Poetry, Poesie, Verse & Line....

If Only It Could Be National Poetry Month All of the Time!




If you're looking for a one stop internet resource to help you celebrate National Poetry Month, the Academy of American Poets have you covered. Poems, biographies of well loved verse technicians, poetry writing instruction, essays on the craft and other articles are just some of the poetic offerings available at Poets.org.

More NPM fun:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux's National Poetry Month blog:

• Of course, we had to bring you a new ringtone, recorded just for you by one of FSG's most illustrious poets;
• More audio of some of greatest poets, including a long-time FSGer who somehow managed to escape recording for us last year, even though he had a new book out;
• A whole week devoted exclusively to poetry in translation;
• All-new downloadable posters (guaranteed to brighten up even the saddest cubicle), guest bloggers, and giveaways.

April Poem-A-Day Challenge with Robert Lee Brewer

• Prompts
• Poems
• Fun

(You can view my daily poetry posts in honor of National Poetry Month at Chocolate and Other Poems. Wish me luck and fortitude, better yet, post a poem of your own in the comments section.)

Poets Need To Eat Too, So Here's Some Market Advice

One of the writers in my network on Gather.com, Edward Nudelman, recently wrote an article, Publish or Perish. He discusses his experiences as a poet seeking publication and recommends a few online and offline markets to which poets seeking publication can submit. Check it out.

Simple Pleasures

I wrote this last week. I think that the last few lines illustrate the tenets of imagism. The personification of the morning doesn't suit, but the rest does. What do you think?

Aurora sweeps butterfly kisses across my cheeks.
She calls me to rise and greet the day.
I lay measuring my breaths in morning prayer.
A simple pleasure awaits me.
I anticipate the rumble of the kettle
and watching the bits, apples, hibiscus, rose petals,
my herbal tea, swirl in the flow of hot water
I pour into my trasparent teapot
changing it from glass to ruby.

Sometimes, we need to paint another picture.

Word for the Week

imagism

a movement in modern poetry (c.1912-1924) using precise, concrete images and extensively free verse.

Source: Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language

You Want To Know How to Write A Great Poem?: Read Clive James Essay on Paul Valéry's Example

Slate.com has been featuring adapted versions of essays from Clive James', Cultural Amnesia. The perspective he presents in his essays is fascinating. It's like looking at the lives of famous figures througth a kaleidescope rather than a microscope or magnifying glass. His presentations are multifaced and often beautiful.

clive's lives

Paul Valéry
How poets write great poems.
By Clive James
Posted Tuesday, April 10, 2007, at 7:30 AM ET

The following essay is adapted from Clive James' Cultural Amnesia, a re-examination of intellectuals, artists, and thinkers who helped shape the 20^th century. Slate is publishing an exclusive selection of these essays, going roughly from A to Z.

Sometimes something wants to be said, sometimes a way of saying wants to be used.
—Paul Valéry, "Poésie et pensée abstraite," from Modern French Poets on Poetry.

­By the age of 20, Ambroise-­Paul Valéry (1871–1945) was already recognized as a promising poet, but he repudiated the ambition and stayed almost silent for a full two decades. He was 40 when he was persuaded to publish his early poems, a task he undertook only on the understanding that he would add a new, prefatory poem. This took him five years to write. Published separately in 1917, La Jeune Parque and Charmes worked to establish him as the most prominent French poet of his time. Even without publishing his private notebooks—some 287 volumes—Valéry still had a full 18 volumes of prose to give the world, and scattered among them are some of the best essays written in his time. With solid mathematical training to back up his humanist erudition, he could take almost anything for a subject, but he was especially good at writing about the arts: The essay on Leonardo and the little book on Degas are models of the genre.

The homage paid to Valéry by other writers is only fitting, because nobody could quite equal him at writing about the arts out of deep and unenvious love. If there is an objection to be made to Valéry, it is a milder version of the objection we make to Rilke: that the dedication to art verges on preciosity. Valéry, however, gives a better sense than Rilke of other artists than himself being fully alive. There was a generosity to him which his nation returned in kind, as if his capacity for appreciation were in itself a national treasure. Gen. de Gaulle came to his funeral.....

Clive James, the author of numerous books of criticism, autobiography, and poetry, writes for the New York Times Book Review and The New Yorker. He lives in London.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2163822/

Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Yeah, I watched Oprah...This ain't about poetry, hip hop...or censorship!

I am a poet, and I took exception to Russell Simmons donning the breastplate of artistry, while standing on his righteous indignation over censoring said artistry to defend and legitimize the output of various rap performers. (I refuse to give many of them the dignity of being called poets much less artists.) His naming those who write and perform rap music as poets without making distinctions regarding the type of rap music they perform was circumspect, best case scenario, or worse case scenario, duplicitous.

