Getting Started: Poetry

Writing Poetry: Where to Start

Mon, 02 May 2011 15:09:03 +0100

Jorie Graham once said (paraphrasing here) that the white space around a poem is not paper, but silence. This is one of the most electrifying things I learned as a developing poet. The space that we leave after a word can create a lift, a lead weight, a soft whisper. Silence says so much and space in a poem can speak volumes.

Beginning to write poetry is about beginning to think about moments, stories, memories as their complete selves and then finding the right way to make those things le...

Blogging about Poetry and Literature,· a discussion on licensing original work

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 11:58:45 +0100

Fair Use Policy

It is important when working with other people’s original work to operate under this policy, and I have excerpted the opening paragraph here:

Fair use, a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news re...

Mary O'Donnell: What Poetry Is

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:22:25 +0100

Charged by Emotion

Ideally, a good poem sends trajectories of language that is charged by emotion far out into what I shall term ‘psychic space’, where it then connects with the emotional trajectories of other, searching, readers. A poem has a lot to do with signification. It must signify something for a reader before s/he can be open to its deeper meanings. In a good poem - if it is really good - the triggers occur, domino-like, making the reader almost fall into the poem’s meaning, which...