• No attention to meter or rhythm - Poetry can be rhyming or non-rhyming (free verse), but in either case it should follow a consistent pattern or beat. Amateur poets often set up a meter and then break it, or simply ignore meter altogether.
• Forced or bad rhymes - Rhyming poetry can be fantastic, but the rhyming words can be awkward or downright hilarious if the word choice is random. Some poets are so desperate to keep the previous line that they will use any rhyming word in the following line to keep it going.
• Clichés - One of the most wonderful aspects of poetry is the chance to hear objects, feelings and situations described in unique ways. Poems full of overused comparisons - “Her eyes were as blue as the sky,” “My heart beats like a drum,” “He ran like the wind,” and the like, are seen as unoriginal and lazy.
• Thinly disguised attempt to flatter or charm the subject of the poem - I have been guilty of this one in my teen years. Some poets write "to" the object of their affection, using the poem as a sort of persuasive letter set to rhyme. Unless the poet is exceptionally talented, this is usually a disaster in the poetic sense.
• Thinly disguised rant about life - Similar to the "I love you" poem, some poets use poetry as an outlet to gripe about their lives. Usually no one cares except the "poet."
• Cookie-cutter, “me-too,” unoriginal - These are usually found in Hallmark cards. The rhyme and meter is correct, the words are pleasant, but no new ground is broken. The reader won't remember the poem five minutes after it has been read. Poetry should be chocolate for the senses…Rich in the mind, pleasant to the mouth and a bit intoxicating!
• Overused, conventional themes - Some subjects have been "done to death" in poetry. Easily the most overused topic of all time is love, followed by exhausting descriptions of nature, weather, etc. The more original the topic of the poem, the less chance that it will tread on familiar ground or be underwhelming.
• Preachy propaganda set to rhyme - Writing poetry about the things that you believe in is a good idea. Using poetry as a blunt weapon to hammer your point home to the reader regardless of poetic integrity is not.
• Pedestrian language, no nuances - Vocabulary and a mastery of nuance is essential to good poetry. Poetry should be as precise as possible. Vague simple words like "good," bad,' "love," and "honesty" should be replaced with either exact descriptions of what you mean or more accurate words.
• Too common of description - This is a close cousin to the previous point. Poetry that is lazy uses the obvious descriptions - bark is rough, wind is cold, the waves pound the shore. Good poetry makes these descriptions come alive through great metaphor and odd yet evocative comparisons.

The Bottom Line: Now that you know what not to do, you have a starting point!

Poetry is quite a bit trickier to teach than storytelling, mainly because of the closer emotional bond that the poet has with his work. Many poets are under the belief that anything they write is "right" because it comes from their emotional center - thus, they resist any attempt at criticism or efforts to alter their work in any way. Because of this philosophy, bad poetry is allowed not only to exist but to flourish (I will define "bad poetry" in the first lesson). If a student wishes to improve their craft, it is essential to shed some ego and admit that there is in fact room for improvement.

As I proceed both in my real-life classroom and in my lessons online, I welcome questions, comments and suggestions. My curriculum is still being developed, so it is quite possible that I may overlook an important aspect of poetry. As with the Storytelling lessons, I will focus less on the technical aspects and more on the finer points of poetry.

This is a virtual library provided for public use by the New York State Library and is accessable for all residents of New York City. To use the system, you would have to enter a library card number from one of the library systems located in New York City or be a subscriber of institutions or schools that participate in the program. It has a wide collection of library research material and books made available to users virtually.

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century:

This website focuses on African American women who made literary and cultural contribution to the African American society during the 19^th century. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has a collection of about 52 different books or literary works that were published in a period where freed African Americans were being introduced into mainstream American literary world. Works include Phillis Wheatly (1773), Ann Plato (1841), Harriet Wilson (1859) and many others.

Literary Encyclopedia: Literature in English Around the World:

The Literary Encyclopedia is a vast database that is only available to subscribers unless your school or library is already a subscriber, then you need to get a access code. It has global literary reference work from over 2000 universities, countless amounts of authoritative authors and over ridiculous amount of books and resources written in English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek and every other country, genre or time period you can image. So yes, it is a great resource but you will have to pay $19.99 to use for a whole year.

Internet Public Library: Literary Criticism:

The Internet Public Library or IPL contains vast amounts of criticisms about the lives and works of various authors from multiple nationalities, titles and time periods. Now only does it show you western authors and literature, but it also offers criticisms on Eastern Literature such as Indian authors and books, African and Middle Eastern literary works.

