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Welcome to But Does it Rhyme?
We're a small, but hopefully growing, band of poets who like to talk about our craft and share what we've written. We'll highlight favorite poets, review new books, and explore the process of writing poetry from inspiration to conclusion. (We might venture into essays and short fiction, too.) We hope you'll like our blog — and contribute your own thought and poems.

Sally Zakariya, Poetry Editor
Richer Resources Publications

Charan Sue Wollard (LivermoreLit)
Kevin Taylor (Poet-ch'i)
Sherry Weaver Smith
(SherrysKnowledgeQuest)

books
Richer Resources Publications


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What's in Your Pocket?

April 24, mark the date. Sure, the whole month is National Poetry Month. But the 24th is special. It’s Poem in Your Pocket Day, the one day of the year when it’s not just okay but A Very Good Thing to distribute poems freely around your school, your office, your community, anywhere. I’m planning to design postcard-size handouts of a few of my short poems, like the one here.

       
   

About to be gone
the bird lights on the wire

a slight disturbance in the air
around his trembling wings
signals impending flight

creates a silent space
that will be emptied

For info and ideas, go to the source, Academy of American Poets.

 
   

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Congratulations Are Due … Again

Hats off to poet Eric Forsberg for winning the 2014 Edgar Allen Poe Prize, sponsored by the Poetry Society of Virginia—a noteworthy event under any circumstances but especially so this year because Eric also won the prize in 2013. Eric, whose book Imagine Morning was published last year, won for a new poem, “Under the Influence of Internet.”  Nice work, Eric!

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Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?                       

The poem arrives in pieces, a line here, a word there. I write it quickly before it can escape, wake early and revise it, then revise again. It’s brilliant—surely my best work to date! Subtle! Smooth! Deceptively simple! And so on.

But let the poem rest a day or so and the brilliance fades. What I thought was clever is clumsy. What I thought creative is derivative. And so on. (This was the case with the poem about the fly posted earlier, about which enough said.)

Does this happen to you? What do you do when it does? Tear the poem up, keep revising it, or put it away with the hope that it will seem better a month from now? Tell us your story.

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No Guarantees

“… how can you ever be sure / that what you write is really / any good at all …”

That’s the question pacifist, environmentalist, Buddhist, and former poet laureate W. S. Merwin asks in “Berryman,” a poem about his early teacher John Berryman. The answer:

you can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write

Strong words, but it helps to know that other poets, even the greats, live with uncertainty about their craft. Read the whole poem on The Writer’s Almanac.

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In the Cards

Ideas for poems are everywhere, but sometimes I feel surrounded by an anti-poetry force field that’s keeping the ideas out. In a 2008 interview in The Paris Review, poet Kay Ryan tells of finding inspiration in a deck of tarot cards. She wasn’t interested in telling fortunes, but she liked the pictures:

… in the morning I’d turn one card over and whatever that card was I would write a poem about it. The card might be Love, or it might be Death. My game, or project, was to write as many poems as there were cards in the deck. But since I couldn’t control which cards came up, I’d write some over and over again and some I’d never see. That gave me range.

Ryan says the tarot helped her see she could write about anything. You can read the interview here.

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The Missing Couplet

It’s exciting to have a piece accepted for publication, so I was delighted when Boston Literary Magazine published my poem “What I Know about Chemistry” in its Winter 2013-14 issue. But alas, the final couplet didn’t make it into print. Not their fault! Turns out it didn’t make it into my submission either. So, to correct the little chemical spill, here‘s the whole poem:

What I Know about Chemistry
Sally Zakariya

Grandfather was a chemist but the science
gene died with him in the Maine woods.

Hiker, archer, fisherman, consummate
outdoorsman, but still always a chemist

pursuing the central science. I see
him white coated with his test tubes

exploring the essential secrets
of the universe, matter’s mysteries

how atoms meet and dance and bond
in shapely mathematical precision.

I can’t fathom such formidable beauty
can’t grasp the fundamental knowledge

he held so easily. Did he see molecules
in dreams, devise arcane reactions as he

walked from home to lab, from lab to home?
Samuel Stockton Voorhees—I look in vain

for some suggestion of his sibilant name
in the periodic table. But never mind.

When he was young, I’m told, he saved a man
from drowning in the Johnstown Flood

no doubt analyzing the murky mixture
of flood water and debris as he dove in.

