can subscribe using the button in the bottom right corner of this page. But Jeffrey and Tim figure that you don’t need to be reminded to eat your favorite foods, and they don’t think you’ll need to be reminded to come back to the Catholic Poetry Room now and then. But the free e-mail subscription is there, if you ‘d like to use it.
The nice thing is whether you’re waiting for a flight at an airport, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, in a queue at your bank, waiting in a long self-checkout line at the grocery store, or sitting at home with a few free minutes, the Catholic Poetry Room is only a click away. And, perhaps, spending 60 seconds to read a poem about how God waits for you to return to Him or the sacred mystery of washing dishes is exactly what you need in that moment.
So, enjoy the poetry you find here. And, while Jeffrey and Tim don’t want your email addresses, they’re always excited to hear from readers, so feel free to write to them using the contact form.