It has been my peculiar experience as a poet to explain to people what they are seeing, albeit through what can feel like an added layer of obscurity. L.L. Barkat on the explanation of art, more or less.
Image-ine: Jewel of Winter
Maureen Doallas and Kelly Sauer turn up a sweet, juicy bit of visual poetry together.
The Poetry of Riffraff
It’s not a new thing for a poet to take common everyday things, the riffraff of our lives, and use them to signify or explain something larger. Glynn Young reviews Stephen Cushman’s “Riffraff: Poems” with special attention to the unique ways Cushman makes something of the riffraff.
This Year’s Top 10 Top 10 Poetic Picks
The editors have culled our very favorite links from our weekly Top 10 Poetic Picks from 2012.
The Art and Music of “Four Quartets” by T.S. Eliot
“Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind / cannot bear very much reality.” Glynn Young recalls his first reading of Four Quartets, which T.S. Eliot wrote over six years, the last three poems during the London Blitz.
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
Random acts of poetry, communing with nature is not an excuse to get out of the office, going to class with Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. It’s all in This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks with Seth Haines.
Haiku Patience
Chris Yokel considers the haiku as a call out of the blur of modern life, and out of shallow thinking and living to a deep place in this reprint from The Curator.
Dublin Doors: No 12 Lombard Street West
Welcome into No 12 Lombard Street West where Paul and Alma live behind their slate grey Dublin door. Listen in as they spin stories with Claire Burge, rich in texture and history.
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
Should the Founding Fathers be booked for selling their used ones? Are public school students reading too much fiction? Are there too many poets writing too many poems? Which direction should I mow my lawn? Will Willingham has the answers to burning questions–or at least the burning questions–in This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks.
Thanksgiving Poems: A Poet’s Thanks
A poet offers a word of thanks: “Something which says, you didn’t need to make room for this—the onions, the beets, the linen closet, the river and the copper…”
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
Poetry on the cubicle farm, books from birdhouses and vending machines, and making rejection make you better. Will Willingham has our Top Ten Poetic Picks for this week.
Dublin Doors: 60 Lombard Street West
60 Lombard Street West is the first story in a series which will document the lives of the people behind the colourful doors of a Dublin suburb.
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
Repurposing books into purses, the presidents’ favorite poetry, and why you need a contrarian in your life. Will Willingham has all this and more in This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks.
Image-ine: Defying The Queen With A Door
I moved to Dublin instead and discovered not only blue doors, but purple doors, red doors, yellow doors, grey doors, orange doors, pink doors, green doors … you name it and I will hazard a guess that I could find you a door painted in that exact colour. –Claire Burge shares about her adventures behind closed, colourful doors
Ordinary Genius: Rhythm, Rhyme and the Sonnet
Kim Addonizio says writing form poetry can teach you economy and structure and take you unexpected places. But what if you have no sense of rhythm? Can you still write a sonnet? LW Lindquist wraps up our Ordinary Genius book club this week with enough iambic pentameter to make you scream.
Sweeten the World with Poetry Words
Beginning November 1, a group of 100 bloggers (Facebookers, Tweeters) will be sweetening the world with poetry words. It’s simple. Once a month, for six months, they will: 1. share photo poetry quotes, with just 5 friends. Delivery is easy through our new WordCandy poetry-based app, via email, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest 2. post […]
5 Reasons Your Poems Get Rejected
A poem ought to be more than just a collection of assorted images. What is your poem doing? What does it add up to? How is it governed? • Five tips from the Indiana Review to help keep your next poem from rejection.
Ordinary Genius: Myths and Fairy Tales
Terrible things happen in fairy tales. Even in the watered-down Disney versions, stepmothers try to poison their stepdaughters, children are lost in the woods and captured to be eaten, young women are imprisoned in towers. LW Lindquist leads our latest book club discussion on Kim Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius.
Poetry at Work: The Doctor—William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was both a poet and a physician, and both were part of the same whole.
National Poetry Month: Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) has been called “America’s Poet.” When he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 (and he kept revising and republishing it for a long time), he changed the direction of American poetry and letters. For decades, some of his poems were memorized in schoolrooms across the United States. Time […]