Lesson learned: when you cut and paste, double check!

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Kudos for Haiku Book

Land Shapes     

In the well-earned praise department, Sherry Weaver Smith's Land Shapes: Selected Haiku Poems has won an honorable mention in the prestigious R.H. Blyth Award for books of haiku in English. The award is presented annually by the World Haiku Club, based in Oxford, England, and was judged by esteemed Japanese poet and artist Susumu Takiguchi. Smith's haiku poems "are like the first scene of a drama, development of a story or change in the narrative," says the World Haiku Club's review of Land Shapes, "and how desperately we want to know the drama, story or narrative themselves!"

The review is online at World Haiku Review.

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How to Appreciate a Poem

“Read it out loud. When you read a poem aloud, something amazing happens. It becomes a part of your physiology. Your body becomes actually involved in understanding and responding to it. You have more of a visceral reaction.”—Poet Richard Blanco, The New York Times Magazine, January 12, 2014

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‘Among the countless hollowed slopes …’

Eric Forsbergh’s new book, Imagine Morning: Poems of Companionship and Solitude, shows the range of his work, from longer, philosophical and narrative pieces to this brief but measured and precise description of a moment in time:

Meditation On Appalachia

Among the countless hollowed slopes of Appalachia,
the many tail-ends of valleys wending out
from Knoxville, narrowing eventually
to paths that vanish into curtained leaves,
where, once inside, only dots of sunlight
are permitted to speck the forest floor,
or creep across the mounds of moss, as slow
and imperceptible as deer whose breath
is stilled upon the snapping of a branch,
the shiny beetle crawls unhurriedly
to find the pulpy log’s decay..
 

 
Imagine Morning   

You can read more poems from the book here.

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50 Birds for Each of Us

“On any given day,” according to author Thor Hanson in his book Feathers, “up to four hundred billion individual birds may be found flying, soaring, swimming, hopping, or otherwise flitting about the earth. That's more than fifty birds for every human being.”

What will you do with your 50 birds? Perhaps write a poem for each one.—S.Z.

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First Bad Poem of the Day

This exercise, suggested by a creative writing professor, assumes that (a) you will write at least one poem every day and (b) some or all of the poems you write that day will be bad. It’s the first bad one that matters, though, the first unformed idea, the first limping lines, the first ragged image. That’s the one you write down as soon as you wake up. When you’ve collected a notebook full of first bad poems, look back for the few gems that gleam out of the dross and see what you can make of them.

It’s a dismal undertaking but a good discipline. Try it, you’ll see. Here, just to make you feel better about your own first bad poems, is one of mine:

Things are true until they’re not
day after day the same until it’s not

The cleaver comes down
and sunders what’s past
from what’s to come

A sliver of now trembles
at the blow—S.Z.
 

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What’s A Poem For?

There’s no right answer—that is, any one of a hundred answers can be right. But I like what poet Sebastian Matthews said in an interview for Spartanburg Magazine. Unfortunately, the interview is no longer available online, but here’s Matthews’ answer to the double-barreled question, What must a poem do? How does it work on the reader?

It must have sufficient energy to allow the reader to move through it; ample music and imagery to get him to return to the page and read it aloud; and enough wisdom or insight to make her ponder it as she heads back out into the day. I want him to be ensnared by the poem so that he can't help but bring it with him to the next thing. Ideally, she would end up at a party of like-minded souls and read the poem to her friends, who will read poems to her in return. Or he'll post it on his blog, or type it out in an e-mail to a friend, or send it by post as a card or a letter. Or write out a few lines in her notebook, or use a line in a painting or a collage. Maybe he'll write a poem as a reply, which as Geoff Dyer once said, is the real critical response: a lineage of readers and writers communicating through this dialogue. 

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Eavesdropping

A snatch of conversation … a message scrawled on a rest room wall … found words can be good poem starters. Examples:

• Reclaim yourself.
• The world is so broken, so broken.
• Sometimes the best husband is an ex-husband.
• I used to know where wild strawberries grow.
• Art won’t hurt you.
• Life is a war against chaos.ove to see them.

