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• Young Man by John Haines: American Life in Poetry #95 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Literature, and in this instance, poetry, holds a mirror to life; thus the great themes of life become the great themes of poems.
• Updates - Chatterbox & customize new poems list by Kevin
  You'll notice a 'customize' link next to your 'new poems by friends' list on the front page. Click it to choose which of your friends you'd like to have included. There's also a 'fast' link in the chatterbox - click it to make it 'live', so you'll see updates as they're made.
• Silent Music by Floyd Skloot: American Life in Poetry #94 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  While many of the poems we feature in this column are written in open forms, that's not to say I don't respect good writing done in traditional meter and rhyme.
• Common Janthina by Tatiana Ziglar: American Life in Poetry #93 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Newborns begin life as natural poets, loving the sound of their own gurgles and coos.
• Home Fire by Linda Parsons Marion: American Life in Poetry #92 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Home is where the heart.
• Simplifying friends vs. Favorites by Kevin
  I'm planning to remove the 'friends' stuff and just go back to 'favorites'.
• Driving Through by Mark Vinz: American Life in Poetry #91 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  How many of us, when passing through some small town, have felt that it seemed familiar though we've never been there before.
• Notification System Updates by Kevin
  More tweaks to the notification system. Briefly: default no longer emails @ new friend adding a poem, option to stop favorites from being emailed when you post, joint settings across sites.
• Bread Soup: An Old Icelandic Recipe by Bill Holm: American Life in Poetry #90 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Anyone can write a poem that nobody can understand, but poetry is a means of communication, and this column specializes in poems that communicate.
• Member of the Month Nov. 09 by All Poetry Activity Leaders, from JustSimplyLissa
  Come see who the Member of the Month is!
• No Children, No Pets by Sue Ellen Thompson: American Life in Poetry #89 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Loss can defeat us or serve as the impetus for positive change.
• My Father Holds the Door for Yoko Ono by Christopher Chambers: American Life in Poetry #88 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  This wistful poem shows how the familiar and the odd, the real and imaginary, exist side by side.
• Raking by Tania Rochelle: American Life in Poetry #87 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  The first poem we ran in this column was by David Allan Evans of South Dakota, about a couple washing windows together.
• The Birds by Linda Pastan: American Life in Poetry #86 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Linda Pastan, who lives in Maryland, is a master of the kind of water-clear writing that enables us to see into the depths.
• In November by Lisel Mueller: American Life in Poetry #85 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  The Illinois poet, Lisel Mueller, is one of our country's finest writers, and the following lines, with their grace and humility, are representative of her poems of quiet celebration.
• Notification system live, and other fixes by Kevin
  The email notification system I mentioned in my last post is now live. Some of you will be irritated by the email you suddenly get, but hopefully some of you also find it useful. It's designed to be easy to disable - there's a link in 'my account' for notification preferences.
  
  There's also been many bug-fixes, and some behind the scene upgrades which caused some random error messages over the last few days (but are now fixed). Go-poetry!
  
• Amaryllis by Connie Wanek: American Life in Poetry #84 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Many of this column's readers have watched an amaryllis emerge from its hard bulb to flower.
• 
  Some Questions for Critical Comments by thelordreigns
  Here are some questions to ask yourself when critiquing poems.
• Green Tea by Dale Ritterbusch: American Life in Poetry #83 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Poems of simple pleasure, poems of quiet celebration, well, they aren't anything like those poems we were asked to wrestle with in high school, our teachers insisting that we get a headlock on THE MEANING.
• Clean by Jeff Vande Zande: American Life in Poetry #82 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Many poems celebrate the joys of having children.
• Under Stars by Tess Gallagher: American Life in Poetry #81 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Readers of this column during the past year have by now learned how enthusiastic I am about poems describing everyday life.
• Elegy for an Old Boxer by James McKean: American Life in Poetry #80 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  One of poetry's traditional public services is the presentation of elegies in honor of the dead.
• Work Shy by Alex Phillips: American Life in Poetry #79 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  The news coverage of Hurricane Katrina gave America a vivid look at our poor and powerless neighbors.
• All That You Ever Wanted to Know About Poetry: So What is Poetry Anyway? by S D McDaniel
  So, perhaps you are new to writing poetry, and are a little confused. Or maybe you have been writing poetry for a while, and want to improve. Hopefully this column will grant you insight into the world of poetry.
• Moss by Bruce Guernsey: American Life in Poetry #78 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Mothers and fathers grow accustomed to being asked by young children, “What's that?
• Early in the Morning by Li-Young Lee: American Life in Poetry #77 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Li-Young Lee, who lives in Chicago, evokes by the use of carefully chosen images a culture, a time of day, and the understanding of love through the quiet observation of gesture.
• Reunion by Jeff Daniel Marion: American Life in Poetry #76 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  I'd guess we've all had dreams like the one portrayed in this wistful poem by Tennessee poet Jeff Daniel Marion.
• Love Worn by Lita Hooper: American Life in Poetry #75 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  In many American poems, the poet makes a personal appearance and offers us a revealing monologue from center stage, but there are lots of fine poems in which the poet, a stranger in a strange place, observes the lives of others from a distance and imagines her way into them.
• In the Mushroom Summer by David Mason: American Life in Poetry #74 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Of taking long walks it has been said that a person can walk off anything.
• 
  October by Jim Saville, from I-Like-Rhymes
  The conkers (horse chestnuts to the uninitiated) are falling off the trees and will soon be joined by the leaves. The dark mornings and even darker nights have arrived to make the daily commute to and from work even more depressing. The churches are proclaiming Harvest Festival services and the Christmas advertisements have started to appear. This is October.
  A wonderful month of rich bright colours, full store houses and, just to stop us getting carried away with euphoria, thoroughly miserable weather

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