I've been posting prompts on my Twitter all month long to help folks celebrate NPM 2014. This is a list of all of the prompts from 4/1/14 - 4/21/14...296 prompts so far! If you can't get a poem out of 296 random ideas/puns/observations/witticisms, then you're the problem.

#poetryprompt We're gonna’ need a bigger float
#poetryprompt Where all of the ( Read more... )

After the polemic I posted the other day about paying poets I have received requests for a follow-up in some areas, specifically what costs a poet might accrue to fulfill feature requests. In the interest of retaining your interest I will keep this particular follow-up short by comparison. National Poetry Month is coming, and we all have poems to ( Read more... )

National Poetry Month is coming and poetry requests are in the air…or rather, free poetry requests are in the air. While I have written elsewhere on the mind-boggling and pioneering concept of paying for the performances and work of poets like any other artist, it remains a necessary observation to make now and then.

1 ( Read more... )

Among other things, I was raised on a heavy musical regimen of Art of Noise, Electric Light Orchestra and Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa’s electronic work (most notably his 12-minute long sound bite-pastiche “Porn Wars” and the entire Jazz from Hell album) was a staple in my cassette player from even an age Zappa would have frowned at. When I stole the ( Read more... )

During a particularly slow week, I may only get asked once, "What poets should I read?"

Many people who are asked this question often struggle with the answer, not because they can't think of poets to recommend, but because there are too many poets to recommend in passing conversation. This is true for me as well, and by itself, not worth mentioning ( Read more... )

(This is the start of a series of essays I'm writing to answer questions I get a lot and want to be able to refer people to regularly. They are not meant to be exhaustive or absolute. They are starting points for further discussion or to avoid me having to write the same things over and over in other places. - sew)I've been on a "cut your poem" ( Read more... )

I recently composed a very long treatise on Slam and where I thought it should go. I posted it online for public consumption and comment in December of 2011 (“Poetry Slam: The Next Level”). The last part of that document contained a section entitled “Death by Slam: The Competition and how it will kill NPS & Slam”. As notorious as it sounds, this ( Read more... )

I’ve had a really great front row seat to Slam in the last eleven years.
This is what I think should happen over the next eleven.

http://writersblockpoetry.rewritingovid.net/slamnext.pdf

THIS is how you deconstruct slammers and slam poems ( Read more... )

I wrote this to someone who asked me to help them with their poetry. I'm thinking I'll just have business cards with the web address of this entry made up and just hand them to anyone who asks for the same. If I'd had a thousand of these made up in the last year, I'd be out by now.

===================

Dear Y,

Sorry for taking so long to respond. ( Read more... )