The repetitive rural images of the Lake District provided inspiration for Jill Baumgaertner’s “Cumbria Pantoum.” What will inspire yours?
Search Results for: 50 states
Poet-a-Day: Meet Todd C. Truffin
A soccer coach inspiring a villanelle? It could happen. (Indeed, it did, in this villanelle from Todd C. Truffin.)
Poet-a-Day: Meet Gabriel Spera
Can a sonnet be funny? (Should it be, especially if a household “disaster” is in progress?) Gabriel Spera chose amusement…
Poet-a-Day: Meet Janet Aalfs
A lost red button calls out to become an ode for a wider memory in Janet Aalfs’ touching poem about her mother and more.
Poet-a-Day: Meet John Stevenson
What do all Japanese poems have in common that might change how you view haiku? John Stevenson explores the answer…
Poet-a-Day: Meet Murray Silverstein
What if one of your end words talked back, saying it needed to go? Murray Silverstein shows how you can be illuminated by your sestina’s own way.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Susan Rothbard
When you think you’re grounded in reality, a form like the sonnet might lead you to the imaginary. It did for Susan Rothbard in her apple poem!
Poet-a-Day: Meet Richard Pierce
Can the villanelle come round again? Poet Richard Pierce responds to Dylan Thomas’s famous villanelle with a powerful one of his own.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Barbara Crooker
Sometimes a poem can start as free verse and as things go, the poem is asking to be written in form. Barbara Crooker’s acrostic shows the way.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Jim Kacian
Find out how Jack Kerouac brought Jim Kacian to haiku at the perfect time in his life. He would go on to be the founder of The Haiku Foundation.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Tom C. Hunley
How can a mashup lead to a sonnet like Tom C. Hunley’s? See the cool exercise that can make it happen.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Elise Paschen
Elise Paschen shows us how it’s all about teleutons if you want your mysterious possibility in your sestina.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Ron Wallace
When your ode is also a sonnet. Ron Wallace shows how a golden form poem decided to play with expectations (and intentions).
Poet-a-Day: Meet Isaac Willis
When you begin a poem, do you ever feel like a particular form is calling? Isaac Willis shares why he chose the sonnet for this architect love poem…
Poet-a-Day: Meet Maureen E. Doallas
What if you want to match a physical sensation to a poetic form? Maureen E. Doallas shows you how, in this pantoum from ‘How to Write a Form Poem.’
Poet-a-Day: Meet David Wright
How can you discover your poetic habits and create new ones that change your poetic music? Poet David Wright’s cello-based sonnet shows the way.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Katie Manning
What happens when you begin to erase parts of a text? Can poetry rise to the surface? Katie Manning made it so, with the book of Ecclesiastes.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Chip Livingston
What is your region inspiring you to write? For poet Chip Livingston, the shores of Uruguay simply begged to speak through a pantoum.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Dheepa Maturi
What if you have no words for a layered, mysterious experience? The ghazal might be just your form. It was for Dheepa Maturi, who speaks through dance.
Poet-a-Day: Meet Ashley M. Jones
What can the villanelle offer a poet? Ashley M. Jones has a suggestion—and a container for obsession or sorrow.