Ever compose a cento?

Want to play with poetry? Then join us over at Patchwork poetry.

Poets on MySpace

If you are on myspace you can check out the pages of:

The folks from the online literary journal Asphalt Sky

Serious Writers and Poets Group

With Blood as Ink, We Write...

Poetic Minds

Click here to read United Kingdom poet Jonathan Morrison's article on The Future of Poetry Magazines.

Jonathan Morrison has written articles for BBC Online and The Guardian. He won the PROMIS Prize for Poetry in London's Creative Writers Competition in 2004.

Check out Cabaret Voltage Online

A new online literary magazine is looking for submissions. Click here to read the guidelines. It will debut in June. The deadline to submit for the first issue is May 30th, 2008.


PWB wishes Cabaret Voltage Online the best of luck!

Poets For Equality and Justice

Today Poets Who Blog will join with other bloggers across the blogosphere and stand up for the human rights of all citizens in this world. I send out a huge thank you to every poet who contributed work to this project! Please leave a comment if you find any poem you enjoy. Support PWB and Bloggers Unite, the site that is bringing together bloggers for this cause, with your comments.

Untitled by Noor Fatima

My mind boggles me,
As I sit and stare at my computer,
Reading page after page,
Atrocity after atrocity.
Female genital mutilation,
Online freedom gobal act of 2007,
Tibetan monks,
Genocide in Darfur,
Sudan,
Palestine & Israel,
Afghanistan and its¢ innocent people,
hidden terrorist that hide in the mountains,
Osama, Al-Qadia, Hasrats, Islamic Fundalmentalists,
Marring the name of Islam,
Priests molesting children,
Teachers seducing pure-like children,
Gang violence,
Peer pressure.
I'm sure you can add to the list.
Women's rights,
Raping in war,
A plethora more to add.
So where has the human conscious gone?
The idea that people are equal.
No room for the oppressor and the suppressed.
There is not much room for wishful thinking,
For fairy dust to free our pain.
Duration of pain that we suffer as victims,
Can not be infinite.
Actions must be taken,
sacrifices made for the human race,
Voices must be belligerently spoken with compassion.
We must stand up and take arms in words and pen and paper
DO NOT LET THEM VIOLATE OUR RIGHTS AS EQUAL HUMANS!


The Naked Truth by Adeleke Adesanya from Kiibaati Verse

She sat on the bare floor
On her rear which had craw-craw
And on her back we could track
The sore map of the strap
We should ask a thousand why
Instead we timidly try
Her case, declare her suspect
Deserving non of our respect
And we looked away
Still Truth can't be wished away
It was shocking, mocking
Our thoughts of our worth
For though she was
Naked like the Truth,
She was still Another Man.


First the Bad News by Scot from Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers

in eastern bagdad
an U.S. airstrike
killed
three iraqi boys
looking through trash
for something
to sell

it is global day
in darfur
bodies pile up

250,000

the torch
passed through
the Sudan
a genocide Olympic flame
will burn in China
celebrities will protest
on CNN
and
another year
will pass


Someone Else's Crime by Anna Vera Williams from Free Verse

I will grow tomatoes
When you've set me free.
I will live at home in peace
Where all will let me be.

I will wake up cheerful
In the morning to the sun.
I will feel at peace at last,
Once my Freedom's won.

I have been imprisoned here
For someone else's crime.
I have lived my life in fear,
And I have done my time.

All I want, is to feel safe -
Relaxed and calm and free.
I have been good, to fellow men.
Why aren't they good to me?

I try to keep my head up high,
Imagining the day
When I will be allowed to fly,
When I will go away,

And wrap myself in someone's arms
Who knows me as I am.
I try to think about that day,
As hard as try I can ...

I will wake up smiling,
In the morning sun.
I will kiss the one I love, and
Once this battle's done ...

I will grow tomatoes in
My garden in the grass,
And tie my hair behind my head ...
And when this storm has passed,

I will sit up late at night
With cats and cups of tea,
I will live no more in fright
Once I've been set free.

I only want this misery
And fear and pain to end.
I only want a life at peace
Surrounded by my friends.

But that will be another day.
Today I must remain
Within the madness of this place
In fear and hope and pain,

But always I hold up my head,
Imagining the day
When I will be allowed to go,
When I will fly away ...

Not now. It isn't over yet
I must sit out my time,
As I have done, for all these years,
For someone else's crime.



Shells by Juliet Wilson from Over Forty Shades

Grey skies, cold and bitter wind
a share of a damp mattress
in an unheated room.

You follow orders from the brother
to the man who let your cousin die
in a truck approaching Dover.

Your parents wait back home
with nothing but pain and a photo of you
smiling through the English rain.

Shells held to your ear
murmured promises, but they are empty
here in devil’s beach.