Overhearing stuff like this is why it’s good to keep a little notebook handy.—S.Z.,

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Six Legs

Spoiler alert: If you’re squeamish about bugs, you might want to skip this item. But if you’ve ever been curious about busy bees, flighty butterflies, or even industrious ants, Sally Zakariya’s new book Insectomania might be just what you’re looking for. Her wry yet sensitive poems are enhanced with notable quotes and illustrations, most of them 19th-century naturalists’ engravings. Who wouldn’t want to find such a book in a Christmas stocking? Just click on the cover image to read more about Insectomania and see sample pages.

  Insectomania   

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Advertisements for Yourself

Poets tend to be modest souls, so marketing your work can seem an onerous task. Not so with our fellow blogger Kevin Taylor, who’s come up with a really clever way to let people know who he is and what he does—and to make his marketing plan pay for itself.

Here’s how Kevin describes his scheme:

I tell almost everyone that I am a poet because I want them to think "poet" when they see or think of me. Or "Kevin" when they think of poetry. That takes a lot of promotion, and I got to thinking about getting the prospective audience member to pay for the promo. Here is what I came up with.

Step 1 was to get plain black and white business cards made up with “Kevin J. Taylor, Poet” on one side and contact info on the other, followed by a line that says "I can help," or "Readings—Coaching—Inquiries." Everyone gets that card. Everyone.

Next I chose about a dozen haiku (it could be anything) and made a small booklet at Staples with one haiku on each page. The cover is yellow card stock with my name on the front and the info from my business card on the back. Plus a price: $1. The inside front cover has a line or two promoting my books and where you can find them. I bind the booklet with a piece of red embroidery thread tied in the middle page and trimmed. I cut a tiny slit in the top and bottom of the center fold so that the thread is secure and won't slip off. The whole thing looks neat and tidy and is small enough to fit in a shirt pocket or a purse.

When I meet somebody, I say, “Hi!” and hand them a card. They look at it and see my name plus the word “poet.”

Next I pull a couple of booklets out of my pocket and say, "I am getting my name out there, and I made these little booklets with some haiku I wrote, like this one, "The hungry poet / greets each silence—Waiting / for his supper—Ha!.”

Then I close the booklet and hand it over, saying, "They're hand made for a dollar or whatever you can afford. The person is flabbergasted and hands me a dollar—really, it’s true. Then I give the person two booklets and say, "One for you and one for you to give to someone you think will like it."

When I follow this routine with people, they are happy. I am happy. I get paid for poetry, and the people who have my booklets will promote me to someone else with the second copy. Very cool. They will contribute to my success and have someone else to talk to about my poetry.

When I do a reading I also read from the little booklet briefly and tell them it’s a buck or whatever they'd like to pay, and then I give them two. I calculate my out-of-pocket expenses at about thirty cents for each booklet.

Believe me, if you do this, or something like it, people will love it and you will become their poet. They will never forget you.  

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At the Lumberyard

Waiting in the car while my husband ran in to ask a couple of questions, I jotted a few lines that later turned into this:

Dead Wood
By Sally Zakariya

In the parking lot behind the lumber yard
the buzz saw’s whining diva
sings its swooping song
cut wood bleeds sawdust
a sharp smell

 I list the living trees that rim the lot
tulip poplar . . . locust . . . beech
brash bamboo crowding in
its blade leaves shining green

Inside you talk about board feet
and rot resistance
and do you deliver
while somewhere trees are cut
down for us

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Op-Ed Poetry?

You read that right. When the Los Angeles Times asked for some of the above, the editors heard from 1,500 poets and would-be poets. Read the resulting “Rhyme and Reason” here. Washington Post, New York Times, are you listening?

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Conversation with a Poet

In response to our last post, Canadian poet Kevin Taylor writes that when he tells anyone he’s a poet—“which I do every day”—the conversation goes something like this:

Q. What are your poems about?
A: Life. From a spirit’s point of view.
Q: Do they rhyme?
A: About half and half. Something for everyone.
Q: I used to write poems when I was a teenager.
A: Great! I'd love to see them.

And then, Taylor says, people usually get interested, and the conversation continues. “What kind of poems do you write?” they ask. Kevin’s answer: “Well, what do you like?” And then he quotes one of his poems that he thinks matches their preference. (You can see some of Kevin’s poetry here.) 

