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  Brainstorming Technique #2 Freewriting

  2064 readersFreewriting. It sounds like a cool, pill induced experience, but it is actually a perfectly normal way to get all your ideas on paper without stopping to edit or organize. Freewriting is simply writing without stopping. This technique is actually a great way to start the writing process before you move on to outlines. It allows

• American Life in Poetry: Column 333 | 08.11.11

  5617 readersAmerican Life in Poetry: Column 333 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Here is a lovely poem by Robert Cording, a poet who lives in Connecticut, which shows us a fresh new way of looking at something commonplace. That’s the kind of valuable service a poet can provide. Old Houses Year after year after year I have come to

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  Telling a Good Poem from a Bad One

  2794 readersJudging the quality of a poem is to a certain extent subjective, but a comparison of poems can educate the reader as to the general criteria of a good poem. Your eBook: Click here to download the Basic English Grammar ebook. Original Post: Telling a Good Poem from a Bad One

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  Is It Time to Burst Your Writing Bubble?

  1568 readersSo, you know you’re a good writer. You’ve been told as much.  Had great feedback from teachers, from people who read your work, from your own inner editor who nods and says ‘yep, that’s good’. Maybe it’s always been your dream to be a writer.  To get published, to see your name in print, to

• American Life in Poetry: Column 289 | 10.05.10

  1804 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 There’s only so much we can do to better ourselves, and once we’ve done what we can, it still may not have been enough. Here’s a poem by Michelle Y. Burke, who lives in N.Y., in which a man who does everything right doesn’t quite do everything right. Nocturne A man

• American Life in Poetry: Column 319 | 05.03.11

  7205 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Here’s a poem in which eight-year-old Ava Schicke, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, tells us just who she is and what she thinks. I am I am a daughter and a sister. I wonder when I will die. I hear the warm weather coming. I see stars in the day. I want to learn my

• American Life in Poetry: Column 305 | 01.25.11

  3703 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 The great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso said that, in his subjects, he kept the joy of discovery, the pleasure of the unexpected. In this poem celebrating Picasso, Tim Nolan, an attorney in Minneapolis, says the world will disclose such pleasures to us, too, if only we pay close attention. Picasso How

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  Get Into Flow

  844 readersPractice. Write. Create. Experiment. Find what works for you, and enjoy getting into flow.

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  Poetry Comes To Life in a Poem Forest

  5234 readersArtist Jon Cotner thinks that poetry shouldn’t just be studied, but rather should be looked at as ”a way of life, a mode of knowing.” With this in mind, the artist created ”Poem Forest,” a work created for the New York Botanical Garden that brings poetry back to nature–having visitors read lines from different poems while walking through the park. eBookNewser

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  DA Powell Interviews the Directors of the New Allen Ginsberg Biopic Howl | 09.23.10

  1696 readersRead the full interview here. Because it was such a monumental work. This is a poem that, when it was introduced, actually changed the culture. It was a golden moment for Allen, and that was the moment we wanted to concentrate on. What happened in the courtroom became a great vehicle for talking about the world