Poetry Tips: Worth Describing

When I first started writing poems I made the same mistakes most beginning poets do. For one, I was much too wordy. Another was that I was not descriptive enough. My poems sometimes read like a play-by-play instead of using descriptive words to conjure up the imagery and feelings behind what I was saying.
So your task today is to revise a couple of poems to see which ones merely tell the reader what is happening rather than describing it. For example:

My grandmother made tea,
As she always does on Sundays,
Lifting the porcelain cups from
The cupboard and clinking
Them together onto the silver
Tray. Today we were to
Discuss the latest bit
Of juicy gossip involving
My cousin and her good-
For-nothing-boyfriend.
As always, the tea steamed
Away all guilt from gossip.

Let’s try using more imagery, and less play-by-play, shall we?

My grandmother’s delicate, long
fingers grasped the pale blue
porcelain tea cups by their stems
and, clinking, set them upon her
favored, tarnished, silver tea tray.
As was custom on Sundays, we
were to sit together steaming
about our relative (my cousin)
and her good-for-nothing
boyfriend, much like this rich
Irish Breakfast Black tea was
steaming up at us warming our
cheeks as though they weren’t
already red with anger.


Notice the differences? By expanding on the description of the small scene taking place you can interest and involve the reader much more closely. If you have some poems lying around, you may want to see if you can tweak it a little to include more descriptive imagery. Or you can create a brand new poem keeping this tactic in mind.
Thanks for stopping in. Tomorrow I will be introducing you to another poet that blogs…

Open Submissions: Rattle

Rattle Poetry Journal is open year round to poets who wish to submit their work. If you check out their site you can also see if there’s any particular up-coming theme if you are so inspired. Otherwise, you can send up to 3 poems to Rattle with a brief biography about yourself and why you’re interested in poetry to the following address:

Rattle
12411 Ventura Blvd.
Studio City, CA 91604

http://www.rattle.com/ereviews.htm Check out their web-site and don’t forget to read what kind of poems they are interested in and to make sure you include all your contact information with each poem. Best of luck to those of you submitting!

Poem by Poet Hound

White

Lily half-floats the surface
submerged in the greenery
petals wave a slow ballet
in the breeze this autumn
evening quite content
amongst the egrets
ignoring her beauty
for the dart of fish.

Ordinarily, this poem would be centered on the page but this blog is not capable of doing so and therefore, it is left justified.

I would also like to remind you that Poet Hound is accepting submissions for posting your poems on Wednesdays. Please send your poems for consideration to:
poethoundblogspotATyahooDOTcom
Must be 50 lines or less, no profanity, pornography, or overtly religious poetry. Please include a brief biography about yourself and name any books or chapbooks that are still available for purchase and where they can be found if applicable. If you are a beginning poet, I’d love to help you gain an audience. Poet Hound encourages the idea of helping poets earn a living doing what they do best. Thank you! I look forward to hearing from you.

Emily Dickinson, Almost but not Quite

Tuesday, as some of you may know, is dedicated to those poets who have passed away. Emily Dickinson is the very first poet I fell head over heels for. I love her poems because they always seem a little strange, they almost fit a rhythm and rhyme but not quite. They flow, almost. In this way she keeps the reader awake and paying attention to every word and the best part is she really wasn’t seeking a wide adoring audience when writing. She wrote for herself as the words came and then stowed them away. (With the exception of sending poems when writing letters back and forth to loved ones of course). Now there is hardly a person out there who hasn’t heard of her, thanks to English classes of all school-age levels and course studies. No matter how much you already know about her I still would like to feature her in this blog as she is the reason why I got into poetry at all in the first place.
This excerpted poem appeals to me in that anyone can relate to a broken heart and the idea that love or divine intervention appears just in time to heal it:

A poor torn heart, a tattered heart
That sat it down to rest,
Nor noticed that the ebbing day
.....

The angels, happening that way,
This dusty heart espied;
Tenderly took it up from toil
And carried it to God

......