Literary History:

Academic, scholarly, and critical articles on British poets, novelists, playwrights, essayists, and biographers of the twentieth century, nineteenth century, and eighteenth century; and on American poets, novelists, playwrights, and essayists of the twentieth century and nineteenth century. All articles are open access and free.

Literary Resources on the Net:

Maintained by a so-called Jack Lynch of Rutgers, this website offers a wide array of articles and journals as well as biblical, theory and British literature. The site is free for all to access and neatly breaks down all of its resources into categories you can easily navigate through.

Celebration of Women Writers:

This website offers only literary works written by women throughout history and includes all races, time periods and nationalities. The site includes books, poems, letters, religious commentaries, economic and scientific works for the only reason of celebrating women's success in the world of literature.

Glossary of Literary Criticism:

The site offers various terms from A-Z and how various authors defined, used or incorporated those terms into their literary work. The site also keeps a good bibliography of various quotes and sources so if you write the author into your research paper, you can cite the source easily.

Christian Classics:

Known as Christian Classics Ethereal Library or CCEL, the site keeps various literary works by Christian authors and or topics dealing with Christianity. The writings include Protestant denominations, Catholic and Orthodox churches and various other faith based community works or theological discourse about Christianity.

Glossary of Poetic Terms:

The site has thousands upon thousands of terminology and terms used in poems and many literary key words. The site is a nice guide on literary vocabulary and offers links to Poets, poems and their criticisms.

The Literature Network: Virginia Woolf:

Virginia Woolf is an English author from 1882 to 1941 and died by drowning herself in a local river. But during her lifetime, she wrote numerous works that still draw countless fans to celebrate her birthdays, life and works. The site offers over 2800 books, articles and journals written by Woolf or her fans.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman:

The site offers numerous works by Perkins before she died and commentary by scholars and students on her works. This is a good resource for anyone writing any articles on the Yellow Wallpaper or other curious works she had written.

Contemporary Literary Criticism/Contemporary Authors:

You can access Gale Databases through this link and it is a powerful resource used by libraries to go through periodicals, reference materials and primary sources. Most libraries, schools, universities and institutions have access to this database and you can get the login information from with no cost or extra fees.

LITFINDER:

Another resource like the gale database, it has vast resources and databases for literary works and their criticisms. The site also includes a citation generator for various formats like MLA. You would need to contact your institution

First of all you have to be very fimiliar with the very important things you need to create the poetry

Such as: A note book, pecils, pens, or what ever you prefer to use.  These things will only be used to write down your drafts, and also to keep your originals in a good place. (You want to keep your originals for your safe keeping and for future refrence.)

Also: If you prefer to use loose leaf you can arrange your poetry into folders and/or envelopes (Which you can add your own personal touch to)

Once you acknowledge that little piece of information you can start writing poems that can truely leave your readers satisfied.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF WRITING GOOD POETRY IS BEING ABLE TO SEE THE REACTIONS FROM YOUR READERS!!

You can try it for yourself and see if it works

Analysis

Emily Dickinson is a poetess to be remembered. The lonely woman from Massachusetts spent most of her life being depressed inside of her home while writing some of the most beautiful poetry about the many details of the world. She's most known and famous for having been cooped up all the time inside her house, but still having a fantastic, wise, and detailed look at the world. Her complete set of poems delves into life, nature, love, and time. In her poem, “#1129”, she brilliantly uses her simple two stanzas and easy rhyme scheme to juxtapose truth, light, and lightning to symbolize enlightenment in society, but not without her trademark dash.

A very famous story in the realm of philosophy is by Plato in his book The Republic. The story was called “The Allegory Of The Cave” and it refers to and simplifies the idea of enlightenment. In the story, a man is chained to the inside of a cave with a few other individuals in front of a weak glowing fire that occasionally creates little shadow puppets on the wall. The people inside of the cave have always been chained down there and know nothing of what is outside the cave. The people in the cave have just been sitting against a wall looking at another wall with a fire behind it and sometimes they see shadow puppets made with the fire on the ceiling. All the people are trapped in the cave until the man breaks his chains and climbs up the hill to the outside world. His eyes take a long time to adjust to the sun's rays and it's too much of a painful shock to know that there was an entire world out there after being trapped inside the cave for so long. Emily Dickinson was using this story in her poem “#1129”.