As far as I'm concerned all rap is not created equal and Hip Hop is not the commodity mass produced and blasted on radio and television stations. Hip Hop depicts a culture of consciousness one that observes, analyzes and reflects the world in which it exists. It seeks to educate and uplift, to offer criticism and critique, to mobilize its listeners to pursue positive change, both inwardly and outwardly. Sometimes, Hip Hop is just plain fun. Hip Hop lives mostly off the screen of mainstream entertainment, creating the occasional blip--Common....Mos Def...Eryka Badu....Jill Scott.

In my opinion, much of the rap music produced, sold and shoved via the spoon of mass marketing down the throats of those who once loved it, is an over exuberant exercise in mediocrity. Rap has become a festival of depravity in which the most base and debasing elements of human existence are glamorized and presented as life pursuits. I won't focus on the misogyny of rap, because it is guilty of many other abuses as well. From its perspective, the world is full of black people who are moving targets which receive every type of abuse, mental, physical and sexual, especially from their own.

As with any human endeavor, there are degrees of workmanship. Poverty is no excuse, nor is suffering, a mantle of martyrdom which gives its bearer the right to inflict suffering upon others. Malcom X was poor and abused--told to pursue carpentry, thief, ex-con. Paul Laurence Dunbar started poor.

I understand that people must mature and grow and change. I understand that money is a need, not a want in America. Rap performers want to be paid, and capitalism is all about supply and demand. They're providing a product. It's business. I also understand that power concedes nothing without demand.

Those who know better, must do better. Art reflects culture, but it can also shape it. Remember the Black Arts Movement? Black is Beautiful. Say It Loud! I'm Black and I'm Proud!

Russell Simmons has created many progressive opportunities for African Americans. I acknowledge that the Hip Hop Action Network is educating many, but it is also teaching them to ignore that which is unjust in their community. I must also acknowledge that the same individuals who spew poison about themselves and their community cannot credibly offer an educational or uplifting message.When it comes to the future content of mass marketed rap music and the distribution of Hip Hop, he and his counterparts must do better.

Charles Bukowski Says, If You're Going To Write, Then Do The D___n Thang!

As I read "so you want to be a writer?", I wondered if Charles Bukowski intended it as reverse psychology to treat the reader, himself or both. Of course the obvious possibility remains; he means just what he says.

Check it out, and tell me what you think: so you want to be a writer?

Visit Poets.org to find for thousands of poems, biographies, essays, and audio clips. Poets.org is a program of the Academy of American Poets.

"Poetry is that which helps us live." --Wallace Stevens

Passion and Discipline Are Key to Writing Great Poetry

The best poetry is born of passion and discipline--depth of feeling and effective application of the tools of the writing craft. When poems are written with too much of one and not enough of the other, they end up in the trash, or at least they should. Passion and discipline, the means by which we create art, cultivate them and prosper.

Quotes for the Week

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Kahlil Gibran

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Aristotle quotes

What Do Poetry & Alchemy Have In Common?

Word for the Week

amal·gam:
a mixture of different elements

Poetry and Alchemy have more in common than one might expect. Both require the use of appropriate measures. The correct application of the necessary elements, words, punctuation, narrative, meaning, stress and rest vs. stone, mineral, fire, water, earth and air, determine the quality and quantity of the end product of both processes. If the guiding principals of either art/science are misapplied, you can end up with a real stinker.

Let's Take A Walk With Nikki Giovanni

Writing Prompt

Nikki Giovanni is a poet who's work is easy to revisit. Whenever I open a book of her poems, I find a bit that seems as if I'd written it myself. With her simple and direct voice, she creates a sense of intimacy, the intimacy of old friends meeting for tea or a slice of pizza; because her work shines with honesty, the stories she tells become real.

Click on the title of this post to visit the Smithsonian Folkways website and listen to Giovanni's poem, Boxes. The poem can be found in her collection cotton candy on a rainy day.

What boxes hold you? How do you plan leave them? Do you want to leave them?

Are you a poet in search of a workshop or just some current poetry?

I Googled "Poetry Online" and discovered poetry critical.com, an online poetry workshop. I've participated in a few online workshops and they can be very helpful. Even if you don't sign-up, reading what's posted is a great way to have the refreshing experience of reading other poets' work.

Visit Publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux's, The Best Words In Their Best Order, An Engaging & Elegant National Poetry Month Blog

FSG's poetry blog is definitely a must stop for poets and lover's of poetry. This site offers podcasts of poetry readings, reviews, downloads and commentary for the discerning poetry fan. Click on this post's title to follow the link to the blog.

Quote for the Week

"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)