Poetry is a form of communication--communication between the poet and the reader. But can poetry also be a form of instruction? Possibly. For this week's poetry prompt, I want you to write a poem with the title of "How to (blank)" where you use the title as the springboard for your poem.

You can insert whatever you wish into that blank and then go in any direction with the actual poem. That is, you don't have to write out the recipe for a poem called "How to make mama's lasagna"--instead, you could talk about mama, or lasagna, or something completely different. As with all the Wednesday prompts, feel free to have fun with it and get creative.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"How to be a good parent"

I spell out the names of my sons
and place them in a hat. I wear
the hat at all times hoping I
will never need to reach inside.

Our Poetic Asides inaugural Poet Laureate, Sara Diane Doyle, has been busy-busy-busy this summer working with teen writers. But not too busy to share with her fellow Poetic Asides crew a new poetic form she developed with one of her students, David Edwards. Since Sara knows the form best, I'll let her explain the form to you in her own words.

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A few months ago I began exploring various poetic forms. With each form I tried, I would post my attempt on a forum for teen writers, where I am a mentor. One of the teens, David Edwards, got interested in forms, especially the “created” forms. He asked if anyone could invent a form and I said “sure!” Then, he got the crazy idea that we should create a form together.

To start, we wanted to throw in every poetic element that we really liked. David came up with the meter and feet and I added in the repeating line. We came up with the rhyme scheme and length together. The result is a form we call the Roundabout. In this form, the rhyme scheme comes full circle while offering repetition of one line in each rhyme set. 

The Roundabout is a four stanza poem, with each stanza consisting of 5 lines. The poem is written in iambic and the lines have 4 feet, 3 feet, 2 feet, 2 feet and 3 feet respectively. The rhyme scheme is abccb/bcddc/cdaad/dabba. Roundabouts can be on any subject. 

Several of the writers on our forum have written Roundabouts and have had a blast." We would love for other poets to give it a try! Here are some examples to get you started.

Crash

by David Edwards

Around around the carousel

across the circles face

we cry we shout

we crash about

across the circles face

and ever always breakneck pace

by this unending route

and twists and turns

and breaks and burns

by this unending route

of ever always in and out

the yearling quickly learns

to run and yell

at ocean’s swell

the yearling quickly learns

to run and leap and then he earns

but he will never tell

there’s not a chase

that wins the race

but he will never tell.

When Spring Trips ‘Round

by Sara Diane Doyle

When wildflowers bloom once more

and raindrops touch the earth,

the faeries come

to start the hum

and raindrops touch the earth!

Come join the song, the dance the mirth!

Enjoy the juicy plum.

beneath the sun

'til day is done-

enjoy the juicy plum!

The clouds let out the beating drum-

rejoice with us as one.

Our joy we pour

for pain we bore-

rejoice with us as one.

Of gleeful hope, the snow knows none,

but speaks of faeries lore,

of magic birth,

the greatest worth

but speaks of faeries lore.

I turned 30 years old today. If anyone wants a fun Friday prompt, they can write a poem about the number 30 or about birthdays. I'd write one, but I'm overly stuffed from an excellent birthday lunch at this Mexican place over here with my co-workers. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Kay Ryan will succeed Charles Simic as the 16th Poet Laureate of the United States. She was selected by James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress, with advice offered by poets, critics and academics around the country.

Here's the piece from the NY Times: "Kay Ryan, Outsider With Sly Style, Named Poet Laureate," by Patricia Cohen.

In the piece, Ryan says of writing poetry: "I wanted to do it, but I didn't want to expose myself."

Also, here's the official release from the Library of Congress: Librarian of Congress Appoints Kay Ryan Poet Laureate.

Ryan becomes the first woman Poet Laureate since Louise Gluck held the post 2003-2004.

After copying some of my writing into my super sophisticated composition notebook at lunch, I discovered that the 2009 Poet's Market is back from the printer, which means that soon (very, very soon) this directory will be getting to both print and online bookstores. Yes, another edition of Poet's Market is on its way out to the public.

As usual, there are a lot of great poetry listings for magazines & journals, book & chapbook publishers, contests & awards, grants and more. There's also a lot of great interviews and profiles and how-to's and, yes, more.

More. More. More.

Anyway, cool stuff.

One of the things I value about this blog is the community that's built up around it. As a result, my posts are often just a springboard to more helpful information and poetic discussion. So, when it seems appropriate, I'm going to collect comments that readers have made to posts that could benefit the whole group.

Enjoy!

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From Laughing with or at?: The simple joy of parody poems

So the rest of you won't have to work as hard as I did to find the poem We Real White, try the URL below.It goes directly to the poem rather than to the poet list. The poet was Matthais Peterson Brandt.

http://japicx.com/coereview/backissues/cr_35.pdf#Page=30

Now, this would be a great pre-Wednesday prompt, giving us time to figure out how to do one of these ourselves. Maybe you could do a two-for-one Wednesday if you had another idea in mind

I had always considered a parody as making fun of something, but this is simply writing a poem using the original as a template. Thanks for the idea, your poem, and the reference to the We Real White poem. It is fun.

