On Writing Poetry
Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing poems? After all, there’s a significant service to humanity in spending time doing no harm. While you’re writing your poem, there’s one less scoundrel in the world. And I’d like a world, wouldn’t you, in which people actually took time to think about what they were saying? It would be, I’m certain, a more peaceful, more reasonable place. I don’t think there could ever be too many poets. By writing poetry, even those poems that fail and fail miserably, we honor and affirm life. We say “We loved the earth but could not stay.”
–Ted Kooser
Poetry Resources
- American Life in Poetry
- Poetry Center San Jose
- Poetry Daily
- Poetry Flash
- Poetry Foundation
- Poetry Magazine
- Poetry Magic
- Poetry.org
- Poets & Writers
- The Academy of American Poets
Other Resources for Expression
- Journal of Intercultural Communication
- National Multicultural Institute
- Tolerance.org
- World of Cultural Democracy
My Own Poems
- Excursion
- A Different Pledge
- Full Circle
- Minstrel
- Crucifixion
- In My Garden
- Moon
- Room to Play
- Recognition
- Kali in an Onion
- California Living
- There’s Always Looking After
- Only the Emptiness
- Impermanence
- Unable
- Despite
- One Thin Line
- At Bedside
- For Diana
- Missing Central New York
- Chained
- Isn’t It Enough?
- Monopoly
- Haiku 1
- Rains Unceasing
- Poor Nineteen
- Poetry Tidbit
- American Dream
- Sensate
- A Line is a Dot That Went for a Walk
- Damn Hot
- Still Life
- A Little Desire
- Rush Hour
- Quenchable
- Catnap
- Barely
- On the Way to the Library
- A Glimpse of My Youth
- A Contemplation
- The Lonely Hours
- A Visit With Mother
- These Old Boots
- Turf War With a Spider
- Our Life’s Prayer
- Moonrise
- Surreal
- There Is No Place Too Small
- Oh Little One: Four Haiku
- Tonight
- Out to Pasture
- Brief Notes of an Adventure
- Haiku 2
- Haiku 3
- Haiku 4
- Haiku 5
- Haiku 6
- Haiku 7
- No Ordinary Life
- Zazen
- Reunion
- Heaven on Earth
- Farewell Stella
- Glimpses of My Daughter at Age Six
- A Gift From the Sea
- The Dance
- Reflections on Sesshin
- Abuddha
- Pandemic Prayer
- You Must Stay