Emily Dickinson's first lines in “#1129” deals with sugar coating the enlightenment from coming out of cave so they can handle it better, “Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant/ Success in Circuit lies“ (1-2). A Utopian society requires an enlightened public and an enlightened public requires the truth, but the truth is hard to handle. Emily is asking us to try to understand the truth in the world, but we sort of need to sugar coat it so it isn't so much of a painful experience for those who cannot swallow the fact that we have been lied to about what the world is really like. Slanting does not mean changing the truth it just means making it easier to understand and grasp, that way we'd have more success in creating a Utopian society if we were trying for one.

After the person leaves the cave and starts to taste and understand all that the real world has to offer they understand that the world is a beautiful place and life is so much more precious and wonderful than it was in the gloomy cave. This is written in the next few lines, “too bright for our infirm Delight, the Truths' superb surprise” (3-4). Infirm is defined as weak in body, so “our infirm Delight” means the pointless shadow puppets on the wall do not mean anything compared to the truthful, real, and beautiful pleasures of life outside the cave. Enlightenment is really just how life is better when you have a greater understanding of the world.

After the person exits the cave in the story and gains a greater understanding of life and has a feeling that he's better off out there, he decides that everyone is better off being outside the cave. He then goes back and tries to tell people of how wonderful it is outside, but only one person believes him and tries to leave the cave. When the other person tries leave the cave it's too much for him and he goes back inside. “As Lighting to the Children eased/ With explanation kind” (5-6). The other person that leaves the cave is not a child, but may be uneasy like one. The truth can be ugly and disturbing to those that didn't discover it on their own similar to a lightning bolt in the night waking a sleeping child. You absolutely do not try to scare a child more when they're already afraid, a sane person would try to calm the kid down with kindness, but still remember that children can handle just as much as anyone else.

The proverb “Children are our future” means that the way we raise our children today determines how our society will end up tomorrow. If we continue on our current path of raising unenlightened kids without the ability to think critically we will continue to see absolutely no improvement in society whatsoever. Children have the incredible ability to grasp huge issues in today's society, but the reason we never tell them anything important about the world is because we believe ourselves superior and we don't think they can handle it. We can improve and fix our society by simply being slowly blunt with the younger generations today. Hence the line, “As Lightning to the Children eased” (5). Lightning is scary at first, children will be afraid of what the world is really like at first, but eventually they can grow accustomed to the problems of today and see that no more come up in the future.

The last two lines are a message from the beautiful mind of Emily Dickinson that she wants to see something better, “The Truth must dazzle gradually/ Or every man be blind” (7-8). This major flaw of today will be the downfall of humankind for if people never learn to think, feel, and see at a very young ages, then “every man be blind” (8).

The point of view from this poem seems to be sort of a mix of first and third person perspectives. You can tell that this is one person talking to you, but they seem almost omniscient about life through the very small amount of two stanzas as if they were almost third person. “#1129” is an incredible poem for being so short. There's so much in so very few amount of words. Emily also leaves cool hints about the main points of her poem. All the most important words of the poem are capitalized

Poetry is about analyzing words on the deepest levels of poetic emotion to understand what the poet or poetess is trying to say without being boring and literal about it. Great poetry comes from any great piece of inspiration that the poet may feel during their life. Emily Dickinson obviously felt a lot of great things during her more probable frequent trips into self-discovery, life, love, nature, and time.

While we as writers can create some of the most elaborate and intricately laced pieces of literary artwork, pictures can undoubtedly add a dimension to our work that words alone cannot compete with. Words alone, as we all know, can be quite limiting. Sometimes pictures and music for example capture feelings and emotions that are far beyond the range of the words found in our dictionaries. Symbolically, this is why our world needs the voice, the talent, and beauty of each and every person's contributions. Our world would not be the same if we did not have such a broad range of diversity and beauty.

Image Source

Adding pictures to poems and other writing pieces is a simple process.

When you submit work to Triond, it is a simple as copying and pasting a picture into the word document containing the poem or article of your choice.

Picture Location is Important

You can choose the location you would like a picture(s) to appear in. Placement of the picture is a strategic choice. Sometimes placement at the very beginning of your work acts as a second hook (after your title hook) to further capture your audience and “set the stage” for your work. Placing a picture in the middle of your work can help solidify your reader's attention. As studies indicate, the average person's attention span is 20 minutes. If you write longer articles, pictures can potentially add a “refresher/breather” to buy your reader more attention span time with your work.

