The repetitive rural images of the Lake District provided inspiration for Jill Baumgaertner’s “Cumbria Pantoum.” What will inspire yours?
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…
The Great Gatsby Book Club: Chapters 7-9—Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past
In the final installment of our The Great Gatsby book club, Tania Runyan explores what it means to be “borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
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…
Poetry Prompt: Choose Risk Over Cuteness —The Acrostic Poem
Think the acrostic poem is too cute? Think again. Join Callie Feyen and Tania Runyan and see how risky the form can be.
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.
The Great Gatsby Book Club: Chapters 5 & 6—Dreams and Longing
If it’s about anything, The Great Gatsby is about dreams and longing. But does Jay Gatsby cherish the dream of Daisy more than Daisy herself?
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.
A Blessing for Writers
What does the writer need in order to go forward? So many things. This “blessing for writers” wishes them for you, beginning with a silken string…
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.
Poetry Prompt: A spiral staircase, anxiety, and the sestina
Join Callie Feyen and walk a spiral staircase with Tania Runyan, poet and author of “How to Write a Form Poem,” in order to understand the sestina.
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.
50 States of Generosity: Washington
We continue our 50 States of Generosity series with a focus on Washington and its state waterfall: Palouse Falls. Plus a poetry prompt!
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).
Book Club: The Great Gatsby Chapter 3 & 4—Mystery, Contradiction and Switch-Ups
Chapters 3 and 4 of The Great Gatsby are full of mystery, contradictions and linguistic switch-ups as the books themes begin to take shape.