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    • 1: Talk to Animals (and Stars)
    • 2: Shift Perspectives
    • 3: Take a Snapshot
    • 4: Use These Words
    • 5: Write a One-Sentence Poem
    • 6: Write a No-Sentence Poem
    • 7: Tap Your Inner Language
    • 8: Tell a Story
    • 9: Collect Fabulous Realities
    • 10: Write a "how to" Poem
    • 11: Begin, "When I . . .
    • 12: Get Deductive
    • 13: Start With an Epigraph
    • 14: Follow a Metaphor
    • 15: Meditate
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by Chuck Guilford

 

I too am not a bit tamed —
     I too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp
     over the roofs of the world.

— Walt Whitman

 

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Your Poetry Blog

Poetry thrives online. There is no better place to publish your poems if you want them to be widely read.

Register and log in to create a personal blog where you can publish and discuss poems with other Poetryexpress members. 

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  • Stanza Breaks
  • Rhythm and Meter
  • Poem #1: Talk to Animals (and Stars)
  • 15 Poems You Can Write Now
  • Poem #5: Write a One-Sentence Poem

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This poem will be short, of course, maybe a quick observation, a moment preserved, as in this no-sentence poem by Ezra Pound:

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Or maybe an apostrophe like H. D.'s "The Pool":

The Pool

Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?

Read more: Share It On Social Media

It might as well be spring . . .

or maybe it is, so many love poems keep appearing in the blogs. Love poems are some of the hardest poems to write, or so claimed W. H. Auden. Here are a few classics that have inspired poets and lovers over the years:

  • The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe
  • The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Ralegh
  • somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond by e. e. cummings
  • To the March Wind by Chuck Guilford
  • Let me not to the marriage of true minds by William Shakespeare
  • The Definition of Love by Andrew Marvell
  • What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why by Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold
  • A Birthday by Christina Rossetti
  • How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  • Wild Nights — Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
  • When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats
  • Credo by Matthew Roher

A few suggestions: use concrete, specific images to show your feelings; avoid sing-song "roses are red" type rhyming; try to say something fresh and new that gives readers a new insight — or even a laugh.

 

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.

Read more ...

Our best poems . . .

are authentic.

They come from a place inside of us that is real.  They are spoken in our own voices and touch on matters that genuinely concern us.

Read more ...

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.

Read more ...

 

   For This Life

Check out this new book-length online poetry collection by Poetryexpress creator Chuck Guilford.

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Meet Online

1. Install the Zoom app on your phone or computer.

2. Create a new meeting and set a meeting time. This could be simply a get-acquainted session, or it could focus on a specific activity or assignment: one of the 15 poems, for instance.

3. Invite others to install Zoom on their phones or computers and join the meeting.

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