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About our Name

Ever notice how the conversation stutters when you tell someone you’re a poet? Members of the Poetry Society of America report these common responses:

• What are your poems about?
• Do they rhyme?
• I used to write poems when I was a teenager

(Source: Job Jibber Jabber by Ben Schott, New York Times, August 4, 2013)

My own answers to these comments, in order:

• Love, death—you know, the usual.
• Mostly not—it’s really hard to rhyme well.
• Why did you stop?

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A Little Night Music

Alan Meyrowitz, a friend from the Northern Virginia Poetry Salon, sent us this poignant short poem that captures a life in a few lines.

Night Lilies
By Alan Meyrowitz

Shy by day, tightly furled,
heeding nightly call to bloom.

How much the same,
my love demure till waning light.
So joy is sown in garden’s bed
as well our own.

Yet passion’s not by season bound—
lilies will be gone by fall.

Alan Meyrowitz received his doctorate in computer science from George Washington University in 1980 and retired from the federal government in 2005 after a career in research. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including California Quarterly, Diverse Voices Quarterly, River Oak Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Forge, where “Night Lilies” was published in the Winter 2011-12 issue.

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Tiny Pages

What’s a micro-chapbook? At the Origami Poems Project, it’s a way to spread poetry free—yes, free—through palm-sized books printed on a single sheet of paper, then folded Origami-style into, well, micro-chapbooks.

Richer Resources poet Sherry Weaver Smith just published one called “Charing Cross,” which contains six poems. Find Sherry and her little book here.

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Your Byline Here

Seven is a nice, symbolic number—seven deadly sins, seventh heaven, seven wonders of the world. So, fingers crossed and trusting in the possible power of numerology, here are my seven steps to getting your poems published:

1. Submit, submit, submit. If you really want to get your poetry published, you have to work at it. My go-to source is the classified section of Poets & Writers Magazine. Sure, you can see the listings online, but why wouldn’t you pay for a subscription and help the cause along?

2. Submit with surgical precision. Look for a good fit. My first published poem appeared in CHEST Journal, a publication for thoracic surgeons. The poem arose from hallucinations I had while coming to after lung surgery—virtually made for CHEST.

3. But cast a wide net. This isn’t as contradictory as it sounds. Keep an eye on the blogs and email newsletters for unexpected opportunities, and consider revising/refocusing an existing poem to better fit a particular call for submissions. A poem I wrote about a typhoon in Hawai’I didn’t sound like a good fit for an anthology of poetry about Hurricane Sandy, but the subtitle said “and other natural disasters,” and the editors accepted my piece.

4. Keep careful track. Sure, you file submission emails, but it’s a pain to keep double-checking them to make sure you haven’t already sent these poems to that journal. One way to stay organized is an online submissions tracker. Check Writer's Database for one example.

5. Follow the guidelines. If you send poems to journals that accept simultaneous submissions, be scrupulous about withdrawing any that are accepted elsewhere. And don’t expect editors to bend their guidelines for you. If they say, “Send up to five poems,” don’t send six. That goes for line length, document format, thematic focus, and other requirements.

6. Be patient. The good folks who edit poetry journals usually have day jobs and are inundated with submissions, so don’t expect a quick response when you submit a poem. Submission guidelines often provide a rough estimate of response time.

7. Don’t take rejection personally. My first poetry teacher called rejection letters membership cards in the poets’ club. I kept my first one on my bulletin board as an incentive to keep trying.—S.Z.

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How Good is that Poem?

Before you submit your poem for publication, ask yourself how it would go down with other readers. It isn’t easy to be objective about your own work, but it’s a good habit to cultivate. At a recent meeting of the Northern Virginia Poetry Salon, we took a look at a list of questions the editors of the Beloit Poetry Journal ask about poems that are submitted:


1. Is the language fresh?
2. Will the poem stand up under a second reading, and a third?
3. Does it make music?
4. Does it resonate beyond its immediate context?
5. Does it pass the “so what” test?
6. Can it enkindle, prod, or enlarge us?

It’s hard enough to say “yes” to all those questions, but if you want an even more intimidating list, check out the Connecticut Poetry Society’s Poetry Critique Checklist at Connecticut Poetry Society. Click on Contests and keep scrolling … and scrolling … and you’ll come to some 28 questions on the subjects of theme, story, length, imagination, meter/rhyme/etc., music, and complexity/novelty. Any poem that can survive this scrutiny is, if not a masterpiece, at least darn good.—S.Z.

