Essays

by Reid McGrath I forewarn you that these are the 10 greatest English Sonnets addressed to or concerning other poets and are not even the 10 greatest short poems concerning other poets. There are innumerable other short poems addressed to other poets which are wonderful and remarkable, from Ezra Pound’s...

By Dusty Grein Most of us enjoy poetry in one form or another. I am going to attempt to lay out the basics of writing classical style poetry in English, based on standard poetry terms and references. This discussion will focus on rhyming, metered poems. Who am I? I am...

By James Sale Frederick Glaysher claims to be an epic poet, and furthermore to have written an epic poem, The Parliament of Poets. This is a huge claim and an astonishing ambition. Is he? Has he? Before responding to these two important questions by reviewing his book, let me outline...

Updated: April 26, 2024 10 Greatest Poems Ever Written An Ambitious "Best Poems" List Limited to Poems Originally Written in English and of 50 Lines or Less by Evan Mantyk What is poetry? What is great poetry? The poems below answer these questions. From least greatest (10) to greatest greatest...

Updated January 9, 2020 A Quick Sonnet Guide.  A traditional sonnet should have... 14 lines. X Rhyming. The most common is the Shakespearean rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. These 14  letters represent the sonnet's 14 lines and the same letter means those lines rhyme with each other. The more...

Review By James Sale This weekend two different things coincided. First, I finished reading ‘Poetry Is: Jose Garcia Villa’s Philosophy of Poetry’ edited by Robert L King (Ateneo University Press), which incidentally is one of, if not, the best book about writing poetry that I have ever read (and I...

Poetry, arguably the most powerful form of communication ever devised by mankind, has died. It was thousands of years old. Poetry died yesterday after a prolonged illness. Trapped in a meaningless, vegetative state for some time, feeding tubes were removed, allowing Poetry to die with dignity. Aristotle once wrote, “Poetry...

When you are 62 years old things may begin to be clearer; you begin realise to the full extent what territory you are in and demarcating; and I now know what for me is important in poetry and has always been important even as I go back and review work...

There are a number of reasons for writing poetry, and alas they are not all good; for not all poetry is good, and indeed some ‘poetry’ is not poetry at all. This is not to denigrate anyone’s effort, but you don’t want to pay for a gold ring and get...

Imagine that you were lost in a wilderness and had to find your way out. Fortunately, you have with you a number of things, or tools if you will. In the first instance you have a kitbag, which is itself useful. Within it are various articles: a bottle of water,...

“He strove to resuscitate the dead art/Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"/In the old sense. Wrong from the start  …” –Ezra Pound, “Hugh Selwyn Mauberly” “Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d'Arc, a saint.” –Also Ezra Pound An immigrant Jew, an old woman, her tattoo peeking from under a billowed sleeve,...

Verse Forms as Evokers of Poetry I wish to dispute the notion that a “poem” arrives in the formal poet’s mind as if it were a compressed computer file, which he or she then expands into the poem proper by versifying it.  Somewhat similar to this conception of versecrafting is...

Review By Christopher Nield / Image by Liza Voronin/The Epoch Times The Riddles of Merlin As I was walking Alone by the sea, “What is that whisper?” Said Merlin to me. “Only,” I answered, “The sigh of the wave”— “Oh, no,” replied Merlin, “’Tis the grass on your grave.” As...

Poetry should be metered, because metered poetry is, quite simply, better than free verse.  This is for the same reason that realist art trumps impressionist art and that Baroque music trumps rock and roll and hip-hop. It is because art, in its best state, is not about the experience of...

  By Kara Lysandra Ross I was in Epcot Center in Disney World last year, and in the Innovations Center they had a computerized survey, which had already been taken by thousands of people. The survey was based on what broad issues or groups the participants thought were going to...

. Writing Poetry with Meter---Beginners' Level and Beyond by Evan Mantyk There is very little difficulty behind writing classical poetry from a technical perspective. Classical poetry is simply poetry that is metrical (also called metered), thus contrasting with unmetered poetry, known as free verse. There is no requirement to rhyme...