Treacherous sands shift
impossible to know where is safe
where will suck away your life.


and by the way written by Ralph Murre from the blog Arem Arvinson.


i do not choose

to pledge allegiance

to black divided from white

red states from blues

shades of brown

divided

in every town

one nation, all too divisible

baptist divided from catholic

gentile from jew

muslim from buddhist

me from you

one nation, under whose god ?

white collars

washed separately from

blue collars

in an oh, so

delicate cycle

while collarless slaves

dig their own graves

trying to get to the

one nation, invisible

once they’re here

there’s plenty to fear

some living large

others quite small

i’ll pledge allegiance

when there’s justice for all



- Ralph Murre 2004



"Declaration of Ignorance which forgot its purpose" by Wedlock from Word of Mouth Coalition

I can recite the Budweiser anthem without thinking twice,
even the ounces and the fast horse track style narrator ending,
some can recite bible verses from king james,new student bibles,
well,
no ignorance or undying faith is held in Budweiser,
(surely a different retaliation,)

some take king james with a grain of salt,
others absolute,
yes sir,
yes sir,
i take my Budweiser anthem as it lay,
on its side,
barely more than a drip escaping curved brown lip,
holding value in understanding that much is to be learned here
as blood coagulates tightly loose with ethanol,

pondering over maps of religions on world scales,
red muslim,
blue hindu,
yellow prodestant,
green catholic,
cross lines,
angry blood shouting popes,
priests,
red like oil based paint smeared over blistered hands,

not that some are better,
some are worse,
but the objective demi-god, never questioning population,
generalized statement may it be,
lies rampant in faith,
pouring silver web lining, reveling in
such stringent liquid

a man turns to me paper bag hair and glassy
lined brow:
"Budweiser is the way the truth and the light no other alcoholic hoppy
bevarage may be drunken,
we must feed our children beer, daily, classes begin"

but, no!
it must be vodka, scream the Stoliites.

questioning, probing short term memory loss mind through ages upon ages
of persecution,
Native American
alcoholic in silver rusted rocking chairs beside dog shit stained
mobile homes,
well,
i would be sitting right beside him, or her.
if white protestant tight lipped puritans killed all green buds, gentle
uncontrollable streams, magnificent hairy buffalo,

yea,
we, the "caucasian" we're sorry,
how about a casino?
no taxes. c'mon, is that not better?
oh, yea, hand me one of those Budweisers,
sit down for a second,
let the carbonated bubbles linger on pink tongue,
feel shame ancestors never feel,
feel shame we never feel with king sized sea beds,
racing watt amplifier,

so easy,
angry,
but i, you, he, she will forget in unsubstantial tomorrow,
plus you have the bible to read,
and I have a beer to drink,
right?


A Cry for Cuba by Sara Pufahl from The Shores of My Dreams

Cast your eyes upon the man
being drug out of sight.

Blood drips from the wrist
of this man,
who is not treated as a man but as
a problem- a dissident voice that must be silenced-

in a country where the only right is to
be quiet,
unseen,
complacent and satisfied
with the nothing promises made
by the kings in charge.

Is it any wonder
why the man
would rather bleed than stand by
silently
watching his life slide by in this land
without hope?

For in time
all people
who are held down-
their lives bound tight like straightjackets
around their necks-
will rise.

They will rise and shout for more!
And they will bleed and bleed and bleed
before
the kings will fall.

Will you rise and shout for more?
Could you bleed and bleed and bleed
to make the king fall?

Is the time today?
If not today....then when?

Revolution starts with one voice crying out in the dark for justice.
Be that voice.
Be the revolution.

There's a poetry contest looking for entries- The Multiple Poegasm 3:0. If you win this contest you not only earn bragging rights but also 500 dollars. Your entry must be in by midnight on May 30th,pacific standard time. Best of luck to all those who take part!


Click here to read all the details and rules.

Check out this new poetry site. Each day a new poem by a different poet will be posted. You could be next!

Click here to visit Poetry Friends.

PWB wishes this new addition to the online poetry blogosphere the best of luck.

Check out The Poem Tag Project. Its a new spin on those name tags you sometimes have to wear at certain events that say Hello My Name is..... Instead of your name, you put a poem.

Self Promote

Have poetry news you want to share? Why not tell it to Billy the Blogging Poet? Click here to visit The Discovery Place where you can promote your own books or site or projects.

In honor of Mother's Day I thought I would link to this page at About.com that lists some of the most well known poems about motherhood. Click here to check out poems by Edgar Allan Poe,Rudyard Kipling,Walt Whitman,Christina Rossetti,William Blake, and Anne Bradstreet.

Congratulations to Tony Brown!

Poets Who Blogs offers our best wishes to Tony Brown who has been named by Billy the Blogging Poet as the 2008 Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere. To check out Tony Brown's poetry visit Dark Matter.

Copyright Symbol Debate

Do you need to add the copyright symbol after you post your work online? What do you think poets?

Robert Lee Brewer from the Writer's Digest column Poetic Asides weighs in with his take on the pros and cons.Click here to read his thoughts.

Watch poets read their poems and discuss their craft in short videos at Poetry Matters Now.

Looking for your next poetry book to buy? Then check out Jessica's Poetry Book Club at .

I Promise Blogroll Update

There are some changes you should be aware of if you are an I Promise Blogger.

KM from A (De)finite Problem with In(de)finite Solutions is taking a leave of absence from The Poet Within List. Anna from Free Poems has left The Heart of Poet List.

The new The Heart of a Poet List is as follows:

Beloved Dreamer
Poetmeister …on the road to Parnassus
Just Paisley
White Rose's Garden


You have to stop by each week and comment, and keep a fresh supply of poems on your blog in order to stay on this list. If you need to leave the list just drop me an email.