Don't Forget the Picture Source

Be sure to add the picture link as the source if it is not your own work. Just like you need to cite any sources you have quoted or utilized for your work, so too must you do so for photographic work. It is not your work and Triond must be made aware that it is not.

Some Photo Sites Allow You to Use Pictures in Your Work

There are some photo sites that will allow you to use the talented work of the photographers with some specific requirements (i.e. just add the source link). I have started my own blog called Make the Most of Your Time. Because I wanted to make sure I was following legal copyright rules as completely as possible I did some research and found some sites that cater to internet writers. Photographers benefit from having their work utilized in bigger forums and writers benefit from the priceless value pictures offer their work.

The following are a few sites that will be of interest to you:

Flickr

At Flickr's Creative Common's section there are several different categories of pictures where photographers can publish their work. To utilize work that you only need to site the photographer's name choose the photographs from the Attribution License section. It's easy to find the perfect picture for your needs through keyword searches. I am a great fan of this site and faithfully utilize it for my blogs and now my work with Triond. The quality and variety of pictures in my opinion is superb.

Open Photo

This site offers a broad range of pictures that are sure to add spice and interest to your work. Take the time to choose between work that is both free and open for a small fee.

DreamsTime

Still another great photography site that offers quality work for you to choose from is DreamsTime. Search through the wide variety of work. There are pictures you can find for free or little to next to nothing to use in your work

Start off with a feeling like luck.
Jot down a few sentences about luck and how you feel about it.
Try making it funny if you like the comical poetry.
After that you should find some better words.
Then try to rhyme them.
Here is an example of a poem about luck.

Lucky people have lots of money
They can buy lots of honey
And their poop is never runny
Their so happy they hop like a bunny
Also their days are always sunny
Try to make your poem sound funny

First off you have to think of something that will give you inspiration. Something like night. Night gives me plenty of inspiration. You should start off with something that is kind of dramatic but not too dramatic. Your first line should also be kind of descriptive.

Here is an example.

Deep into the night
Then you go on from there.
It is no longer bright
There is no need for you to use your sight
There is your first verse. Your next verse should be something describing your first verse.
Here is an example.
It is so dark in skies
No colors or dyes
Or anything like ups or highs

Now that you have your second verse you could repeat your first verse kind of like a chorus in a song or you can make up another verse. I usually make up another verse than repeat my first verse for the end of the poem. For an example I am going to make up another verse and then repeat my first verse for a chorus.

You can hear the wind in the trees blowing
And you can hear the trickle of a nearby stream flowing
And you can see an owl nearby just knowing
That it is soon to be time for snowing
Deep into the night
It is no longer bright
There is no need for you to use your sight
If you aren't into the serious stuff go for a comical approach with only one verse or so.
Here is an example.
There once was a boy in his bed
When the executioners came to lob off his head
They went for his neck
But saw it was smaller than a speck
So the boy thought he was safe from harm
But instead they cut off his arm
Then he went stiff
So he decided to jump off a cliff.

If you decide to get creative you might even be able to add in some guitar or some drums and make it a song. Well that is all I have on poetry for now. Thank you for reading.

Poetry is a form that authors use to express feeling. It is often compared to painting a picture through words. Good poets normally know what the poem is about and have a picture in their mind already laid out. Most also tell what these pictures look like in the poem using figurative language such as similes and metaphors.

Short stories are used by authors to express a lesson, moral, or idea that can be useful in life. These stories usually reflect the ideas and culture of the time they were written. This means that stories can also provide an insight into life at a certain time. The idea or moral being presented in the story is usually to from a characters point of view. Poetry is different to this as it is told from the authors point of view.

As many stories and poems are written more ideas are shown to the entire world. Just like painting a picture or teaching a lesson they convey ideas to many different audiences. Yet, many read stories and poems for fun and enjoyment.

But at the same time, I've seen people go too far the other way and just write their thoughts down in short lines, and this doesn't work either because it comes across as not very well thought out.

Poetry is about a special way of writing. It's a way of writing more descriptively, imaginatively and expressively than you would in other forms of writing. It is about the use of imagery, and the use of metaphors and very descriptive words to illuminate the reader to what is going on.

For example, when you're reading a book, you're less concerned about the individual words, and more interested in the overall meaning, the overall story, whereas in poetry the individual lines (or even individual words) can spark images in your head and feelings in your heart.

A poem is a song without a tune. You create your own inner melody when you read it.