Sheryl Kay Oder |SkoderAT NOSPAMaol dot com

(P.S. I found another great parody poem this weekend from a back issue of Rattle called “T.S. Eliot’s Lost Hip Hop Poem,” by Jeremy Richards.)

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From Poetry FAQs: Making Your Mark

I would add, keep the poems you write organized and accessible in some way.

Like you, Robert, I wrote poetry for years before really attempting to publish it. Alas, I was not organized about it, wrote it into various notebooks, etc.

Finally, I wrote one I wanted to keep, so being a person involved with more than one computer, I looked around for a way to make them accessible to all of them and ended up putting them up first in yahoo briefcase and later in google documents.

With google documents, I can go back and see (and retrieve, if I need to) prior revisions. I can go back easily and revise old poems. They are handy to submit.

Having my poems organized and accessible was a real turning point for me. I think it was about a year or two after I started keeping track of them that I was reading an ezine and noticed that I had a poem that fit into the parameters for their current contest. It was a finalist, and this finally got me off my ass, joined a critique group, started reading and writing more poetry, submitting, etc.

Margaret |infoAT NOSPAMmargaretfieland dot com

Start your own critique group. That's what I did and we've been going about a month now. I emailed a few people from the challenge asking if they would be interested. We got the guidelines from Alessa Leming's critique group. Unfortunately, I don't have the website information handy. Alessa, if you're out there, please help this person!!!

Basically, for a small group, one person submits material each week on Sunday, the others send helpful comments by Wednesday, the person revises and sends to others by Sunday. A new week begins, a new person submits material, and it starts all over again. I had never been in a critique group before, let alone online, but I can tell you it is really worth it. Post a notice in the forum for people who are interested and give it a try.

Good luck.

Linda H. |LNSHOFKEAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com

To riff on Margaret's excellent comments re: organization:

I always write by hand - but then I key all work in and edit on my Mac. I have a folder on my desktop: Amy Writings.

Within that, there are folders: Prose, Poetry, The Book (don't get me started on that behemoth).

Within Poetry, there are some folders:

Poems

How to Get Stuff Published

Submissions

Rejections - Building Blocks

Sites to Avoid

Good Sites

You can easily copy a file into a folder and move it around. I always retitle when submitting, for ex: "A Cup Of Coffee," Pedestal 6-08

Can't you tell I used to be an admin. asst.? ha ha good night and good luck, Peace,

Amy Barlow Liberatore |poetmomskasAT NOSPAMrochester dot rr dot com

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From Self-publishing and slamming: an interview with poet Bill Abbott

I'm sure there's a slam in Buffalo. Try the slam finder at:

http://www.poetryslam.com/index.php?option=com_sobi2&Itemid=75

The founder of slam, Marc Smith, named it that as a connection to baseball, where a grand slam is a huge success.

Good luck with the 60-day challenge.

Bill Abbott |slamguyAT NOSPAMwoh dot rr dot com

It's been a while since I've covered a new poetic form, so what better form to cover than a humorous one: the parody poem.

A parody poem is one that pokes fun at another poem or poet. For instance, I recently read a parody of "We Real Cool," by Gwendolyn Brooks, in an online version of Coe Review called "We Real White" that cracked me up. I even showed former Poetic Asides co-blogger Nancy Breen, but now it's apparently disappeared in the ethernet.

Soooo... I'm going to provide my own example that is not nearly as funny as the "We Real Cool"-"We Real White" parody. Instead, I'm going to parody one of my all-time favorite poems by Walt Whitman--"Song of Myself."

Here goes:

"My Song"

I congratulate myself and talk to myself;
I make a bunch of assumptions and descriptions;
what I talk about you listen to me talk about;
I talk about myself a lot;
but that's okay;
and boring.

The original version was much longer,
but nobody read it,
because it was longer,
because it had too many long descriptions,
because I have an affinity for exclammation points!!!!!!!!!!!!

So let's cut to the chase,
and get this over with,
and celebrate me,
and celebrate you,
and whoopity-doo!

So here's the short version,
and you better read it.

Earlier this month I learned that a poem of mine was accepted for the next issue of Barn Owl Review. I was thrilled, because I'd kind of hit a "no submitting" slump for a while. This morning I found out another of my poems has been accepted by this Australian online and print journal called Otoliths, which I'd appeared in previously a while back.

Here's the link to the most recent one, which will be "released" online around the beginning of August: "Why I never mention the traffic report"

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In case you're interested, here's a link to the previous one as well: "like apple cider spiked with spirits"

Totally unrelated, but my oldest son is today 1 year older: That's right, he's 7 years old today. Go Benjamin!

