Poetry Tips: Tools of the Trade

There are thousands of ways to improve your poetic writing. Some handy basics to keep near your desk at all times would be: a dictionary, thesaurus, and a rhyming dictionary.

Of course, you can also keep plenty of incentives to write creatively such as beautiful journals, an interesting typewriter, fancy pens and pencils, beautiful parchment papers, pocket-sized notebooks, 3X5 cards, etc. There’s also the Writer’s Market, Poet’s Market, countless How-To books on writing poetry, and of course, poetry books themselves.

Don’t forget your on-line resources! There are plenty on the sidebar of this blog and you are sure to find help when typing key words into “Google” such as Poetry Tips, Writing Tips, etc.

Then of course, there are people: Start a poetry writing club, write to poets you admire and ask their advice, see if you can do any collaborative work with writers you feel connected to, whether it’s via e-mail, through letters, over the phone, or in person.


Remember, writing a poem doesn’t have to be a solo act unless you want it to be, and anytime you feel creatively blocked there are countless resources to be had. Get out there and be inspired!

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Flying Guillotine Press Chapbook Open Submissions

The submission guidelines are fairly simple, e-mail your manuscript (under 32) pages to
flyinguillotinepress (AT) gmail (DOT) com anytime during the month of April—not much time left so better hurry! Also, explore the blog to get an idea of what they’re about if you aren’t familiar with them.

I would recommend including your contact information such as name, address, e-mail, and phone number and be sure that you place “Submission” in the subject line of your e-mail.

See more for yourself below:

http://flyingguillotinepress.blogspot.com/


Good luck to all who submit, please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://haikuguy.com/issa/haiku.php?code=027.09a
Issa’s “lantern”

http://arseniclobster.magere.com/180901.html
Russel Jaffe’s “Indiana”

Thanks for clicking in, please drop in tomorrow for more Open Submissions...

Kevin Stein's Sufficiency of the Actual

Kevin Stein happens to be Illinois' Poet Laureate and Caterpillar professor of English at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. Thanks to my mother-in-law, I received his book, Sufficiency of the Actual published by University of Illinois Press in 2009, as a present and was delighted with the poems I found inside.

You can view a preview of the book and its poems here: Sample Preview at Google: Sufficiency of the Actual

One of the poems that made me smile is titled “On Being a Nielsen Family” which essentially boils down to how we try to impress people despite who we really are. The following lines “the way a bickering couple makes nice/once the bell ding-dongs neighbors in/for cocktails and unsalted Cheese Nips” and “Though we watch Oprah, we circle BBC News” indicate what I mean. While we may not behave exactly as these lines represent, we can all relate in some way to how we alter ourselves for appearances’ sake.


This poem made me laugh and then cover my mouth: “Song of the Night Shift Foreman” where the poet and his fellow factory workers make up a song to ridicule their Foreman who typically has ear plugs in until one fateful night he overhears the song “trilled to The Beatles’ ‘Come Together.’” The song goes such as the poet provides: “he got juju eyeball,/he got funky hairlip,/he got nose down below his knees./Got to be a foreman,/he just do what he please” to which the foreman punishes them for it. In the poem, the foreman retaliates by demanding “200 boxes to the hour or your rear’s hauled out.” There is more to the poem than this but I want you to read it and discover your own reaction.

Kevin Stein’s collection pokes fun at the American way of life in many of his poems and I like his perspective on our country. Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously and in tough times like these, his poems are a welcome read. I hope you’ll pick up this collection for yourself and thanks always for reading.

Please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

The Beat Generation

This blog is all things related to the beat generation, such as poets Ginsberg and Kerouac—whether it’s movies being made or news being shared, it all relates to the time period. Check it out at the link below:

http://thebeatgeneration.net/blog/

Thanks for dropping in, please stop in tomorrow for another featured poet…