Thanks for reading, stop by tomorrow to see whether anyone has submitted a poem for Poet Hound to post (poethoundblogspotATyahooDOTcom), or if Poet Hound will have to post their own…

Monday's Verse Daily

Much like Poetry Daily, this site features a different poem each day for you to read and enjoy. It also includes a biography of the poet and any featured published books by that poet. I highly recommend checking it out for a daily dose of poetry. If you like what you see, look up the poet on-line or see if there are any books available from your local library. You do visit the library sometimes, right? Right?
http://www.versedaily.org/

Thank you for visiting, tomorrow we will feature another poet who is no longer with us but still inspires people to this day with her odd rhythm and flow…

Silliman's Blog

Saturdays, for the time being until I run out, will be dedicated to Poetry Blogs. I will only feature those that are current. As in, the blogger is STILL writing in them. I’ve looked at quite a few that are running only to discover no one has written in them since 2005 or, stopped writing back in May 2007. No, you don’t need to waste your time looking at those.

I will be shocked if you haven’t already stumbled onto Ron Silliman’s blog at:
http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/
Mainly because he has been read by over one million people and I am just starting out. Ron Silliman is a published poet who speaks much more eloquently on the subject of poetry than I ever will. He is the professional in the industry and can clue you in to news articles regarding poetry as well as his own articles on criticism (all constructive, of course). I highly recommend visiting his site every day as there are always new and interesting things to learn. He has been blogging for five years or so and is therefore an experienced blogger to be taken seriously. Please check out his blog and thanks for stopping by. Tomorrow we will feature a fun-loving poet, see you then.

Also, an up-dated weekly outlook on Poet Hound:
Sunday: Living Poets Featured
Monday: Cool Web-Sites related to Poetry
Tuesday: Great Poets who have Passed Away
Wednesday: A Poem by Poet Hound OR by You, the audience
Thursday: Journals/Publishers Open to Submissions for Your Poetry
Friday: Poetry Tips/Ideas
Saturday: Poetry Blogs

Friday's Poetry Tips: Unusual Words

For those of you experiencing writer’s block, have you thought of trying some unusual words? You know, the ones people don’t say out loud very often. Sometimes it is fun to bring in a word, unsuspecting, to the reader to make their eyes pop and widen. Try writing a poem or two with any of these words. After all, how often do you slip them into conversation?

Opulent
Crass
Elliptical
Illustrious
Bucolic
Rutabaga
Melee
Taciturn
Acrid
Stench

Cimarron Review open for submissions

Hope Thursday is a good day for you. For Poet Hound, Thursday is Open Submissions for literary journals and small presses of all kinds and today I'd like to let you know that
Cimarron Review is currently accepting submissions. You may send 3 to 6 poems and absolutely no previously published pieces allowed. Response time can take up to 6 months and feel free to contact them after six months if you haven't heard anything. If you would like to submit your poems to Cimarron, here is their address, and don't forget the Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope:

Cimarron Review
205 Morrill Hall English Dept.
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74078

Good luck! We'll meet tomorrow for tips/ideas for writing poems.

A Call for Submissions

Good morning everyone!
Poet Hound would like to make Wednesdays, and perhaps Saturdays, a day to feature poems by other poets. If you would like, you may submit one poem per month to:
poethoundblogspotATyahooDOTcom (written this way to avoid e-mail harvesting spam bots)

No profanity, pornography, or overtly religious poems, and nothing over 50 lines in length. I will reply to everyone as quickly as I can but the answers may be exceedingly short depending on the amount of poems submitted. Yes, it may be previously published.

Please include a brief note about yourself and whether you have any chapbooks/books available for purchase and where they can be obtained if applicable. I am always a fan of supporting poets. It would be wonderful if poets could make a real living off their writing alone. Anything I can do to help that along I will do. If you are a beginning poet, you'll be considered, also. I wish you all the best luck for the long haul.

Thanks, and please submit, the first poem will be published Wednesday, Sept. 26th.

