Poemhunter Reviews

by Garrekds

I have a lot of add-supported apps, but none are as disruptive of the user experience or as annoying as the ads in this app. Ads that pop up while I’m searching for a poem are hard to close. The close button is sometimes too small to see and the touch target is impossible to hit. Ads at the bottom of a poem auto play with sound. This is embarrassing when in public and will stop my music or podcast in favor of playing the ad sound. This is not ok.

Ads are fine, but these are intrusive. An app should be a pleasure to use regardless of whether or not the user pays for it. Marco Arment’s Overcast is the model for how to implement ads effectively while still making a profit. Try looking there for ad implementation ideas. As it stands, Poemhunter is infuriating to use, which is not the mindset I’m going into when I want to read poetry.

by Celloanne

Maybe I didn’t give it enough time, but I deleted Poemhunter after a few days because every poem that came up on random shuffle was seriously mediocre. I was hoping for poems by both classic and contemporary poets who I hadn’t heard before, which is kind of what’s advertised, but all I got were clearly amateurs. The last straw was one full of misspellings that were not, as far as I could tell, a style choice. It may be what other people are looking for, but I didn’t find it worth my time. (The UI is nice, at least.)

by Growthought

There are two problems with this well-conceived but poorly executed app: the presentation and the selection.

Firstly, no matter what poem you get, the verses that ride over the length of your screen do not have their remainder indented on the second line. The second part of the line justifies left, just like a normal line beginning. This (lack of) technique doesn’t just look bad. It makes one struggle to scan where a line ends. The reading experience suffers immensely on a phone screen. (I will leave out my petty font gripes.)

Secondly, the selection of poems are completely unfiltered. That doesn’t just mean amateurish, silly, laughable poems sprinkled in among the interesting reads. That means user-submitted transcripts of classic poems riddled with spelling and capitalization errors. An effort at curation would be most welcome.

I love the idea of poetry, randomly selected and assigned to you. The exploration, the surprise, and the possibility of discovery are thrilling, like how a Pandora radio list of old may have flung artists you never heard of at you and thereby teach you of a new artist. On top, Poemhunter adds the possibility of a contemporary creative community. But Poemhunter lacks the features to fulfill such promises.

by The Bynum

I was excited to use Poemhunter to make connections, read others works, and enjoy this community, but navigating anything in Poemhunter is really difficult. The website looks inviting, but I get the same there, can’t even sign up; I wish I could sign in or up in Poemhunter , it no such option. For this reason, I give it a two.

by Me,jb

Your “website” is by far easier to use than the “app”. Finding poets by name and having poets with whom I’m unfamiliar be revealed on the apps pages is a difficult task at best. I would like to see your app be more user friendly and more educational as to exposing new, or for that matter old, poets and their writings.
Thanks for your asking of my response...which by the way is a very “positive” one. And thanks for Poemhunter .
BTW....please add the poet “John O’Donahue” to your listing. He was an extraordinary writer/poet whose words will move the most stationary being.
Thanks again!!

by N@t3 00000

I like the this app app, but I wish it would give more (well, any) information about the poets. It pretty much gives the poet’s name, his/her poems, and nothing else. Not even their birth/death dates so I can tell when the poet lived if I haven’t heard of him/her before! But it’s still nice to have a massive stash of poems easily accessible. “Keep a poem in your pocket and a picture in your head”, you know.

by Roxie_137

I love love loooovvvveee Poemhunter. There are plenty of good poems and I enjoy finding just the right one to show somebody how I feel. My only suggestion is to have a back button. Like how If we swipe left we get the next poem? We should be able to swipe right to get the previous poem back. Still love Poemhunter and will continue to use it for a long time.

by Carlos Steven Carty

I think the Poem Hunter iOS app should feature the “Modern poem of the day” and keep an online collection of modern poems, so users can read previous modern poems from any day in the past. It should also allow users to use voice-over like Siri to speak the words. Thank you for reading my feedback and please consider these suggestions.

by TimDinNC

Every morning a written inspiration appears at 10:00am sharp on my phone and, no matter how busy I am or what mood I'm in, I always stop to read it, because I know it will lift me into the poetic space, a calming place far from the cares of the moment. It is my daily and welcome respite.

by Helpyraphy

Poemhunter not only tries its best and tries hard to hide all the ads but the poems are of quality. What I mean is that they are not like some person who just made them. If you actually think about the meaning of the poem, it is actually really good! There are new poems everyday and for me that is a good solid app to keep. Sad is that there isn’t any notifications for them to remind that there is a new poem, would like that as a suggestion. But overall, Poemhunter is amazing and has changed my life so far, (I got it like a week ago but it seems like forever) I could really see me using Poemhunter for a long time!!