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Okay, I've known John Korn for a few years now through online social networks--we first met on MySpace. I've always enjoyed his words and his sincerity as a person. So when he mentioned he was coming out with his first collection Television Farm (A Menendez Publication), I wanted to use it as an excuse to pick his brain about poetry--from the perspective of an up and comer.

Here's a John Korn poem I was lucky enough to publish in my (now defunct) online journal Faulty Mindbomb: http://faultymindbomb.blogspot.com/2007/01/fmb0002.html 

What are you currently up to?

I have an interesting job. It is required of me to communicate with people who suffer from mental illnesses and encourage them to accomplish goals. I’m not saying I’m good at my job but I think a lot of the energy I once put into poetry is now being used here. As far as writing goes I am very interested in writing stories eventually. I’m also interested in digital filmmaking on a very low (maybe appropriately no) budget level. I have an idea for a series of poems taking place in a small city which I‘d like to be a small book.

How did this collection come about?

There are many moments which have lead to having this book being published. In short, when I began writing and posting my poems a woman named Didi Menendez began contacting me. She published me in her online magazine MiPOesias. After some time she began to do print issues as well as books. She eventually asked me to put a book together. She was very patient in that she let me take my time putting it in order. Didi is very active and creative with her magazine. There are also many interesting pod casts on her site.  Didi is also a great poet and recently has been churning out paintings like a machine.

Who (or what) do you consider to be the biggest influence on your writing?

There are a number of things and people that influence/influenced me. I will just mention a few poets. Ron Androla was a big influence. I was writing mostly stories before, or trying to. I never really cared much for poetry. I had liked Bukowski as a teen and Edgar Allen Poe before that, but I never was captivated by poetry enough to want to write it. I had read others, but even still I didn’t really care or never found anything that really hooked me. Not that I didn’t enjoy poetry or appreciate it. I just didn’t crave it or want to write it. Ron had such a unique voice that was very new to me and seemed (and is) timeless. The range of emotion, thoughts, and imagination that was being expressed really moved me. He would paint a slice of ordinary life with a simplicity that I found beautiful, and then paint a very surreal manic landscape that was severe and dark.  I found his voice to be intelligent, compassionate, and sometimes murderous. I loved it. Also his language was unlike anything I had read. It was addictive. I couldn’t read just one poem, I would read a series of his. There seemed to be a lot of experimentation in his poems, or that he had gone through much experimentation to get to the voice he had. I began to imitate that voice, I think. Eventually maybe I tried to come up with my own. Around the same time I began listening to early Bob Dylan. It was very exciting to have those two voices echoing down the hallways of my mind.

Also, I began reading a young lady’s blog.  She wrote many poems there. She’s one of the people I dedicated the book to. Like many poets, much of her words seemed to be scathing reviews of people and their behavior. I guess you can call them “put down” poems which I see a lot of. Though there was something different about hers. She seemed to be compassionate about her subjects. She wasn’t ridiculing people seemingly to make herself seem like the “wise” poet, or to write them off to stroke her own ego. Which is very tempting to do in poetry. It was more like she was trying to reach the people she was talking to in the poem to have them come to their senses. She often seemed to be asking her subjects to offer her the same in return. She was very graphic and creative with imagery with a dark tone which I love. I began to write her and eventually talk to her on the phone. I was not surprised when she told me that many of her poems were spawned from things she wanted to say to various people that were her friends. She also didn’t seem to be concerned about being published. What drove her to write seemed to be the need to express something she could not bring herself to do in a social situation.  She didn’t sound like any of the other poets I was skimming through with the same types of blogs. She didn’t seem too concerned about impressing  any group although she accepted praise and asked for criticism. There’s a kind of faith there. Faith in what she was doing.

As with Ron, she had an interesting language. Two very different poets but the approach and attitude seemed similar. She was experimenting. Technically she would mold her poems with different styles that I found impressive considering that when I was the same age I could not do what she was doing.  With both poets mentioned there was not just style but strong content.  I guess many poets probably approach their work in this way. It can simply be that some poets moved me where others did not. These two did. Albert Huffstickler and Stephen Dobyns are two others that really grabbed me. For basically the same reasons. Currently I’ve finally read some Walt Whitman and got the same spark. These are the kind of writers that would motivate and influence me to write to the point where I was ecstatic about it.

Do you spend a lot of time on revision?

Oh yes. Although I tend to shape the poems in appearance to not have a specific shape. If I had a typewriter or wrote my poems out longhand with a pen, it would really show how much I rearrange, cut out, and put in. There would be piles of crinkled paper. I tend to write long poems, but if I didn’t revise they would be three times as long.  I wrote mostly on a computer which makes it easier to do this, because often I would change the poem before I brought it to a close.  Going back to it later, sometimes months or a year, I will change things, even if only a word or two. When I had a blog, I often put up things rather quickly. It did not bother me