An example of Dialogue

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

Jim Murdoch had commented on my Poetry Tips post about his having a dialogue poem shaped like a Rorschach ink blot test and has it posted on his site at the moment. Please check out the link for an example of a dialogue poem and also because he has added another layer of artistry by shaping it into an ink blot test.
Thanks for dropping in!

World Class Poetry Blog with Q&A

Allen and I conversed through e-mail and I asked if he would mind doing a mini-interview about his blog for today's feature and he happily obliged:

Q: What drove you to create a blog and website devoted to poetry?

A: One word - passion.

Q: How long have you had both sites and what do you hope to be able to do by having them?

A: I started the website in 2005 and the blog this year. I've been tinkering with html and Internet marketing since 2001. I wanted to build an online business in 2003, but before I could get anything real solid my National Guard unit was activated (mid-2004) and I spent all of 2005 in Iraq. While in Iraq I found a couple of months in the summer where I had an inordinate amount of free time due to a period of "steady state" operations. It was during those two months that I started the website and built about 10 pages. Then I had a six month period of time when I couldn't work on it at all. I didn't get started again until I got back home. But at that time I had family obligations and I started my business. Those two activities ate up most of my time, but I still took time out when I could to work on the website. It's been hit and miss mostly. I work on it when I can. The blog is something I started because it helps me promote the website and it keeps me writing every day.

Q: Any particular advice for poets out there today?

A: Yeah, I'd say read more than you write and don't worry about getting published until you know for sure that you have something that merits it. Publishing too early will spoil you and make you lazy. The most important thing is to write good literature. If you do that then publication will present itself at the proper time. You have to be patient. Thanks. Let me know if you need anything else. Allen


http://www.worldclasspoetryblog.com/

Thank you Allen, and thank you Poetry fans! Please stop in tomorrow for another living, breathing poet…

Poetry Tips: Dialogue

If you’ve been around poetry for a while you surely have seen poems where there are two speakers. Sometimes the poems are imagined conversations, others are real ones altered to fit a poem. They do not have to rhyme, or have a particular rhythm, or shape. You can scatter the conversation so that one speaker is “right adjusted” and the other speaker is “centered” when it comes to their lines. You can do many experiments with this and I challenge you to come up with a dialogue poem. It can be rather difficult at first, I admit I have yet to succeed and have scrapped every attempt, but they are good for getting the creative juices flowing.
Best of luck to your writing, may the muse be with you!

Please stop in tomorrow for Saturday’s Edition Poetry Blog…

Open Submissions at CapGun

I’m back and ready to get back to normal life. I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday and that you will have friends and fun on New Year’s.

Today’s Open Submissions are for CapGun:

Deadline is January 2nd 2008, so act fast! Submit 3-5 poems or 10 pages prose by e-mail to submit[at]capgunmag.com
Please explore their site to be sure your work will be a good fit! Best of luck to you!

http://capgunmag.com/

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for another round of Poetry Tips!

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…