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Brooding about Brood II

If you live on the East Coast, you’ve no doubt heard about Brood II, or heard its many members. Some parts of the Washington, D.C., area are swarming with buzzing cicadas, just coming to the surface after 17 years. Love ’em or hate ’em, you just can’t ignore ’em, and Washington Post columnist John Kelley is paying attention. After a poignant column on June 3, Kelley challenged readers to send in cicada poems. Here’s one of ours that made the cut:

Cicada
By Sally Zakariya

What calendar is there beneath the soil
Its days crossed darkly off year after year?
What dreams of sun?
What longing for the other to complete it
Until by some mystery it wakes and struggles upward
Emerging at last, shedding the stiff brown nightshirt
Big eyed and bumbling, dazzled by light and air
New to wings and the freedom of flight
Its stuttering song a proof of life
after so long a silence.

Want more cicada poems? Check Kelley's June 5 column.—S.Z.

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And the Winner Is

Virginia poet Eric Forsbergh recently brought home a handful of prizes in the Poetry Society of Virginia’s annual competition—including second place in the haiku category. His winning entry:

Four Haiku on the Theme of Falling in Love
By Eric Forsbergh

“Banging two pans, you
chased a bear?” Such a woman!
I thought, unsettled.

The windy day whips
hair across your smile. Your hands
brush back this disguise.

“Natural woman,”
you said as we watched the stars.
Thank you, Aretha.
 
Like a tree with nails,
I’ve grown around my partly
hidden wounds. You too?

Eric’s a winner, too, in the category of Most Thoughtful Anniversary Present Ever. These four haiku are from the 25 he wrote for his wife on their 25th anniversary. Husbands, sharpen your pencils.—S.Z

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Two Beats of Silence

When I am done with being right // And you are done with being wronged
Perhaps then we can speak of something small and bright
That we can both agree upon

Let me tell you two short stories about this short poem.

I had an argument with my wife that descended into unpleasantries and upset. I slept poorly, and at work the next day I composed these few lines to try and fix it.
During the course of the day, I met a woman I did not know and I decided to ask her about the poem. I explained that I had written it recently but was considering another wording. I recited the poem and her face lit up. She said she knew people who needed that, and I knew then that I had the right words.

The next day I sent a copy to my mother, just because I do that, and a copy to my sister. My sister does not have a lot to say to me. We are not particularly close and we stopped talking much decades ago. She is employed in conflict resolution, and I sent her the poem with a note that it might amuse her. She responded with a brief thank you.

But three weeks later I got another letter from her saying the poem was so special to her, that whenever she read it, the stress of the day would just melt away. Since then, she has phoned me. The point being, don't underestimate the power of your aesthetics.

And of course, my wife and I are spending our time on something small and bright that we can both agree upon—our grandson!—K.T.

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Let the Poem Breathe

I don't often go to poetry readings, but I recently took part in an open mic at a bookstore not far from my house. Years ago I used to host a poetry night, and the one I just attended reminded me of something I had noticed way back when.

Many poets have a tendency to read their stuff at lightening speed. I’m sure they don't do that when they read to themselves, but they do in front of a crowd. Perhaps it’s nervousness. At any rate, it deprives people in the audience of the chance to create the poem in their own minds. I read at a snail's pace in comparison. The poem breathes. It lives. It actually thinks.

I am a poet, but it requires an audience to create poetry. And an audience of one or many needs time to create. Imagine watching a movie at double speed. Not good. My recent reading had the audience sitting with their jaws dropped. Whether they got the poetry or not, I knew I had their undivided attention. Anyway, I know they got something because they crowded the table to talk to me at break. So if you don't already, make the time and take the time. Your work will arrive better.—Kevin Taylor

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The Morning Rush

For a different look at speed, grab your coffee and read this poem:

Rush Hour
By Hajjar Amr


Eight o’clock in the morning and the sun is up
the morning rush has filled the streets
nose to nose vehicles so wildly colorful
the throes of glares—blares—weaving and streaming
I love all of it and get high grazing on
flocks and flocks of people rushing to unlock the day
the crisp collars—the sleek skirts—noses stuck in air
ah! a burst of laughter here
oh! you so grim now—grin now!
stop and go at the changing green—orange—red lights
the coffee stores on the side streets steaming with
aromas of hairspray—eau de cologne—shower gels
yet the coffee beans confidently over and above
brewing hot strong caffeine spouting delicious aroma of
the wake-up nectar of gods of all good things for the day
waking sleepless minds—tired bodies all in a rush

Hajjar Amr is a Virginia-based lecturer, spiritual leader, and published poet.

