Blog Poetry Report

Posted on June 12, 2003 in Poems Pointers

Wordsmiths have blossomed online lately and I’d like to point out a few places where people have been risking their blogging reputations to express themselves in verse:

• Peggy realized that her conversation with a 20 questions bot came out like poetry.
  
• Fred from Floyd composed a Prayer for the Mountains UPDATE: I uckfayed up. Fred didn’t write that poem, but he wrote this one.
  
• Francis Strand put up a piece by his brother
  
• Tanya obsessed about her body
  
• Doug the Mute Troubadour posted Burlap and Indigo
  
• Tamara wrote a steamy piece of erotica. (Don’t click so hard! It’ll come up! It’ll come up!)
  
• I thought this bit by Billy almost qualified as a poem — needs a little work
  
• Sneakeasy composed an ode to a Coke Machine
  
• Richard, who is guest-blogging at The Gutless Pacifist wrote a neat little e.e.cummingesque piece, richly rooted in sarcasm
  
• Post Modern Pilgrim sighed about the lack of fire in Pentecost
  
• And I have been alienating annoying enthralling my readership with a few choice pieces that pour forth as I try to complete writing exercises and fill notebooks.

Poetic justice might be an apt name for the video that Fat Ass Politics captured off Comedy Central: Governor George W. Bush debates President George W. Bush about Iraq.

In other countries of the world, newspapers habitually print poems by readers. Here in the USA poets have circles drawn around them and are shunned. Because of our reputation for navel-gazing, many bloggers refrain from publishing their odes online and many many more don’t dare try at all.

I hope more folks will stick their necks out. For a good book that might launch you into bolder expression, try Poemcrazy : Freeing Your Life With Words by Susan Wooldridge.

OK, now for a big question:

Is there anyone out there who would like to help me scour the bloguniverse for poets and poems to put in a blog? Or does such a blog already exist?