by Mischievous Taco

Poemhunter works so incredibly seamlessly. It is very simple and elegant and makes you excited to read. The colors are beautiful and it couldn’t be more user friendly. The function to save poems is a great idea as well. Overall very plain and simple, I wish every app was like this.

by Alwaise1703

Thank You, Poemhunter has the ability to guide a person when in doubt, the wisdom of kind words but true words for whatever path you may encounter. The assurance of why you’ll be ok, and the encouragement of standing up again. I’m amazed by how words can and do affect your every way of living, aa thoughts, sad thoughts, love and being denied thoughts. The feeling is indescribable in every scripture that has been written and that there is Alwaise someone that is in the same path you are going through and to help guide you through it all till the end. I Love every bit of helpful and powerful words. Pls and Thank You. 💜

by Lucabrasi999

Poemhunter is AMAZING. When I first downloaded it, I searched for ‘Emily Dickinson’ and many of her poems popped up. The way you can shuffle poems as well really gives Poemhunter a unique one. Some of the grammar is a bit messed up, like the uncapitalized ‘I’ or at the beginning of the sentence, but that doesn't bother me that much. Overall, VERY GOOD APP! Download it if you like poems for sure!!

by Seanbhappy

I am very pleased with the variety and availability of great poetry. I also enjoy the quality and feel of Poemhunter. It is pleasing to the eye. I would recommend one improvement feature; increase font size. This is the best app for poetry in Poemhunter Store! I have paid to remove the adds even though I didn’t find the adds to be a problem, but just wanted to say thank you for this collection.

by Flannymann

What a great way to start your day and enjoy your day and even during the day when you’re wondering what the universe thinks of your condition. A form of art and love which seems to have slipped behind the curtain in our modern day entertainment and automatic stress choice-minded conditions.
Oh you soft soul wretching fingers, sweetly pluck the harp of our being and bathe us in anointed waters eternal that unclutter the universe aunt enlarges the song so faintly heard in these pinched times.
God bless all of us little Tim’s

by Unencumberedcucumber

I tried out two other apps before downloading this one, Poemhunter is definitely just on a higher level than those ones! It has a much larger catalogue that is more updated with poets in the recent times as well as older poets. Poemhunter is easy to navigate, has an excellent “random” feature that brings up random poems, and is pleasurable to the eye, being modern and sleek without losing quality.

by IBourbon

Really love Poemhunter. But the sharing the poem in a text message needs to be better. I wish the picture of the poem would capture the whole poem when texting it to someone.

The snapshot of the poem in the text message cuts off half the poem and then you have to click the link in the iMessage to get the rest of it.

You should be able to see the whole poem in the picture or scroll up in the picture to read the next lines.

Second: the year that the poem was written would be nice. To be able to put the poem in context with the era it was written

Third: was hoping that when you tap on the authors name that a short (few sentences) biography of the author would be present. Possible date born - date deceased. Any awards that author has won. How long the author has been writing poetry.

by Qxevb

Every time I try to send a poem to my Facebook, the screen is blocked by a message in some unknown language, and the only way to get past it is to press a word in blue that says Taman. Obviously I am not going to press a word that is unknown to me, so I have to shut down my entire phone to get rid of this person’s message. What is going on?
Also, Poemhunter states if you want to follow a poet, you have to heart them at the end of the poem. Even then, this app says I’ve not followed any poet.
Two very annoying blitzes.

by Maester Pycelle

Very happy with the wide selection of poets found here, only, I have two suggestions: I would like to have an option to randomly shuffle between my favorited poets and their works, and secondly, I wish the formatting could be better sometimes to show whether a line is being continued onto the next for lack of space, or if it’s indeed where the lines end and begin as the poet intended. This could be fixed easily by indenting any lines following the first when they’re to be read as one.

by Dawson_ford

I just started reading poetry, and Poemhunter is amazing just for that. It’s ability to randomly select from a plethora of poets and pieces makes it a surprise every time I open Poemhunter when I have a quick second to read. Honestly a very user friendly app, and great for its purpose: poetry.

by Cyrus The Small

For one who cannot live without the poems he learned in his youth, (a long time ago that was and in an era when school children were REQUIRED to lean verse by heart), Poemhunter is a gift from heaven. I praise God each day for my teachers who insisted on us learning poems by heart, not merely understanding them. Where are those teachers now?
5 stars all the way!