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Grow a Month of Poems

Happy National Poetry Month! Instead of April's flowers, why not grow a poem a day as spring takes hold? If this seems daunting, perhaps consider trying to write haiku, only three lines. While haiku classically had five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five echoing in the third, as writers in different languages have adapted the original Japanese form, poets have not necessarily followed this rule.

So take a spring walk, look for nature's inspiration, and pen some lines. Finding a poem can be as simple as watching your son or daughter, a moment that struck me:

early spring morning
running up the hill to see
the mountain beyond


You might even find that it’s habit forming.—Sherry Weaver Smith

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Read a Poem-a-Day

For even more poetry inspiration during National Poetry Month, sign up for publisher Alfred E. Knopf's Poem-a-Day. Just enter your email in the left sidebar at this link to make poetry a daily habit in April.

The publisher is even running a haiku contest, so if you do create a portfolio of haiku, pick up to five of your best. Then, send them to KnopfHaikuContest@gmail.com along with your email address by the end of April. Winners will receive Knopf's latest compilation of classic haiku poet Basho's work, Moon Woke Me Up Nine Times: Selected Haiku of Basho, translated by David Young. For details see this site. Check out the great artwork on the cover of this volume.—S.W.S.

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The Gift of Self

Sometimes an old friend surprises you with a new talent—or, more precisely, a talent  that has been kept hidden. That’s the case with my friend Ingrid, a California artist who, it turns out, has been writing poetry all along. Here’s one of hers that I like especially:

Scent
By Ingrid Weimann

Sometimes
the perfume of
our own flesh
is so sweet
too quickly
abandoned with
water and soap
we miss the
intoxicating
gift of the self
lasting briefly
but ever
so sweet


Ingrid Weimann, a native of Germany, is an artist, writer, and bird lover who lives in Los Angeles, California.

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Watch the Magic Happen

Somewhere in cyberland a ghostly poet is writing a poem as you watch. It’s called QuickMuse, and if you skip the outdated commentary and go straight to what the site calls the “Agon Archive,” you can choose a date, read the day’s prompt, and then watch the words appear. The poet’s challenge: write a poem in response to the prompt, and do it in 15 minutes. Watch in real time or speed it up—either way, you can almost see the poet’s fingers on the keys.—S.Z.

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Company of Poets

One of the best things about writing poetry is getting to know other people who do. The Northern Virginia Poetry Salon, a regional venture by members of the Poetry Society of Virginia, gives poets a chance to get together informally each month to read and critique each others’ work. We’re a diverse and lively bunch, and I think our work is strengthened by the feedback. Here’s a poem by one member that resonated with all of us:

Eleanorm>
By Eric Forsbergh

She could pull a hockey stop
before the age of nine,
an airborne girlish glitter off her blades
spraying ice at me.
Our winter snow was surely eight kids deep.
She gripped her stick, a four boy hand-me-down,
with certainty,
flicking at the puck.
What could I learn from Eleanor,
my torso loose, my face drawn out in fascination?
Someone very different: Girl – I thought –
out on miles of vacant ice edging town,
a chunk of Maine.
My feet splayed. My ankles bent.
I could have done as well in shackles,
not knowing how to skate.
I watched her jump the groaning cracks.
I thought the puck would skitter out of sight.

Yet in that school day rite of Spring,
when polio might sprinkle around
a share of shriveled limbs,
nurses stood starched upright,
with trays of syringes,
as realization jostled down the fourth grade line.
Stepping up to get the swab and jab, Eleanor passed out,
thunk echoing in the gym.
Hockey crumpled in me when she did.
Darting out of line, I leaned over her,
drawn, even today,
to a softness in the restless freckles
now adrift on her unconscious face,
to the shining corona of her long brown hair
fanned out upon the polished floor.

A native of Massachusetts, Eric Forsbergh wrote poetry in high school and college. After a 25 year hiatus, he resumed in 2010, and is currently an active member of the Poetry Society of Virginia. He lives in Reston, and is a Vietnam veteran.

Let us know what you think, and what you’re writing.—S.Z.

