Poetry

• "...to rule out meter or rhyme as tools available to the poet is far more limiting than the playful, silk-ribbon bondage of the sonnet." A. E. Stallings, Crooked Roads Without Improvement: Some Thoughts on Formal Verse
• "The grander goal is to be as good as Dante."
  Donald Hall, Poetry and Ambition
• Harriet, a blog with articles by various poets
• Stallings at Harriet
• Bad Poets, by Randall Jarrell
• Negative Capability
• A Few Don'ts
• Duende
• Critique Guidelines, by Rachel Lindley
• Those who confuse "rhyme" with "reactionary" should read this poem by Janet Kenny.
• Uncontainability Pours Forth: Rhyme, Meter, and Form in Best American Poetry 2007, by Maryann Corbett
• Edgy vs. Nice, by me
• Okay, this essay has nothing to do with poetry, but I love it.

• Duotrope
• Venues for Formal Poetry
• The Book of Forms, by Lewis Turco
• Irish Poetry Forms
• Sonnet Central
• Poetry Crossroads (new)
• The Belletrist (new)
• Discovery of Poetry, by Frances Mayes
• How to write a villanelle
• No, wait here's how to write a villanelle
• How to write a roundel
• How to write a triolet
  
• How to write a poem about poetry
• How to write a poem about suicide
• Never, ever write a poem like this!
• rhymezone.com
• dictionary.com
• The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form
• thesaurus.com

• Eratosphere - Geared to metrical poetry.
• The Gazebo - More geared to non-metrical.
• The Sonnet Board - For sonnets, obviously.

• David Anthony
• Kate Benedict
• Julie Carter
• Rob Mackenzie
• Mary Meriam
• Steve Schroeder
• Mike Stocks

Here's a video of Tim Murphy reading from his and Alan Sullivan's translation of Beowulf. (Requires RealPlayer)

Modern Metrics is a small press run by a group of poets in NYC. Please buy lots and lots of books from them.

• Mortimer
• Lovesick and Zeitoun
• Systems Integration

If you like these poems, you might like my book, Bundle o' Tinder, which won the 2007 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize and will be published this fall by Waywiser Press. The competition was judged by Richard Wilbur.

Note: For search-engine-related reasons, I sometimes use a pen name for online publications.

For those who aren't familiar with Anthony Hecht: He was the real deal. You can read some of his poems online, or better yet, curl up with this.

Print

• Anon. A UK magazine that selects poems "blind."
• Atlanta Review. Much better than their cheesy-looking website might lead you to believe.
• The Dark Horse. UK-based, mostly formal verse. Good articles.
• iota. UK-based, eclectic.
• Measure. Metrical verse; Nemerov winners and finalists.
• Poetry. Famous old magazine with a gazillion subscribers. Good articles and Letters section.

Online

• 14 by 14. Each issue features 14 sonnets by 14 authors.
• Anti-. Eclectic, contrarian. Be sure to check out this chapbook, Power Crazy Senior General Than Shwe, written in honor of the courageous Burmese poet Saw Wei.
• The Barefoot Muse. Strictly metrical verse.
• The Cortland Review. Many of the poems come with recorded readings by the authors.
• kaleidowhirl. Better than it sounds.
• Lucid Rhythms. Verse with rhythm, whether formal or free.
• Mezzo Cammin. Women formalists.
• Poemeleon. Respectable, but not too boring.
• The Shit Creek Review. Cheeky little zine with a great name. Fun graphics, too.
• Snakeskin. Accessible, smart, occasionally bawdy, always a fun read.
• Soundzine. The spoken word.
• Umbrella. Good poems, attractively presented.
• Unsplendid. New New Formalism?
• Verse Daily. One new poem every day.
• Worm. Distributed by email, easy to print, blind selection.
• The Poem Tree, The Hypertexts and Lilt are not zines in the usual sense, but evolving online anthologies.

Here are some poems you can read online: some old, some new. Go ahead and pick one or two at random. They're all good.

In the desert Arrest Souvenir Counting Out Rhyme The Force that Through the Green Fuse... Arrowhead Hunting Ephesus The Relics For All the Saints Prayer Western Wind The Viking Terror Richard Corey Epic A Refusal to Mourn the Death... At Wounded Knee Advice to Young Ladies I, Being Born a Woman... Anna Karenina (Or Like, Most of It) Meditation on a Bone The Fight Alone With Everybody Down Attention Nothing Is Far Courage equals fever Bavarian Gentians The Mandarin Orange Tree The Man Who Wouldn't Plant Willow Trees A Lemon You and Me and P. B. Shelley A Disappointment To Us All Normalization Ceasefire Sea Fevers A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford Root Cellar My Papa's Waltz The Meadow Mouse Dolor The Two-Headed Calf The Cat with its Blue Collar Angel Shark Crays Pigs Snake To a Dying Rat An Ancient Dog Grave... Explaining an Affinity for Bats Bat They Feed They Lion The Tyger Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience Lady Pu-abi The Forsaken Merman Not in a silver casket... Night is my sister... The Fish The Fish, the Man, and the Spirit The Lorelei The Abortion My Baby Fell Apart Empty Confessional Still Life with an Addict Factory Sacrifice Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio The Shipfitter's Wife Meat Packing The Man with the Hoe Waiting for the Watch The Famine Year Moscow Zoo Gone Living Lochinvar In a Nearby City (Pockets on Coffee) In the Well Résumé Bric-a-Brac The Deep End Mortal Stakes Glass Machines We Tend to Sleep Better... My Land Lusus Naturae Sparrow Sonnet Candle Hat Workshop Wind Bells Foghorn Dover Beach The Consuming Angel The Art of Insultery Reply to Your Impertinent Request Fist Caricature of Lord Hervey An Essay on Criticism Men and Their Boring Arguments His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell This Be the Verse The Explosion Two Boys Surprised by Joy And Then There Is That Incredible Moment... Why Publish? Practice Beauty in Trouble Bittersweet Song Pied Beauty God's Grandeur God's World Spring Sonnet Number 13 Somewhere in Africa Behaving Like a Jew The Mower Dirge Without Music Evening Benediction Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art After the Sun Rose The Harleys From Sunset to Star Rise Beneath Thy Cross Christmas on Rhodes I dream of you to wake... She was too kind... Cynthia on Horseback All in green went my love riding... In a Desert Place Being that Exquisite Weaving Pretty Barcelona Stories of Snow Hufsa The Snow Man Those Winter Sundays Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Acquainted With the Night With how sad steps, O moon... Since there's no help... More than most fair... Sweet warrior... French Braids Late in the forest... I Love You Sweatheart My mistress' eyes... A Taste of Ginger Not in a silver casket... Nina's Reply A Refusal to Sign the Zoning Petition A Rainy Morning The Blind Always Come as Such a Surprise Dulce Et Decorum Est Musée des Beaux Arts Ode to the Maggot Batter my heart, three person'd God... Archaic Torso of Apollo The Love that Dares to Speak its Name The Sailor's Hymn A Ballade of Suicide

Some good books

• Hapax
• pseudophakia
• Unholy Sonnets
• Folly
• Diary of a Cell
• The Optimist
• The Laws of Falling Bodies
• Body Grief
• Where Horizons Go
• Here from Away
• Words to Say