Poetry Weblog

Poet Laureate Proposes a Poem a Day
WASHINGTON — Billy Collins, the nation's new poet laureate, came up with a plan Friday for getting young people interested in poetry: have someone read out a poem a day in high schools.

NOTE: Brilliant teachers at my alma mater have been doing this for years.

Patterns in Poetry
An interactive learning site through whichs tudents of any level can study haiku, sonnet, ghazal forms, and assess patterns in poetry. Includes quizzes. A fantastic site!

Text me a poem
I hate cell phones. Actually, I hate people holding loud private conversations in which I am forced to absorb every word despite Walkman and bus noise. But I guess I can get behind getting textual poems through technology.

Goth-O-Matic Poetry Generator
The Goth-O-MaticTM can help you build your own shadowed and unearthly opus. It's easy to convey your own emotional abyss with this new JavaHacked wonder, expressing the dark and tormented path on which you descend. Display those inner fears and revelations that no one can comprehend. Bitch in a depressing way about the lover that dumped you because you're depressing. Impress others with your ethereal thoughts!

First Party at Ken Kesey's with Hell's Angels, by Allen Ginsberg
Cool black night thru the redwoods

cars parked outside in the shade

behindthe gate, stars dim above

the ravine, a fire burning by the side

porch and a few tired souls hunched over

in black leather jackets. In the huge

wooden house, a yellow chandelier

at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers

hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles

Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths

dancingto the vibration thru the floor,

a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet

tights, one muscular smooth skinned man

sweating dancing for hours, beer cans

bent littering the yard, a hanged man

sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,

children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.

And 4 police cars parked outside the painted

gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

Ken Kesey dies, age 66
With Neal Cassady, hero of Jack Kerouac's beat generation classic, "On The Road," behind the wheel, and a pitcher of LSD-spiked Kool-Aid in the refrigerator, Kesey led a group of friends known as the Merry Pranksters on a 1964 trip to the New York World's Fair. The journey was documented in Tom Wolfe's 1968 account, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

November Poetry by Lynda Barry
Fred Milton the dog asks, "November! And we wonder! Where? When?" (salon)

Faster than a speeding quatrain, by Jon Carroll
I can see the poet watching the plane crashes and the building collapses and saying, "Now, more than ever, a nation needs its laureate." (thanks, t!)

Turning to poetry/Verse speaks to feelings of grief, anger...
"People are comforted in different ways by different poems," said Robert Hass, the UC Berkeley English professor who was U.S. poet laureate from 1995 to 1997. "It helps to have feelings put into words. Poetry helps to clarify our feelings, give them a kind of form." (thanks, Jill!)

Rumi,
Every tree, every growing thing as it

grows, says this truth: You harvest what

you sow. With life as short as a half-

taken breath, don't plant anything but

love. The value of a human being can

be measured by what he or she most deeply

wants. Be free of possessing things.

Sit at an empty table. Be pleased with

water, the taste of being home.

Redneck Haiku
From the punk collective 924 Gilman Street.

Sekou Sundiata
Ani DiFranco's poetry teacher...."Sekou is one of the most distinctive and original DJALI (Poet, Historian, Musician, Signifier) doing it. Sekou is Pre-Griot, meaning the ancient tradition of 'The Gleeman.' Serious as light overhead in darkness." - Amiri Baraka

Poetry by Charlie Sheen

Thylias Moss profile and interview
"If no Black woman had ever written anything, I would have written. I don’t mind adding to the African American female aesthetic—whatever that is. I hope it is not easy to define."

Fresh Poetz
Reviews of small press poetry, spoken word, and hiphop by poets you just might know! Fresh Poetz List featuring poets from around the world, and huge open mic directory!

An Interview with Dana Gioia
From the quite excellent Poetry Santa Cruz....

The Life of Paul Laurence Dunbar
Did you know he once worked for the Library of Congress? The tedious work was not to his liking.....

WRITERS IN A CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT
A sampling of writers working in the high-tech field.

Dan Phillips visits San Francisco
I was anxious to meet San Francisco. Until one has been in a city and felt its many moods, it is impossible to understand it. Like life, a city has a mysterious presence that prevails, pieces of a puzzle that don't fit until it is mended together into a form of an understanding landscape.

The Sweet Science
Poet and fight cornerman Tom Smario unearths beauty in boxing's bloody heart.

Wordsmiths collects teen poetry
This site is mounted by the New York Public Library and is a great resource and outlet for young poets.

public poetry
17-year-old Alexis Ignatovich writes a poem on the walkway in Union Square Park

5 Poets: Youth Speaks Participants Speak Up
One of the first organizations in the country to support spoken word and slam poetry for youth, Youth Speaks, was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area. The group organized the first teenage poetry slam in 1996; in 1999, the organization expanded to New York, where it currently runs programs in all five boroughs.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree, by William Butler Yeats
Sharon Olds sang this at the Squaw Valley Reading on Saturday. Also reading, beautifully, were Li-Young Lee, Lucille Clifton, Galway Kinnell and Brenda Hillman.

Sunny Outside
A poetry/art e-zine.

The National Association for Poetry Therapy
We share the common vision that we can use words to help heal individuals and bring together communities.

Richard Hugo Page
Created by faculty at the University of Richmond.

Celia White

Warm Wine, A Poet's Day Book

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