There is something primal about repetition, from drumbeats to heartbeats to modern pop music. If you are familiar with these, you may already know something about writing a catalog poem.
Alice and the Chinese Jar
Last Thursday night, there was another gathering of the Tweetspeakers for a Twitter poetry party.
Twitter Poetry Party Tonight, 9:30-10:30 EST
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s “Saint Sinatra”
St. Sinatra is a collection that is at once serious and humorous, focused and yet playful. It speaks to and about saints who are both familiar and known for being saints as well as those who are not.
Nick Samaras’ “Hands of the Saddlemaker”
Nicholas Samaras received the award in the 1991 for the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition for this volume of poetry, Hands of the Saddlemaker. Now 20 years old, it has aged well; its themes of exile, pilgrimage, separation and “in this world but not of it” are as current now as they were then, […]
Why I Want to Write Useless Poetry
There are so many things you can do with your time. I want to write useless poetry. Because it’s like play.
We’ve Got Our Wordle, Now We Want Yours
How about you? Would you consider Wordling, using some kind of poetic grist? What would you use?
Ava Leavall Haymon’s “Why the House is Made of Gingerbread: Poems”
When I was little, my mother would read stories to me from an oversized yet relatively thin edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It had a green cloth cover, and I remember it specifically because I still have it. (It’s also decorated with writing in crayon, but that’s another story.) One of my favorite stories was […]
“Kingdom Come: Poems” by John Estes
In 2009, we reviewed here a chapbook published by poet John Estes entitled Breakfast with Blake at the Lacoon. In the review we said that Estes effectively evoked a sense of both the literary and everyday reality. That same characteristic is true of his first collection of poems, Kingdom Come: Poems, published by CR Press, […]
Cool Poetry Resources
Theron Kennedy at Inside Theron’s Head 2.0 and Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper found two cool online poetry resources. Kennedy tweeted a link to 32 Poems, which is sharing 215 favorite poetry books by 43 poets in 30 days. 32 Poems borrowed the idea from someone else, and adapted it for National Poetry Month. […]
National Poetry Month: Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (1879 – 1955) was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and the New York Law School, and worked for most of his life as an attorney with the Hartford Insurance Company and its predecessors, and was a vice president at the time of his death. (He turned down a faculty position at […]
National Poetry Month: Billy Collins
Billy Collins has been called the most popular living poet in America, and with good reason: he’s been more than a little successful as a poet, which in some literary quarters is rather unforgiveable. Collins has been U.S. Poet Laureate twice (2001 and 2002) and New York Poet Laureate (2004); received fellowships for the National […]
National Poetry Month: Marcus Goodyear
Marcus Goodyear is senior editor for TheHighCalling.org (sponsored by Foundations for Laity Renewal) and FaithintheWorkplace.com (sponsored by Christianity Today). His poetry has been published in Geez Magazine, 32 Poems and Stonework Journal. Barbies at Communion: and other poems, his first volume of poetry, was published in 2010 and selected as a notable book by Englewood […]
National Poetry Month: Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was the pen name of Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto (1904-1973), a Chilean poet and diplomat whom Gabriel Garcia Marquez called “the great poet of the 20th century in any language.” The article on him at Wikipedia contains a wealth of information about his life, family, involvement in the Spanish Civil War, embrace and […]
National Poetry Month: L.L. Barkat
L.L. Barkat is a writer, editor, poet, columnist, speaker and entrepreneur. She is the author of Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places, God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us, and InsideOut: Poems. Barkat is Managing Editor at The High Calling and staff writer for International Arts Movement’s The […]
National Poetry Month: William Butler Yeats
The career of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) spanned two centuries, and he became one of the foremost figures of English literature. He was a major force behind the Irish Literary Revival and was a co-founder of the famed Abbey Theater in Dublin. Active in politics, drama and literature, Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for […]
National Poetry Month: Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) wrote poetry for more than 70 years, and has the distinction of being the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize (in 1950 for Annie Allen: Poems). She also received numerous other honors and recognitions, including a nomination for the National Book Award, the National Medal for the Arts, serving as […]
National Poetry Month: Brendan Galvin
Brendan Galvin has published 21 books and chapbooks of poetry. He graduated from Boston College in 1960 with a B.S. degree in the natural sciences, and received his MFA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Massachusetts. One work, Atlantic Flyway (1980) was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize and Habitat: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2005 […]
National Poetry Month: Richard Beban
Richard Beban spent 30 years as a journalist and television and screen writer, and then became a poet. Since 1994, his poetry had been published in numerous literary journals and websites and in 16 anthologies. He’s also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and co-authored numerous non-fiction books and collections. He and his wife, writer […]
National Poetry Month: Caroline Dellosso
Caroline Dellosso may be the youngest poet you’ve never heard of, but you will hear of her one day. She’s eight years old, and she’s started to write poetry. Her dad, author Mike Dellosso, decided to post a couple of her poems on his web site, and we were so impressed with what a good […]