poetry

  • My new book: Sunday Poems

    Hours Categories The Sunday Poem, Writing
    Comments 23 Comments
    The cover of "Sunday Poems"Starting in 2005, game designer Raph Koster decided to post a poem to his popular blog every Sunday. Ten years later, this is a selection of eighty of those poems, accompanied by gorgeous pen-and-ink illustrations and illuminating endnotes.

    These are verses written to an audience that didn’t necessarily care about poetry; verses about whatever was happening that week. They comment on the news, on his children’s homework, on books he was reading or music he heard. In them we voyage across the world, or deep inside apples; we see a toddler become a pterodactyl, and clouds become mundane water vapor. We see sonnets written in computer code.

    These are poems for everyday people about ordinary things made extraordinary.

    …Sustained and sustaining enthusiasm, joy, play, and wit at work… A richly varied world saturated with myth and stories.

    — Hank Lazer, poet and author of The new Spirit and N18 (Complete), on Sunday Poems

    After years of threats, I finally made it happen. Sunday Poems is my new book, collecting many of the poems published here on the blog in the Sunday Poem tag, as well as a smattering of others. Sunday Poems is available right now in paperback, and is available for pre-order on Kindle (and those are both Amazon affiliate links). I will be working on getting the book to more digital services in the coming days.

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  • Metaplace event: poetry/writing open mic

    Hours Categories Game talk, Reading, Writing
    Comments 1 Comment

    Lots of events have been happening in Metaplace lately, but this one, you might guess, is near and dear to my heart: a poetry open mic. 🙂 It is happening in WritersForumWorld in about half an hour (1pm Pacific time).

    The WritersForum guys have been working to try to get a virtual workshop going as well.

    We’re gearing up soon for even more events, so it’s worth following along with the events calendar. In the meantime, stop by for this one!

  • A poetry lesson for Bartle

    Hours Categories Reading
    Comments 19 Comments

    Richard Bartle has a little piece on the rhyming structure of this lovely poem by Carol Ann Duffy.

    Mrs Schofield’s GCSE

    You must prepare your bosom for his knife,
    said Portia to Antonio in which
    of Shakespeare’s Comedies? Who killed his wife,
    insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch
    knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said
    Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?
    Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt’s death?
    To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why?
    Something is rotten in the state of Denmark – do you
    know what this means? Explain how poetry
    pursues the human like the smitten moon
    above the weeping, laughing earth; how we
    make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing:
    speak again.     Said by which King? You may begin.

    Sez Bartle,

    Maybe I’m missing something, or I’m not reading this with the right internal accent, but calling this “rhyming” is a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?

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  • Redesign

    Hours Categories Game talk, Misc, Writing

    Redesigned the whole website to this spiffy new look! Also added:

    • a bit of historical trivia to Gaming/Misc Writings/Scripting languages in Diku muds.
    • Limericks under Writing/Poetry
    • Roleplaying bardic verses under Writing/Poetry
    • The entire Music section, although there’s plenty yet to add
    • Teaching Materials under Literature
    • The Bio page
    • The Guestbook
    • The What’s New page