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yet another poetry resource page, for readers and writers
Most recently updated: Thu May 22 12:00:02 UTC 2025
Caution: there is such a thing as bad poetry.
Everything here is on this one page, so you can use your browser's "search on this page" capability to find what you saw once and need again, quickly.
But first, some vital statistics.
For Thursday -- on May 22:
in 1885, French poet Victor Hugo died;
in 1948, U.S. poet Claude McKay died;
in 1959, British poet Morrissey was born;
in 1967, U.S. poet Langston Hughes died; and
in 2000, U.S. poet Bennie Lee Sinclair died.
For Friday -- on May 23:
in 1799, English poet Thomas Hood was born;
in 1947, U.S. poet Jane Kenyon was born; and
in 1968, U.S. poet Henry Dumas died.
There's much to explore here. But don't neglect the (obviously very incomplete) list of individual poets down there.
"a one-of-a-kind poetry brawl"
"WARNING! We're mean. We're nasty. We're merciless. We're cruel. We're vile. We're heartless. We'll slash your soul to ribbons. We're an evil clique conspiring to annihilate your self-esteem. Ready?"
This site is quite well-organized. Once you've registered and read the posting guidelines and such, you start out in the "Newbie Stretching Room". As you refine your skills, you continue to "General Poetry", "C&C", "High Critique", and "Merciless and Possibly Painful Critique". (There are specialized forums along the way, for humor and erotica and such.)
But if you wish to feast on the criticism goodness, you're also expected to cook and wash dishes. You're expected to critique three poems for each poem you post for criticism. Not only does this motivation ensure that every submitted poem will get critiqued; it also builds your skills as a poet.
In addition, there's a wealth of material about poetry here that you should get under your belt. An evening or two devoted to absorbing this material would be time well spent. I have only two objections to it. First, much of it is in the form of the whining of newbies followed by the all-wise answers, tailored to bring the newbie down to earth or better. It takes time to wade through this. Second, some of the material is outdated. The prime examples of this are (a) link rot, and (b) their discussion of the poetry.com (not poetry.org) website. As of when I last looked at
Thu Dec 24 11:17:02 PST 2015
they claim that poetry.com is a scam site, where you post your work and you're automatically a semifinalist, and your poem will appear in a book, and you get to buy the (outrageously priced) book. This was apparently once true, but the folks at about.com claim that a new company bought the domain name in 2009, and it's no longer a scam site. More info is at wikipedia. I'm not sure how much it's improved; see my comments about poetry.com below. Bottom line: although the info at Free-For-All seems outdated, their advice to avoid poetry.com still seems wise.
This one is decidedly not a brawl. If you want high energy, go to Free-For-All. If you want serenity, go to Forage. Both offer thoughtful peer review of your poems. For poets in the United States, you might enjoy, at least as a change of pace, the -- how do I word this? genteel? -- ambiance of Forage, where the people are as likely as not to come from the UK, Canada, Australia, and other places where they spell "color" differently from the way I do.
These sites are serviceable enough, but do not have the helpful structure and wealth of information of Free-For_All or Forage. After a brief, careless examination, it seems to me that eratosphere is the marginally more useful of these two.
Bottom line: don't go to poetry.com. I went there so you don't have to.
They've polished the site significantly in the last few years, but it's still quite avoidable. You're encouraged to submit a poem and have a chance to win cash prizes. For your edification, they show you how many days, hours, and minutes are left until the contest closes. And you can (for "as low as" $10) promote your poem to the front page. No. Just no.
Suppose you wanted to widen your reading of poetry. Suppose you wanted gobs of poets, all in one place, on one dart board, where you could just throw a dart and start reading. Bunches and bunches of poets, all right there at the tip of your dart. Here they are. Throw that dart and start reading. Obviously, some of them are better than others. Make up your own mind about what appeals to you.
If you're interested in a poet not listed here, you could do worse than to try poemhunter.com. Indeed, most of the links below go either there or to poetryfoundation.org.
You really, really don't want to read this.
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton Meets Snoopy
by William J. Evans
Dark and stormy night.
Suddenly a shot rang out.
This is a haiku.