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July/August 2013 Issue
July/August Issue
Writer's Digest Magazine
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Poetic Asides
Poetry Craft Tips
5 Ways to Revise Poems
My blog spends a lot of time on the creation of poetry, but I haven’t dedicated anything to revision in more than a year. While I’m always writing and revising poetry, I … Read more
Best Opening Poetry Lines
Everyone has their personal list of best opening poetry lines–or at least, everyone should have their list of favorite opening lines. While the first line of a poem isn’t the most important … Read more
The 20 Best Poems for Kids
As a father of five children who loves to read to them at night, I’ve learned a thing or two about which poems play best for kids. In fact, I’d say there are … Read more
Interview With Poet Aaron Belz
I’m so happy to share Aaron Belz with the Poetic Asides community today! Credit: Thomas Crone In 2010, Aaron’s second collection of poetry–Lovely, Raspberry–was released by Persea Books. Before that, there was … Read more
Interview With Poet Erika Meitner
Earlier this year, Harper Perennial released Erika Meitner’s Ideal Cities, which has already received praise from poets such as Paul Guest, Nikki Giovanni and Denise Duhamel. And you can go ahead and … Read more
Interview With Poet Nancy Posey
We’re two days into the 2010 November PAD Chapbook Challenge. (Click here to read about the 2010 November PAD Chapbook Challenge.) Recently, I interviewed the 2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge winner: Nancy … Read more
Blogging Poets: Jessie Carty
Way back on April 26 (in the heat of running for Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere), I posted that I wanted to do a better job of informing my readers of other … Read more
Simile vs. Metaphor: Smackdown!
The title to this post makes it sound like I’m going to have similes breaking chairs across metaphors’ backs. Maybe metaphors will pin similes. As if. Similes and metaphors both have their … Read more
Taking Risks in Poetry
Over this past weekend, Tammy and I read at the Decatur Book Festival. You can read about it on my personal blog (click to continue). I was invited at the last minute … Read more
Evaluating Poems for a Collection
One of my goals for this year is to try and get a poetry collection published, and I haven’t ruled out self-publication if it comes to that. But I’ve been trying to … Read more
Interview With Poet Kristina Marie Darling
I’m very pleased to share Kristina Marie Darling with the Poetic Asides community. Darling is a graduate of Washington University and has published several chapbooks, including Fevers and Clocks (March Street Press) … Read more
How Poeming Is Like Dating
We’ve been discussing the composition of poetry on Twitter today. It sounds like many poets (including myself) tend to treat writing poetry like dating. Start off for funAt first, it’s just an … Read more
Altering poetry for publication: Good or bad?
I like making these post-#poettues posts after tweeting poetry on Tuesdays on Twitter. (Click here to view this week’s transcript.) Today, we discussed self-publishing poetry in unusual formats, the importance of quality … Read more
The Importance of Form
I just updated the poetic forms list on this blog (click here to check out 29 different poetic forms). I feel that attempting poetic forms is an essential step on the path … Read more
Poetic Forms List – May 2010
Every so often, I like to share a poetic forms on this blog. And every so often, I like to collect them into a list that makes it easier to find and … Read more
Quality v. Quantity: Do they need each other?
Now that I’m escaping from the vacuum of National Poetry Month and another successful April Poem-A-Day Challenge, I find myself wondering about the relationship of quantity and quality in writing. Is there … Read more
Interview With Poet Laurel Snyder
Interesting (maybe only to me) story: This interview with Laurel Snyder came about after Laurel responded to one of my “tweets” on Twitter. (By the way, you can follow me there at … Read more
Poetic Forms: Villanelle
(Okay, I’m going to try posting this again. Apparently, this blog is anti-villanelle.) So, the French form I had not covered yet was not the rondeau, but the villanelle. Oh well. We … Read more
Interview With Poet Katy Evans-Bush
Since I know this interview is a little on the long side (which is a good thing), I won’t spend too much time introducting Katy Evans-Bush, who recently released her first collection … Read more
Interview with poet Cherryl Floyd-Miller
Earlier this year, Tammy and I took Baby Will with us to his first poetry event, a reading by Cherryl Floyd-Miller at Wordsmiths Books in Decatur, Georgia. Sadly, Wordsmiths has since closed, … Read more
Interview With Poet Denise Duhamel
(Note to prompt-hungry poets: This is not a prompt; please don’t mistakenly post your poems for prompts into the comments of this blog post.) Okay, so I know everyone’s busy with writing … Read more
Poets Helping Poets: What Makes a Great Chapbook?
In anticipation of the November PAD Challenge (which starts Saturday!), I threw out the above question to members of the Poetic Asides group on FaceBook: What makes a great chapbook? Here’s what … Read more
Interview With Poet Nin Andrews
I don’t usually post interviews on back-to-back days, but I thought I’d make an exception in this case, because it might be the last interview posted until after November with this November … Read more
Want to workshop some poems?
Just realized that poets can sign up for my upcoming Advanced Poetry course at WritersOnlineWorkshops.com. There are no required texts, but there will be workshopping, communicating and new poems. If you’re interested, … Read more
How to Write Poems About Specific People or Events
Today’s Tuesday, so I’ve been tweeting poetic on Twitter at the #poettues hashtag. If you have a Twitter account, please jump in and join in or follow along. Many poets share links … Read more