Call it Autumn. Call it Fall Does it Matter?

Either way, it's coming 'round again, full of football, pumpkins, falling leaves and memories. Here are are some poems, offered for your autumn reading by The Academy of American Poets.

Scroll down and read about the poet. Be sure to check the "Related Poems" links on each page.

And check out the following topics:

15 Poems You Can Write Now

You can start these 15 poems right now. Besides being challenging and fun to work on, they can lead to some strong poems. For best results, paste the activity into your word processor, or print out a hard copy. Then write quickly and freely, trusting your imagination, hunches, gut feelings. When you finish, read the poem aloud a few times in private. When you're ready, share the poem with a partner or in a small group. Try working on them in your blog, where you can choose to keep them private or share them.

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A Poetry Writing Process

Everyone has a personal and unique way of writing. And even with the same poet, different poems follow different paths from inspiration to publication. Even so, it's possible to envision a general process that can help us see where we are at and where we are headed as we work on our poems.

The ideas in this section are intended to help you keep moving ahead with your writing.

Harmonic Textures

Alliteration refers to the repetition of initial sounds of words, assonance to the repetition of vowel sounds within a word, consonance to the repetition of consonant sounds within a word, and rhyme to the repetition of both vowel and consonant sounds, especially, but not necessarily, at the end of a line.

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