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Poetry Prompt

Write a poem about something you lost. Write a poem using these words: cheese, bird, navy.  Write a poem about a dream. Write a poem about yourself in which nothing is true. A negligible  example:

I lost my youth
I dreamed I found it
in my dream a navy blue bird
offered me blue cheese

None of this is true except the lost youth.—S.Z.

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What About Rhyme?

I’m not against rhyme. I just can’t do it well—can’t use it subtly enough to tickle the ear as an afterthought instead of smacking the poor reader with a sledge hammer. Sometimes rhyming poems sound like advertising jingles with forced rhymes. But some poets are masters of the deft line ending, the unexpected rhyme scheme:

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes
For a last look at that white house she knew
In sleep alone, and held no title to,
And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.

That’s  the opening stanza of Richard Wilbur’s “The House,” which appeared in The New Yorker on August 31, 2009. Wonderful, isn’t it? But then, it’s Wilbur.—S.Z.

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A Friend Writes …                

Thanks for your feedback—and your poems. Here’s one that paints a poignant picture in just a few brushstrokes:

Sunset
By Mary Clair Ervin Gildea

Sunset of pink, orange and lavender
Two ivory tapers flicker
Prosecco and Baez
Anticipation excites
Temperature plummets
Intentions discarded
Darkness prevails

Mary Clair Ervin Gildea grew up in the Mississippi Delta and graduated from Millsaps College.  Her poems have been published in Audience, Margin, and Poetically Speaking.  She enjoys participating in the Arlington (VA) Poets Group and discussing the poems read there.

If the spirit moves you, please send a poem and a few lines about yourself to  poetryeditor@richerresourcespublications.com.

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 Merwin Discovered

Where would we be without librarians? Thanks to librarians everywhere—and to one in particular for providing the source of the wonderful lines by W.S. Merwin quoted in a  previous post: “The Unwritten,” The New Yorker, February 20, 1971.

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An Ordinary Fly

“I keep writing about the ordinary,” the poet Philip Levine once told an interviewer, “because for me it’s the home of the extraordinary, the only home.”

Welcome to
But Does it Rhyme?, a blog for poets who look for the extraordinary in the ordinary world. And what could be more ordinary than a fly? Stopping at a sidewalk cafe after giving a poetry reading, I noticed a fly hovering over the sugar bowl. Here’s what I wrote:

To a Fly on the Sugar Bowl

Gently on the rim of this one
sugar bowl you alight
you among all the interchangeable
members of your species

Each grain of sugar a separate
sweet in the lustrous lenses
of your compound eye
a surfeit of goodness
and you eager to sup

Look back now and see
my hovering hand
ready to brush you aside
to banish your everyday buzz

What do I owe your fragile life
you, one among multitudes
you, twin winged
you, undistinguished
among Diptera
you, in no way individual
in your insectness

What after all does fate owe
to any one life

(copyright © 2012, Sally Zakariya)

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On the Virtue of Brevity

How long is too long? Is shorter better? Like most things about poetry, it depends. Some time ago, I was struck by these powerful but simple lines by former Poet Laureate W.S. Merwin:

“it could be that there’s only one word
and it’s all we need
it’s here in this pencil
every pencil in the world is like this.”

The end of a longer poem, these four lines could surely stand alone, a perfect summation of what it is to write a poem. Or, what it is to know there is a poem to be written.

The passage was quoted in “Rhyme and Reason,” an article by Lauren Wilcox that appeared in the Jan. 16, 2012, issue of The Washington Post Magazine. Wilcox didn’t say what poem the lines are from, and I couldn’t find it. Can anyone help?—S.Z.

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Poetry Prompts

·         What’s the most interesting thing on your desk? Write a rhyming quatrain about it, then try a longer poem in free verse.  

·         Open a book or magazine to any page and pick 10 words on that page at random. (If you close your eyes and point, you’re less likely to shape the outcome by choosing words you know will play well together.) Then use seven or so of these words in a poem. Try it with a group of poets. It’s amazing how different the resulting poems will be.

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What Are You Writing?

Why should we get all the bylines? Submit your latest poem—just one for now—and we’ll publish the poems we like best in an upcoming blog post. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know if the poem is accepted or published elsewhere. Send your poem, plus a few lines about yourself, in the body of an e-mail message to:

            poetryeditor@RicherResourcesPublications.com