Your host, Mary Boren, at your service. Off and on since 1995, I have sought out Internet poets who share my love of the craft, and have amassed volumes of rhyming poetry from various forums and websites that are now technologically obsolete. This list will grow as I revisit those… Continue reading
This enlightening article by Jason Kerr is published with permission. I’m personally a bit of an ogre when I eat. My wife teases me about the sounds I make, “Mmmawmnomgrmymaom….” I used to swear she was making it up, because I never heard it. The way most people never hear… Continue reading
This informative article by Don Baird, published poet and Martial Arts Instructor, is reposted with permission. Shiki Masaoka derived the name haiku and its technique from haikai/hokku which were originally the opening to a renga, a kind of poetic game played by many at a gathering or social get-together. Shiki… Continue reading
It was my honor to host a poetry group in various formats between 1996 and 2004 in which such deep bonds were forged that we referred to each other as cousins — family by choice. The family suffered entirely too many losses. These are websites I built over the years… Continue reading
Past masters of metrical perfection speak to modern-day aspirants of the art, and anyone else with ears to hear. Without exception, they urge us to write of what we know, in terms that can be understood, simply because we must. Excerpts from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (translated by FitzGerald)… Continue reading
Hailed far and wide as a true Renaissance woman, Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was to my mind most gifted as a poet. She used subtlety, self-deprecating humor, and clever irony to tell stories and paint images in her poems that teem with vibrant life. Read any work by Angelou and you… Continue reading
Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words. – Paul Engle Poetry is truth in it Sunday clothes. — Joseph Roux Engle’s quote uses the metaphor of a person—… Continue reading
Meter is not something that can be intellectualized; it must be felt. This column focuses on the most basic poetic foot, the iamb. (ta DUM) I wrote these thoughts in response to some questions that arose at a private workshop, and felt the subject might be of interest to poets… Continue reading
There was a little girlWho had a little curlRight in the middle of her forehead,When she was good,She was very good indeed,But when she was bad she was horrid. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The same could be said of rhyme, giving the genre’s critics a field day. Fair of face… Continue reading
On Giving … Opinions are like … um … noses. Everybody has one, and they all smell, although we are naturally more tolerant of our own. By the same token, we tend to be blind to the faults of our children. Poets are the most sensitive people on the… Continue reading
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Poets Collective is a noncommercial effort to encourage and promote poetry writing that can stand the test of time and reading that can assure its will to live. The site is family-friendly (up to PG-rated) and geared for enjoyment by readers from all walks of life.