Fishouse, Audio Poets

Hello and welcome! Have you heard of Fishouse before? Well if you haven't, you need to check it out. Live poetry on audio, interviews with poets, and the latest happenings.
http://www.fishousepoems.org/ Click the link and go!

Don't waste time, go! Go now!

Random

Well everyone, Saturdays are usually full, and today is. I'm taking a brief moment to get personal. I've been writing poems since I was an itty bitty kid and my New Year's Resolution for 2007 was to take it seriously and try to get published in a literary journal. So far I've learned a lot more about poetry than I ever imagined. For one, I used to read only the "classics" like Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Latin poets such as Pablo Neruda. Once I joined a poetry group my world was opened to Tony Hoagland, Li Young Lee, Mary Oliver, and so on. As a result of these discoveries I try to support poets who are still living.
There's one chapbook I keep picking up and putting down in an independent book-store titled something like "Explaining the Theory of Relativity to the Cat." I would like to buy it but it is $8.00 for a chapbook that is STAPLED together. I can get all kinds of books with beautiful, normal, bindings for that price or cheaper. I know it isn't the poet pricing it, it is produced by a small press of some kind. However, $8.00??? Are you nuts?? Who do they really think will buy it? I might pony up 5 bucks, but I'd say 4$ or less should be the norm for a stapled chapbook. Anyway. That is my random comment for Saturday.
Look forward to seeing you tomorrow when we discuss another living poet!

Poetry how-to's, Repetition

In poetry there are times where you may want to repeat certain words or lines to emphasize the importance of a subject or idea. For example, most songs have a chorus that is repeated throughout and most listeners latch on and learn these lines first and repeat them with gusto.

Here are some ideas to use for repetition:
1. Write the same beginning line for each stanza.
2. Write the same beginning line changing only one word at a time in each stanza.
3. Repeat the same word once in each stanza.

*Things to think about:
"Repetend" is the irregular repetition of a word or phrase at various places throughout the poem.
"Anaphora" is the repetition of a word or group of words at the beginnings of lines.

Happy writing and if you're brave, post what you came up with in the comments section. Thanks for stopping by.

Open Submissions from Jubilat

Hello and good morning. I have a few precious minutes and wanted to share with you at least one place that is open to receiving poems.
Literary Journal, Jubilat, is well-respected and is one of the very few journals that will accept poems over the internet. In fact, the editors prefer it.
Just go to: http://www.jubilat.org/n12/
and then click on "submit" in which you can then post your poems for the editors to read. You will create a name and password and you can check on the status of your poems regularly. Isn't that wonderful? This is the only place I know of where you can finally see your poems go through the stages of being read and accepted/rejected without waiting for weeks or months with no indications of what's happened.
Happy submitting! Thanks for checking in.

A Poem by Poet Hound

Sorry I had nothing for Tuesday, my internet went dead, and I have no idea why. However, it's working today and onward with the program! Wednesdays are poems by Poet Hound so here is another one for you:

Assembly

I think on it for a week-
it becomes my patchwork quilt
with squiggles and lines besides.
In the marinade of brain juice
it sloshes into view shimmering
just out of reach until
I grasp it with both hands.
Paper to table,
pen to paper,
I declare it
a masterpiece at last.

Poets and Writers Web-site

Poets and Writers is a magazine which helps writers and avid readers find publishing venues, learn the trends, and features interviews with writers of all kinds of genres.

Their web-site is great to get a taste of their magazine as well as find publishing venues. You can also find some how-to articles about how to deal with rejection, which writers are becoming well-known, and what is going on in other parts of the world.

My favorite part of the web-site has to do with the information regarding open submissions for writers. If you're not sure who will welcome your short story, poem, interview, essay, this is the place to look. The editors tell you where, when, and sometimes how to send in your material. There are also contests you can enter for prize money or to win a book deal, etc.
If you are a writer or love reading interviews of favorite authors, this is the web-site to go to.
See you there!
Thanks for checking in.
http://www.pw.org/mag/