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• 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
• Planting a Dogwood by Roy Scheele: American Life in Poetry #73 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Those of us who have planted trees and shrubs know well that moment when the last spade full of earth is packed around the root ball and patted or stamped into place and we stand back and wish the young plant good fortune.
• My Father Teaches Me to Dream by Jan Beatty: American Life in Poetry #72 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Those who survived the Great Depression of the 1930s have a tough, no-nonsense take on what work is.
• August Morning by Albert Garcia: American Life in Poetry #71 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  William Carlos Williams, one of our country's most influential poets and a New Jersey physician, taught us to celebrate daily life.
• My Son the Man by Sharon Olds: American Life in Poetry #70 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  As a man I'll never gain the wisdom Sharon Olds expresses in this poem about motherhood, but one of the reasons poetry is essential is that it can take us so far into someone else's experience that we feel it's our own.
• Ironing After Midnight by Marsha Truman Cooper: American Life in Poetry #69 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  This marvelous poem by the California poet Marsha Truman Cooper perfectly captures the world of ironing, complete with its intimacy.
• They Sit Together on the Porch by Wendell Berry: American Life in Poetry #68 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Here is a marvelous little poem about a long marriage by the Kentucky poet, Wendell Berry.
• Family Reunion by Catherine Barnett: American Life in Poetry #67 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  One in a series of elegies by New York City poet Catherine Barnett, this poem describes the first gathering after death has shaken a family to its core.
• The Copper Beech by Marie Howe: American Life in Poetry #66 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Some of the most telling poetry being written in our country today has to do with the smallest and briefest of pleasures.
• Homecoming by Keith Althaus: American Life in Poetry #65 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Visiting a familiar and once dear place after a long absence can knock the words right out of us, and in this poem, Keith Althaus of Massachusetts observes this happening to someone else.
• Alliteration by Tammy Knott, from Little Eagle
  Literary and Poetic devices. A series I will be working on presenting.
• Grandmother Speaks of the Old Country by Lola Haskins: American Life in Poetry #64 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Storytelling binds the past and present together, and is as essential to community life as are food and shelter.
• 
  Forever Yours by catz in collaboration with strmdncr and AnnD, from catz
  A special memorial to our poets who are gone but not forgotten
• 
  How I Write a Poem by Maureen, from Maureen
  Rome wasn't built in a day. Give your idea time to germinate. Write more verses than you intend to use. Print your poem and read it out loud. Editing can turn a mediocre poem into a gem...
  
  
• The Dancer by David Tucker: American Life in Poetry #63 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Remember those Degas paintings of the ballet dancers?
• Bindweed by James McKean: American Life in Poetry #62 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Gardeners who've fought Creeping Charlie and other unwanted plants may sympathize with James McKean from Iowa as he takes on Bindweed, a cousin to the two varieties of morning glory that appear in the poem.
• The Education of a Poet by Leslie Monsour: American Life in Poetry #61 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Everywhere I travel I meet people who want to write poetry but worry that what they write won't be "any good.
• What I Learned From My Mother by Julia Kasdorf: American Life in Poetry #60 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Most of us have taken at least a moment or two to reflect upon what we have learned from our mothers.
• At Twenty-Eight by Amy Fleury: American Life in Poetry #59 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Contrary to the glamorized accounts we often read about the lives of single women, Amy Fleury, a native of Kansas, presents us with a realistic, affirmative picture.
• Basic Steps On How To Write A Poem by http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Poem, from Kari
  Writing a poem can be hard. If you're having trouble, read these tips and hopefully your problem will be solved.
• There Is Another Way by Pat Schneider: American Life in Poetry #58 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  A worm in an apple, a maggot in a bone, a person in the world.
• Coins by Richard Newman: American Life in Poetry #57 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  Midwestern poet Richard Newman traces the imaginary life of coins as a connection between people.
• At the Edge of Town by Don Welch: American Life in Poetry #56 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  When I complained about some of the tedious jobs I had as a boy, my mother would tell me, Ted, all work is honorable.
• What We Need by Jo McDougall: American Life in Poetry #55 by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, from Ted-Kooser
  A circus is an assemblage of illusions, and here Jo McDougall, a Kansas poet, shows us a couple of performers, drab and weary in their ordinary lives, away from the lights at the center of the ring.

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