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British Poetry The legacy of British poetry is a large one, and on the Internet you'll find a lot of information about individual poets, as well as many, many poems to read. Take some time to explore the work of Chaucer (1340?-1400), Shakespeare (1564-1616), Milton (1608-1674), Blake (1757-1827), Burns (1759-1796), Wordsworth (1770-1850), Coleridge (1772-1834), Byron (1788-1824), Shelley (1792-1822), Keats (1795-1821), Elizabeth Browning (1806-1861), Tennyson (1809-1892), Robert Browning (1812-1889), Stevenson (1850-1894), Kipling (1865-1936), Yeats (1865-1939), De la Mare (1873-1956), and many others. Whenever I need a short break, I like to take a moment and look for something interesting to read. Web:
Chinese Poetry Chinese poetry is beautiful in its imagery and simplicity. Most poems are written in a special, very old literary language that is widely understood throughout China. The traditional pattern is to use exactly four lines that rhyme, with a specific number of syllables in each line. Within each line, special attention is paid to the phrasing and to the tonal patterns. The oldest extant Chinese poems are those found in the "Book of Songs" (800-600 B.C.). In modern times, Chinese poets have experimented by writing in the spoken languages and by using free verse. Web:
Haiku Haiku is a lovely, delicate form of Japanese poetry. If you are a poetry lover, take some time to explore these resources and learn about the world of haiku. Web:
Irish Poetry If you don't have time to run down to your local pub for a poetry reading, try just getting a brew from the fridge and downloading a poem or two written by an Irish poet. For a really good time, you can even find some poetry set to music. Web:
Limericks
Suzanne was a delicate flower, Web:
Poetry Archives There is a lot of poetry for you on the Net. Here are some collections I think you will enjoy: lots and lots of well-known poems, as well as links to other poetry sites. These are good places to visit if you are looking for a particular poem or work from a particular author, or if you just feel like browsing for something to read. Web:
Poetry Place Do you write poetry? Would you like to share it with others? Visit this Web site where you can offer your poems, in a virtual "open mike" area. You can also read other people's poems and notice that they are not nearly as good as yours. Web: Poetry Slam A poetry slam, or performance poetry, is a competition in which poets read in front of an audience. After the readings, the competitors are judged and a winner is chosen. Poetry slams can be small informal events, but there are also well-organized national competitions in which poets compete both as individuals and as teams. Web:
Poetry Talk and General Discussion There are two types of people who write poetry: those who show their poetry to other people and those who don't. If you like to show your poetry to other people, share it with the participants of these Usenet discussion groups. If you don't like to share your poetry, you can enjoy other people's creations. (And while you're there, you might as well offer your opinions.) Usenet:
Semantic Rhyming Dictionary Anyone can rhyme "moon" with "June", and "love" with "stars above". However, when you get into serious rhyming, you want more than words that sound alike. It is important that the words are related to one another. This rhyming dictionary will help you find such words. You can look for perfect rhymes, match the last sound only, match consonants, find homophones, synonyms or semantic siblings. If you are the type of person who looks for just the right word, this is the Web site for you. Web: Sonnets A sonnet is a 14-line poem in which lines of iambic pentameter are linked by a specific rhyming pattern. (Iambic pentameter refers to five "feet", each of which consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.) There are two main types of rhyming patterns used in sonnets. An Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet uses two groupings, 8 lines followed by 6 lines. The rhyming is abbaabba cdecde (or sometimes abbaabba cdccdc); that is, line 1 rhymes with lines 4, 5 and 8; line 2 rhymes with lines 3, 6 and 7; and so on. An English (or Shakespearean) sonnet uses three 4-line groupings, followed by a 2-line couplet, with rhyming as follows: abab cdcd efef gg. Sonnets first gained popularity in Italy during the Renaissance. Later, the art form spread to Spain, Portugal, France and England. Sonnets began as love poetry, and many of the most beautiful love poems ever written are of this form. Some of the more important writers of sonnets were Dante (1265-1321), Petrarch (1304-1374), Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599), Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Shakespeare (1564-1616), John Keats (1795-1821), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), George Meredith (1828-1909), Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), and W.H. Auden (1907-1973). Web:
Worst Poetry Who are the worst poets of all time? No one can really say for sure, but there are people who are celebrated as being close to that ideal, such as James McIntyre (Canada), William McGonagall (Scotland) and Julia Moore (United States). And when you have read about them, there's lots more bad poetry to keep your literary fires stoked. Web:
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