Happy Holidays!

Hello regular readers and all newcomers! I will be on vacation until December 26th and I am not bringing my computer as I will not have the time. Please feel free to peruse my blog, and may your holidays be joyous occasions!

Here is the typical set-up of the blogs if you want to look through the archives:

Sundays: Living poets
Mondays: Poetry web-sites
Tuesdays: Poets who have passed away
Wednesday: Poems by Poet Hound OR Poems Linked (poems that I found interesting and provided links to).
Thursdays: Open submissions, whether they are on-line journals, print journals, publishing blogs, etc.
Fridays: Poetry Tips (from what different types of poems there are to ideas for writing exercises)
Saturdays: Poetry Blogs (typically a poet who has their own blog is featured, though sometimes it is a journal’s blog).

Please note I am always open to suggestions! If there are any poets you would like to see featured, or poetry related web-sites, blogs, journals, let me know! Post them in comments or send an e-mail to: poethoundblogspotATyahooDOTcom

We will meet again soon, have a wonderful Holiday Season!

Poetry Tips

Today is more about an idea than a tip. If you have been a regular reader you may have stumbled across some poetry broadsides, decorated cards of poetry. Why not create broadsides of your own poems to send as gifts? All you need is cardstock, and imagination. If you are really crafty and have a paper slicer, you can cut the poems to the appropriate size for 5X7 or 8X10 frames. You can use simple geometric designs or draw a simple scene involving your poem. Since people often like poems about themselves, this would be an excellent way to show your love and appreciation of them, a framed broadside produced by you, the creative genius. I know this tip comes a little late for Christmas gift giving but you can always give them out as birthday presents of as random acts of love and kindness.

May the creative muse be with you this holiday season…

POOL Open for Submissions

through February so be sure to act fast! You will need a cover letter, 3 to 5 poems, and as always, an SASE.

Send to:
POOL
Submissions
P.O. Box 49738
Los Angeles, CA 90049

For more details check out:

http://www.poolpoetry.com/submit.htm

Good luck with submissions, please stop by for more Poetry Tips.

Poems linked to Nerve Cowboy

http://www.onr.com/user/jwhagins/brookskyderby.html
Family get-togethers at their finest (as in the usual bologna). Michele Brooks’ poem “Kentucky Derby Day at my Aunt’s House” reminds me of my own family’s craziness, sure to remind you of yours as well…


http://www.onr.com/user/jwhagins/JakielaWatching.html
“Watching My Father Feed the Birds” By Lori Jakiela is a heart-breaker. Read only if you have the guts.

Thanks for reading the poems, tomorrow is another open submissions…

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was not only well known for her poems, but also for her beauty as a fiery red-head. Millay was born February 22nd 1892 and passed away in 1950. During her lifetime she first entered the poetic scene by entering her poem “Renascence” as a teenager and won 4th place. From then on she continued writing poetry and got involved in theater, and led an unconventional lifestyle forming intimate relationships with women. She is also the first woman to receive a Pulitzer prize for poetry. I provided a link below for you to find out more information, and this is what the above information is based from. I am reading Collected Poems Edna St. Vincent Millay and want to let those of you unfamiliar with her work that she is very capable of rhyme and rhythm. When most people think of poetry who are not poets themselves they often think the majority of poems are rhyming ones. Edna St. Vincent Millay is one of the poets that comes to mind for those who enjoy rhyme. I especially enjoy her poem “Tavern.”
She has a stanza I really enjoy:
“There shall be plates a-plenty,/And mugs to melt the chill/Of all the grey-eyed people/Who happen up the hill.”
Edna dreams of keeping a popular tavern that is comfortable and enjoyed by all who happen upon it, and I think most people dream of keeping a place, tavern or not, like that.
Like most people, I have favorite poems, and “The Bean-Stalk” is one of them because it is very imaginative and I can picture the climb in my mind. I urge you to check her out on-line at the link below and certainly your local library will have some of her work.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/160

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more linked poems around the world wide web…

E-Verse Radio

Now this is an awesome web-site! Ernest Hilbert hosts a weekly episode with producer Paul Fleming about poetry and they make it very fun and entertaining. They’ve had episodes about money and poetry, superheroes, the circus, all kinds of interesting things. You can also subscribe to their weekly newsletter and learn when the newest episode is available. If you find you just LOVE them, ask to receive some of their free E-Verse merchandise, and no I am not kidding, it is free! Check these episodes out at:

http://www.everseradio.com/

You won’t be disappointed! Please drop by tomorrow for another lost poet…

Unstable Euphony

I accidentally switched Saturday and Sunday, so today is a blog and yesterday was a poet. We'll continue with our regularly scheduled program come Monday.

Matt Mullins' blog, Unstable Euphony, has done a wonderful service to those of us unsure about which chapbooks to buy, he has been reviewing some of the ones from Kitchen Press. I find this a wonderful thing so that I don’t feel as apprehensive about my next purchase for my all-consuming hobby. He also provides commentary on other poetry-related themes. Please check him out at:

http://www.unstableeuphony.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading, please return tomorrow for another poetry website…

Robert Bly

Robert Bly was born December 23rd, 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. I picked up a book of his prose poems from the local library titled: What Have I Ever Lost By Dying. He has worked as a poet, translator, and editor and published more than 30 books of poetry. Isn’t that amazing? I often think of prose as poetry-as-a-paragraph. That isn’t the true definition, but that is how I make the distinction for my own knowledge, and thought I would share it with you. Below are two links to give you more information on Robert Bly and connect you to some of his poems. Also, here is an excerpt from one of his prose poems, “ Two Sounds When We Sit By the Ocean:”

…pebbles going out…Its is a complicated sound, as of small sticks breaking, or kitchen sounds heard from another house…
…And always another sound, a heavy underground roaring in my ears from the surf farther out, as if the earth were reverberating under the feet of one dancer.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/280

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=653

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for another great website!

Poetry Tips: Avoid the Word Poetry

Many poets at one point or another write about writing poems… This is a little obvious for the world of poetry. Most poets I have read do at some point include a poem about writing poems or about being a poet. I, also, have done it. However, it may be time to change up this practice a bit. If you decide to do such a poem, please omit the words Poem, Poetry, and Poet from the poem itself. Try to be creative in how you present the feeling of crafting a poem, negative or positive, and the experience of being a poet, without mentioning that you are one. In other words, think outside of the box and use different terminology. This will engage the reader and push you to be more creative. As a result, better poems and more fascinated readers. I wish you luck in all your writing endeavors…

Please stop by tomorrow for another wonderful blog…

Pleaides Opens For Submissions

Please include telephone number and email address with all submissions.
Prose should be double spaced with reasonable margins. Poetry should be single spaced, with the author's name on each page.
Do not send your only copy of any manuscript.
Pleiades accepts simultaneous submissions. We ask, however, that you note if a piece has been sent to another magazine.
Poetry should be addressed to Kevin Prufer and Wayne Miller. Please do not send poetry after May 31. We resume reading poetry on September 1.

Pleiades: A Journal Of New Writing
Department of English
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, MO 64093

This is all straight from their guidelines page, good luck submitting! I’ll see you tomorrow for more Poetry Tips!

Poems Linked by Poet Hound

http://tonguefire.blogspot.com/search/label/reasoning%20rhyme
This isn’t actually a poem, this is a discussion on rhyme which I found enlightening and came by it by way of Jim Murdoch who has been kind enough to post comments and references to poets on my own blog. Please check out this link written by Andrew Philip for some great information about rhyme.

http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/yona_harvey/blessing_blue_crabs.shtml
I love this poem because I am now in Florida and blue crabs are tasty and popular down here… join in the feast!


Thanks for reading/listening to the links, tomorrow is another Open Submissions…

Temporary Setback

Hello devoted readers and anyone dropping by for a glance! I will be unable to post for several days because the breaker box in our place burned up and I'll be without power and living temporarily with family until things are fixed. Shouldn't be more than a few days, thanks for your patience!

Louise Gluck's satisfying meal of Poetry

Louise Gluck was born in 1943 and is a professor and a former Poet Laureate. Her poems are well known, or at least as well known as they can be for poets… As always, the Poetry Foundation has a nice collection of her work that you can check out at:

http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=2578

I picked up her book, Averno, at the public library. This is a fairly recent publication, 2006, and therefore more easily found for purchase in book-stores. The beginning poem, “The Night Migrations” catches you right away and it is one of those short, seemingly simple poems. The last stanza asks a very good question in reference to the dead not being able to see things that we, the living, can. “What will the soul do for solace then?” and goes on to say “maybe just not being is simply enough/hard as that is to imagine.”
From there, the poems continue to reach out and pull you in a little more and a little more. Some poems you can read quickly, Gluck’s deserve some time to savor, to be read just a little slower. There are many lines that can be read too fast where you might miss the “pull” I described earlier. Lines such as:

Sunrise. A film of moisture
On each living thing.
--from the poem “October” number 3.

I often hear of dew, but I’ve never thought of a film of moisture on every living thing. Little things like this are throughout the poems and can be easy to miss. Louise has a wonderful way of making sure you are paying attention without being too flowery, intense, or confrontational. There are so many poems with great lines and I could go on and on but I won’t for your sake. Please look through the archive of poems on the Poetry Foundation and absolutely take the time to check her out in the library or the book-store. She is very pleasing, “pleasing” to me seems the perfect word for it.

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for another Monday edition of a Great Poetry Web-Site.

The Truth About Lies Blog

Jim Murdoch is the author of this blog talking about all things poetry. He discusses his views on various subjects related to poetry and also his views on other people’s articles. If you like intelligent discussion, this is the place to go. Much like Ron Silliman’s articles you will find these articles require real attention because they are full of useful information.

http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/

Thanks to all of you who took the poll. Six people answered, four read more than 15 individual poets a year, 1 reads almost 15, and 1 reads between 6 and 10. Looks like people read more poets than I initially thought! Very good...
Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for another living poet…

P.S. If you would like to see any particular poets featured here, please let me know either by comments or e-mail. I’m always open to searching out poets and hopefully I can find the majority of the mentions in the library or a used book-store.

Poetry Tip: Brainstorm Lists

There are some poems out there made up entirely of a list of things. Why not try the same thing for your poetry exercise? How can you turn your grocery list into a poem? How about a to-do list? Once you have the list, can you expand on the experience of performing the actions required to complete what is on the list and turn those actions into a poem? Your next poem may be about trying to buy your favorite bag of chips at the store only to discover your favorite flavor isn’t available. What then? You expand on the experience of feeling disappointed and settling on something else. The sky is the limit, may the muse be with you…

Stop by tomorrow for another poetry blog…